Eviction of families from local authority, or housing association accommodation on conviction of any family member being involved in riot-related offences.

[Pan]

This has triggered a wide-ranging debate on the reasonableness of this measure. What we do know is that entire families are now liable to homelessness due to the actions of one person in the family. The tactic used to enable this is the commonly-applied clause to be of 'good behaviour'. This is designed to protect other tenants in the vicinity from anti-social behaviour. We know that approx. 70% of offenders here do not live in that vicinity. LAs DO NOT accept responsibility for abti-social behaviour in other boroughs.

The proposed actions are discriminatory against LA/HA tenants per se (as compared with owner-occupiers/private tenants, and will fall hardest on single parent mothers with sons who have offended recently.

Is it reasonable to ask MN to use their voice/influence to raise a public campaign against these measures before a case precedent is established that can be used by LA/HAs to assist in their evictions policy?

I appreciate all of this really - and I don't 'target' LA/HAs - and IF MN do decide to pick this up I know enough that there won't be a mini-revolution over this! The Housing Minister and the relevant parts of Whitehall, as well as independent charites/law centres/ solicitors who actually care about it and anyone with some leverage are the people to access.
(also the GB public will not give a flying fig about it prob. apart from the likes of MNers who have posted on here)

I do post somewhere up that my longest serving friend (since 1987) has his own consultancy company who advise authorities on securing evictions and spending time with him is an education in how messy it is. I don't under-estimate the whole sector's task in these things.

It may well be that MN say "too messy, sorry" and I would understand that.

A don't believe a family should be evicted because a member of the household is arrested - especially when they have not yet been found guilty of any crime.

But .. If social renters are to be evicted when a member of the household is arrested (and not yet convicted of a crime) then they same should be true for mortgage holders - and banks forced to withdraw the mortgage from any family who has a member of the household arrested (and not yet convicted of a crime). We are all equal in the eyes of the law - regardless of whether we have a mortgage or pay rent.

So the punishment should be equal - if society wants to punish the entire family of a rioter and evict them from their council home then society should also want to punish the entire family of a rioter of a mortgage holder and demand the mortgage is withdrawn and the entire family evicted from a house with a mortgage

but the very people who have leverage will not care a jot- that is the sad truth here. And the people who do care will be too scared of destabalisation to try and do anything.
I would love (if given this as a problem) to stick two fingers up to the policies and politics here, but i would then have to face 13,000 families and explain why I have ruined their housing stability when all i had to do to save them was put together a half-hearted ASB case and present it to court.

Like I have mentioned, if the cases are rushed (unless there is a pre-existing case already under scrutiny) they are not going to be all that effective- you get good judges and bad ones, and yes some will go through, but i can bet that the majority of 'minor' cases will not end in eviction, they may well have sanctions imposed on the tenancies but to eveict everyone even remotely involved is bonkers and not going to help anyone- most of all the government who will have to deal with a sudden rise in homelessness cases.

it is politics pure and simple and while i disagree with the notion, i have to agree with the action taken by the LA's and HA's and their decisions to put these cases to court for the safety and security of their developments.

I dread to think where we would be with no funding, we currently are on track to provide over 400 new homes this year with nearly 40% funding from WAG, without this development that is 400 families sitting on a waiting list with no real hope of ever securing a social tenancy despite the very real need due to the recession. It is a sad state of affairs, but the government holds all the power in this case and as i've said Dave has made up his mind, it doesn't affect him or his mates so 'stuff the riff-raff' is his over-riding policy, it's classic tory behaviour.

i agree being- the only flaw in this plan is that the tory's do not see everyone as equal.
The tory's have historically put to people that it was better to own their home- the right to buy! errosion of social housing started with Thatcher, Cameron is just continuing the trend.

yes and the rightto-buy was most (and illegally) pursued by which borough...umm..Yes! Wandsworth!!

Being - the proposal isn't about arrest - it's on conviction. Wands have simply wanted to show how much on the front foot they are to please the political masters really refers to.

The politics of it - I did say, and many others said, that IF the tories got in they will be about restructuring our society in toto. And the key will be, 'if oyu can pay, fine, if oyu cant, then suffer and die'. And that isn't too blunt about it.

'oyu' - you, obv!

ahh now see, the Wandsworth case... the ASB is an added apendix to the original seeking possession order for rent arrears- so here we present another question... should the innocent 8 year old be removed from her home because her parent(s) have not performed their contractual duty to pay the rent?

Really not sure really - the child would be in the same position if the parents didn't keep up mortgage payments, as their contract there. To expand tho' this issue is about a significant shift in how the good behaviour clauses ae being applied, or will be if the signs we read are true.

and this application of the clause would be applied to tenants with good payments records.

i agree Pan but it goes to show the daily mail style headlines that are fuelling the revolution against the decisions having to be made by the RSA's, are not entirely accurate. I maintained at the start of this that there was likely to be added reason for a SP order, no-one can get them to court that quickly otherwise and have a credible case.

many of the cases that these clauses are applied to I would imagine will also have tenancy sustaining problems which in themselves could lead to a future eviction. I would hazard that cases that are presented solely on ASB through an act of terrorism by a household member other than the tenant will end in sanctions rather than eviction. Those that do end in eviction are likely to be serious cases, those directly involving the tenant or tenancies which have breached tenancy in other forms as well.

Yes that well be the case, really, but the hunger for what I am labelling 'revenge-justice' re the riots will note a shift in the thresholds for action to be taken. Which is the basis of this thread. If there are other sustaning problems then authorities have powers to deal with those, though as my friend indicates authorities sometimes don't have the drive, expertise or sometimes will to manage them properly. Much of his time is spent with borough solicitors in reminding them of what legal powers they have and how/when to apply them - in other areas such as ASBOs as well as evictions.

I know that when you start a thread it isn't your 'ownership'. But with those in the campaign section it's probably a bit more incumbent on the OP to support it and see it through.

My working week means I wont be around so much to do this, so I'd wish to thank everyone who spent time and energy so far in contirbuting to this thread. It's about a justice question, so I do get a bit passionate about it, from my POV.
I'll mail MN and ask them to let me know what they think.

Night, really, and other posters.

Stick with it Pan. Cameron is an ex-PR man and is mightily swayed by such campaigns. He will put pressure on Conservative councils to back off if he thinks it is unpopular with the masses.

what like he's changed his tune on benefit reform...

I don't think this originated from central government policy.

This was Greenwich Council leader Chris Roberts (Lab) on 9 August - the morning after London kicked off ... We shall seek the eviction of anyone living in council property if they are found to have been engaged in criminal acts

I think this was the first mention of this policy and weren't the government still on holiday?

I don't suppose it matters much now in terms of who to target with this campaign.

reallywoundup I get it.

You're think that Pan is "doing it wrong", this being upset about what's happened thing, and that the people he needs to tackle are central government, and there's no point doing that anyway.

They are your views and that is fine, but to keep banging on with them on a campaign thread (your campaign is shit and won't work) gets a bit rude after a while. I understand that this is your sector, but you have to understand that people are angry and upset about this proposal and want to at least voice their concerns, feel like they are adding their support to something. Maybe it will do something, maybe it won't. But there's nothing wrong with people gathering here to say how they feel about this, even if in your view it is a waste of time.

pubgardens - yes it was which is quite shocking for a Labour-run council. But I think this was put out before the riots had really escalated, when perhaps they thought they were going to be dealing with a couple of outright criminals and a huddle of idiots.

But I guess they have one eye in the Olympics all the time, Don't want some hoodies interrupting the dressage

But it's an interesting policy - renege on a parking ticket, lose your house.

No, things had escalated by then - it was Tuesday morning.

I think it was a complete kneejerk reaction born out of shock and a desire for vengeance. I don't think much thought went into it beyond a need to be seen to be Doing Something.

I'm with you pan.

To all the people saying 'the parents should be able to control a teenager'. My parents couldn't control me, and bloody hell, they tried. Luckily I didn't commit any crimes or turn to drugs but I was out of control and mum even had to get the police to intervene in a fight between me and my sister at home before someone got seriously hurt. If I was a strapping 17yo boy my mum wouldn't have been able to cope, or keep me in the house, at all (and she doesn't usually take any crap from anyone).

I did have a friend who's parents chucked her out at 16 because of her bad behaviour, she ended up in a childrens home for a few weeks and was even more screwed up and angry afterwards . I ended up fine partly because my parents stood by me, even if I was horrible for a few years.

It's not about it not being fair to evict council tenants when house owners will keep their homes in my eyes - they may not if they're convicted and lose their jobs but admittedly if it was their children they may not. In my eyes its about the fact that we as taxpayers are paying for these people to live in council houses and paying their benefits and they pay us back with the way they acted. Ok so maybe some of them have jobs and aren't on benefits but council housing is still cheaper and we all must know someone who would benefit from council housing and not act like this.

Have a think about the victims of this - the people who have lost their homes, cars, jobs, lives, etc - they've taken homes away from people so why shouldn't theirs be taken away? How many people can't afford to feed their children because of what they have done? Or only have the clothes on their backs?

If you turned this around and someone posted on MN about having lost everything and feeling suicidal about it because someone set fire to their home then would you really tell them that the person that did it to them doesn't deserve to lose everythign they have? That all they deserve is a nice cushty stint in prison?

I am in pan.

I am at a bit of a loss to understand how taking a bottle of mineral water can devastate someone's life TBH.

People who have committed arson will be going to prison for a good long time so I still can't see where the benefit it is in evicting their families?