To think that the council should not be leaving a single mum, with her three children to kip down on her mothers floor

[ijustwanttoaskaquestion]

I am not entirely sure of all the details but i just feel that the situation my niece is being left in is not right, as in, i think something has gone wrong with her local council housing system.

So, she is 23 has three under three, her partner left her when she was pregnant with her third - he just disappeared. Hes a twunt apparently, well rid. They had a rented place but he didnt pay the rent so they were evicted. Because of this, the council told my neice she was "intentionally homeless" and woudlnt put her on the waiting list. Eventually she contacted her MP who contacted the council, as it was not my niece who was evicted but her partner who she now has nothing to do with. She was told she was a priority case and was given a password for the online bidding system. She since has her third child and informed the council - now, this is second hand, but apparently she was told this "we have changed the system now, you are now on the bottom of the list and you can expect to be living on your mother's floor for the next three to five years".

She has three children, she sleeps on the sofa and the children are sleeping in travel cots. Her mum basically lives in her bedroom, although why its like that i dont know - its a three bedroom housing association house, but there is the my neice, her mum, her brother living there - the third bedroom which was my nieces is a box room and apparently being used for storage.

This cannot be right?? Surely, leaving aside the fact that she was less than sensible to put herself in this situation by not sorting out contraception after the first child, there are still three children living in unacceptable conditions. Apparently, my niece is coping very well but it must be so hard for her.

She does not get on with her housing officer and feels she is prejudiced against her for getting the MP involved in the first instance, i cant say whether this is true or not.

What can she do?? Can she not rent privately and claim housing benefit? The council have told her they wont support her in this.

As i say, i don't know the full situation but wondered if anyone has any advice for organisations to approach etc - people to write too, appropriate thigns to write to the council to make sure her case is being handled properly.

I dont want to say where she lives in case she is a mnetter. But i know it varies from council to council. I just find it hard to believe that someone in her position wouldn't be on the priority housing list.

also pantofino, degrees are not paid for by the government. you get a loan for them. i thought everyone knew that.

i dont know why everyone cares SO much. it doesnt even affect any of you in the slightest way so why do you care.

if i go and get a job, tax will not be reduced, so get the hell over it

good god this is getting silly

night night

(try to read something other than red-top newspapers, u might just learn something)

Tax might not be reduced Cleo, but there might be better services available for people that need them. Like the OP, asking on her behalf of her relative. Who needs help.

Dont be silly - there will not be better services, it will be spent on expenses and pensions for fat cats and Mp's of all sides/parties, oikes like us will not see any benifit of better services or larger pensions from the state.

Cleo - I don't read any of the newspapers you seem to think I do. Actually I don't read a newspaper at all as I don't have the time.
I don't want my tax reduced. I'd happily have it increased if it were to go to people who were in genuine need. I don't think having the opinion that able bodied people with abled bodied children should go to work deserves such venom from you. It's not that radical an opinion you know.

Ah I see, so it all goes to fat cats then! OK for everyone else to sit on their arse and make no effort then.

ok are you aware that saying you read red-top newspapers is merely a metaphor to the fact that you accept the opinions of conservative chaunistic victim blamers.

i may be able bodied but how many times. im already so poor that i cant afford food, gas and electric, if i got a job id have LESS money and wouldnt be able to support me and my daughter, we would spend half the month freezing cold and hungry.

Cleosmam, unfortunately you've been caricatured the second you opened your mouth. It doesn't matter what you say now, or what your reality is, as far as this thread is concerned you had a baybay at 17 and you did it for the dole money. Get used to it.

People who see single parents don't seem able to imagine that they were ever any different. One of my newer friends asked me why I had Ds2 while I was on benefits ... I didn't! I had a partner, and a double income household, and a nice little job of my own, and a motorbike, and all the lovely things that you expect to have when you plan a baby, I had a nice life ... but life is not static. Life changes, whether you want it to or not.

And even then, I never realised how easily a nice little life can go sliding down the pan! I used to be a young housewife with a part time job - then i was made redundant, my partner became abusive, and suddenly I was a single unemployed mother with 2 kids under 4. I was the same person. I didn't cause that situation. But people's perceptions subtly shifted. there's a lot more pressure on you to get a job when you're single parent - which is bizarre, considering there's a lot LESS pressure on the ex to provide financially than there was when we were together.

THANK YOU coldtits

you're 100percent right

Cleo I think people are taking frustration out on you! When your DD gets to school age doing college/uni would be much easier financially and timewise I guess some people don't see the bigger picture....I'd love to have been able to be a SAHM until my Children are school age but we can't afford for that luxury like many others! I guess people can feel your playing the system, but at the end of the day every single persons situation is different and you have to do what you have to do to get by and do whats right for you and your family!

For me I'd love to do a uni course (I never went worked by butt off form the bottom upwards) now I have an okay paid job with a good organisation....we couldn't afford for me to have the luxury of going to uni even part time OU or otherwise... my only hope is when I have had DC2 (21 weeks preggars) that i go back and work will either fund a course for me or when both DC are in full-time education I'll have a reduced childcare costs and be able to afford to do a loan to study part-time, I don't have the luxury of being able to give up work to do it.

I think we have to all count our blessings and the OP's poor neice needs some geniune help and I can't believe some of the people are being so nasty.

I can understand why people would want people to move out of 3 bed plus houses when there children have left home, but as a house owner should you be forced to move when your children leave home? Surely its not that different? the difference is as a home owner you've either made better decisions to be able to afford your own home or been lucky had some help to get on the property market not everyone is so lucky. Not all families are nice, not all families care about each other. Count your own blessings.

No, sorry I still don't understand your points about the whole conservative thing. What's a red topped newspaper?
CLeosmum - my points arent about you personally, more about the sense of entitlement from a large part of society to that golden ticket once you have a child. It applies to lots of people. You just happen to be here on the other side.
I have no idea of your own personal circumstances so it's unfair to direct all the points to you. However, I will always stand by the point of able bodied people with able bodied children working rather than assuming the state will take care of them. There is nothing wrong with stackign shelves.

May I just point out to Strix that dyslexia is not a learning disability it is a learning difficulty. To have an assessed mild learning disability you need to have an IQ under 70 (usually, there are other factors) and have significant cognitive impairment. The word 'mild' confuses people, but it means mild in comparison to someone who has for example a learning age of 7, or the cognitive functioning of an 18 month old baby.

Apologies if that has been said already.

coldtits, I sympathise with your situation, but the emphasis is surely on whose role it is to provide for you and your children. So firstly it should be you and your partner.

And then if, and only IF you are not able to provide for your family should taxpayers have to pay.

To me this is where it is going wrong. If your DP doesn't support the family(and there should be every means put in place to ensure he does) then you have to, if at all possible.

Do you know what really pisses me off? the assumption that every person on benefits is a scrounger who has never contributed to our national economy by paying tax

I was on benefits for a number of years after leaving an abusive marriage. Before that I worked full time from the age of 16 and so therefore paid tax.

Then things went a bit pear shaped, I left a bad marriage and was depressed for a number of years during which time I was unable to work and claimed benefits. Surely there is nothing wrong with that? I paid in to the system and when I needed it I took out of it

God forbid any of you who are slagging off benefit claimants should ever find yourself in a such a position, or are you all so confident that your perfect little lives will always stay like that!!!

Don't critised before you have walked a mile in that persons shoes because if you haven't then you have no fecking idea what the hell you are talking about!!!

Memoo - on the contrary I believe benefits are there for people who are unable to work but not for those who can and choose not to. If ever I am unable to work then I will claim with no guilt until if and when I am able to return to work.

omgggggggg!!!
the only thing wrong with stacking shalves is that if i do i will have NO money.

your not even trying to pay attention are you.

are you really so closed minded that u think someone would have a baby just to get a shit house and a bit of money??

and by conservative im referring to the fact that you are being EXTREMELY classist

What has class got to do with it?

Do you have to be middle class to go to work??
I don't get it.

Is it so radical and offensive to you that I think unless you are unable to go to work then you should??

Clearly the system needs massive overhauling to ensure absent parents are made to work and support their offspring. No one is saying they shouldn't.

but is it so radical that someone thinks that a child needs to be looked after by a parent? not necc my opinion but there are plenty that feel that - if that is a single parents view then why should he/she be deprived of that just to scrape by? Tis very sad

and by NO money i mean i will actually starve so you can be satisfied that all the struggling single mothers are out working. so in that respect i am unable to work

oh absolutely agree that absent parents should be held accountable though.

This thread is full of silly nonsense
The OP's neice is vulnerable and probably not able to manage without support. Her mum isn't really giving her that and she has 3 kids who need an acceptable upbringing so she needs support from the state.

Family support is best, and financial support from parents first is best, but here she is, and here are three children, so there you go. Let's hope she doesn't have any more, and lets hope that she gets moved to a more suitable home, one way or another. A council place would be better for the taxpayer than private as HB would pay the rent for the next X years anyway. She needs support from HVs/surestart/similar to ensure her parenting is good enough.

We have a welfare state to make sure that children don't live in poverty etc. If this young woman were the daughter of most of us we would do what we could to support her, either by sharing our home or helping her to get her own, but this girl's mother isn't doing that, so the state has to.

rainbow - apart from that stacking shelves makes you poorer and takes you away from your child. I'm guessing you have never been a single parent on benefits? I haven't encountered many who just assumed the state would take care of them - mostly they felt terribly isolated and guilty as they had poor housing and no support or money for socialising. Realistically most lone parent benefit claimants are looking at minimum wage jobs which require them to work long and unsociable hours which leaves their children completely without a stable influence and them, as I found when I looked, £40 a week worse off. Benefits are supposed to be the very minimum amount someone needs to live, most single parent benefit claimants can't afford to work. As others have said before the absent parent just goes back to normal life without pressure as they are not flagged up as a 'problem'.

I claimed benefits for 2 years and worked up to my weekly allowance of £20 doing cleaning with my two children in tow - all through the pregnancy too. You have no idea how much of a struggle there is in living that life and how frustrating it is to have all the responsibility for the children and all the stigma while your ex claims JSA, avoids CSA and spends every night in the pub without anyone caring.

The fact is that caring for anybody - children, the elderly or infirm, is just not valued in this country. Caring is hard, hard work but really unappreciated and totally looked down upon. Caring for anyone is one of the easiest routes into poverty and I think that is very sad.

Pantofine - I don't have a partner (not one who lives with me, I mean). I have an ex partner, and as he is the one who does not have the children living with him, and therefore able to do all the shifts in the universe, why am I the one being called up for 'work focused interviews'? (Which, by the way, are a fucking joke. They ask you if you have found a job. You tell them no. They ask you what hours you are available. you tell them nursery hours. They tell you there are no jobs - come back in 6 months)

Why isn't he being dragged in for 'maintenance payment focused interviews'? I am due to start a job as soon as my CRB clearance comes through, as it happens, because luckily the ex is good at having the children overnight so I can do a 24 hour night-and-day domiciliary care shift - but every penny I get will be going towards the upkeep of my children. It's a hell of a lot more than the 20% the ex would have to pay - if he paid any. Why does he get away with paying so little if he pays any at all? Why is he under no pressure to contribute while I get it all, when it would be so easy for him and it's been SO HARD for me to find a job?

I went for a job at KFC a couple of years ago - got hired, then they denied all knowledge of my existance - pouf, no job. I had a job doing night shifts in a care home - until they put me on 3 days on the trot over Christmas when I had no childcare for the day, and on boxing day I literally passed out for 4 hours on the sofa and my children trashed the house - because they were too young to be left unsupervised. I don't know what would have happened if there had been a fire because I was so exhausted I was unrousable.

So why is the pressure always on me? Why isn't it on him? The benefit bill in this country would be nowhere near as high if absent parents were made to pay 50% of the cost of raising a child or GO TO SODDING JAIL!