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 just wonder at how many people on here can't remember being 17.

My parents had no idea what I was up to. DH used to lie to his as well. That is normal 17yo behaviour surely. I have a friend who was arrested twice at that age for minor things, convicted of one. Now she is a professional who works in the criminal justice system. We are all good upstanding citizens etc.

The first point is that it is quite likely that the parents had no idea. What parents know what their 17yo are up to if their 17 yo hide their activities? Or should all people who live in eg Tottenham automatically assume their 17yo are criminals and keep them indoors at all times?

The second point is that 17yo can be really stupid and do ridiculous stuff. That is the nature of being 17. Most of them do not go onto a life of crime, they grow out of it. How many politicians do we have who have admitted taking drugs? Lots, is what. Illegality. They made good though. Why assume a young person who took a t-shirt in this won't be the same?

I remember being 17 only too well. In fact my sister was worse than me, she was the one shoplifting (got caught, never did it again) and taking E (again, did it once, felt sick). I was just gobby, up for an argument / fight about anything and hormonal.

It was my grandparents and teachers who would talk me down, my poor parents were at their wits end.

@Auntiemaggie

I don't think that me paying taxes to help fund benefits means that this means I have some sort of right to hold people to account as if it were 'my money'. It's not-I pay taxes to meet my obligations to individuals in need because they are people in need and I lack the means to do it alone. I am more concerned the state is using money I felt was given to it as part of social contract to bully people.

I don't expect people in East Africa in receipt of food aid to have to behave better than me to get it, why should I expect people in need in East London to be held to higher standards as citizens than I am?

we've had considerable discussions about this today at work.

General gist from my staff is, make the case and see what the judge says- very difficut to differentiate at what level the cases should be made. That is the view of people in the field. I'll add that they are also against the blanket eviction of anyone convicted of ANY crime (riots or not) yes everyone makes mistakes etc BUT if the directive from above is to do it then yes we will have to form a department to do it (won't they be a bunch of happy people!) But then we operate in south wales where the most riotous they get is sheep rustling

However I did sign off on an eviction case being taken before the judge tomorrow- a violent thug of an adult son, who's mother doesn't give a damn that he's caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to association property (her own and her neighbours) she'll be evicted too because she has not supported us in our efforts to control the situation. Maybe that's harsh, but it's a clause of the tenancy and we are well within our rights to act on it for the sake of the poor residents who have to live nearby!

oh and I also checked with our legal-eagle about our own policies on ASB evictions. (which are very rarely used tbh, maybe 40 cases per year)

If the ASB is commited by a dependant child (ie under 18) then unless there is significant harm to person or property then we will seek a tenancy sanction from the judge, that is the eviction is granted but suspended for a period set by the judge. any further instances and they're out.

If it is a non-dependant (over 18) before it goes to court the tenant will be given the option of formally removing the offender from the property and a binding agreement that that person is no longer permitted to be in the property. If they don't do that then yes we will start SP proceeding.

That last post sounds fair enough reallywoundup and I wish it was the stance they were taking with these cases.

custard you are right! fantastic, someone is finally getting what i'm saying. Just because a case is put before a judge does not mean that family are out. Judges can give many different sanctions, but RSL's don't have the legal status to differentiate between the severity and therefore my guess is that RSL's are going to chuck a case together and get it into court to get rid of the responsibility. I would.

I also agree that you don't always know what your grown up children are up to outside of the home, and i agree that it would be harsh to evict a family, BUT the tenancy agreement is a contract, there are lots of little stupidities within them and it can be very difficult to stick within the rules for even the most law-abiding citizens. I wonder how many new tenants really read the agreement, certainly none of my visiting officers come back from a hand-over with tales of the contract being read by every member of the household etc- maybe it does sometimes, i'm not too sure tbh.

It may well raise some awareness of the need to remind older children of the contractual obligations of living in social rented accomodation. My guess is that a lot of these cases are not going to end in physical eviction, suspended eviction is far more likely- that way the government are getting 'evictions' to please the tory supporters, yet innocent households with a rogue element are not ending up homeless.

er. reallywoundup - I and a few others have gotten what you have been saying for a while- what you doing here is describing what your HA would do ordinarily when a. you have no 'rioters' to consider and b. ignoring that LAs and HAs are being exhorted to behave quite differently and seek eviction from a judge for any riot-related offence. I'm afraid nothing of what you have posted is a 'game changer' nor undermines in any way the intention of the OP.

reallywoundup you have said on the thread though that there is no flexibility but to go to court for eviction, and then you have said that there are cases where there are flexibility.

The point is that what you posted in your post when everyone said "that's fair enough" isn't what's being done here. Your post effectively talks about discretion - something that you have said throughout housing providers have none of.

I mean your post Mon 15-Aug-11 17:06:28 is completely different to what you have been posting all the way through the thread.

Also you say you had to check with someone in legal to get the info about the situation. But this is the situation we have been talking about throughout the thread and you were posting as someone in the know with definitive answers

no sardine, i have the legal knowledge of the governance of the association- that is my job, i do not go into court. I can give you the detailed breakdown of our legal obligations as a charitable organisation with a demand for public funds- i do not however deal with drawing up court papers I'm not a lawyer i am an operational director, big difference!

And again you are mis-reading, yes I may have some flexibility currently but then I am in Wales, and we are under the guidance of the WAG- totally different. If the riots had happened in MY operating area, and I had govt. breathing down my neck I would also have no flexibility.

Please don't twist what I have said to try and gain. I am trying to give you a balanced arguement based on a qualified insight into the sector and having worked in English LA, and welsh HA I know where i'd rather be atm.

@AdelaofBlois I don't expect them to act better than me but to have some basic morals and not 'bite the hand that feeds them'. If I'd have been involved in the riots I'd have lost my job whether imprisoned or not and therefore my house even though i own it, and I don't think that I would be right in expecting the council to house me given the amount of resources that my actions have already used.

I agree that parents of young adults involved should be given a choice of whether to leave or evict their child, but someone mentioned something about being involved in something the other side of town? There were a couple of reports I saw on Sky where the local youth workers were saying that the very youths they'd been working with for years were doing this on their own doorsteps in their own communities and they were disgusted. One had his own car wrecked when he left it for a couple of mins.

I think there is a difference between those that 'just looted' and those that were involved in violence and for me those involved in violence have no excuses.

I remember being 17 and no my parents couldn't control me but I wouldn't have been involved in violence like this - beating innocent people up and stealing the clothes off their backs?

Also, how do you differentiate between those parents that care what their kids are up to but can't control them and those who just don't give a shit and don't even try? Do the latter parents not deserve some punishment or incentive to start giving a shit?

Pan, what i have tried to do is remove the way that the RSL's are being portrayed as monsters- it's fine if you aren't going to make the connection that this is purely political, totally unchangeable in these cases whilst being incredibly unfair then carry on. However if you do want to make the campaign about ensuring the security of social housing and it's residents for the future and changing policy you would have the support of every housing body going.
Until then you are just damaging the reputation of the poeple who DO care, the people who are fighting for the rights of tenants and trying to ensure their future.
There are only so many times I can reinforce that this is a government game that no public funded body can stand up to.

It's not a government game (or wasn't originally), it's coming from council leaders.

I don't think anybody has it in for those involved in the day-to-day decision-making on council and HA eviction policy. From what you've said, your day-to-day policy sounds entirely reasonable. I just want those convicted of crimes related to the riots treated in the same way as any other criminal, using the same day-to-day decision-making processes as usual. So, if somebody's rioting conviction is part of a wider pattern of ASB or directly affected their neighbours or whatever other criteria would normally be used then go for it but from the Council Leaders' statements I've seen, that's not what's being proposed.

I agree plenty.

Prison time and entire family evicted for nicking an item of clothing or whatever it might be is totally disproportionate.

Auntie Maggie if your child was convicted of involvement in this you would not lose your job and you would not lose your house - that is what is going to happen here.

but the riots weren't an every day occurance were they- they are being seen as an act of terrorism, a major breakdown of law and order in this country.

You keep bringing up terrorism and people keep asking for links. Do you have any? I have not heard of this being linked or likened to terrorism anywhere else.

You said the riots are "being covered by the terrorism act" can you clarify please.

Well, I haven't seen the terrorism laws invoked yet. Do you have any solid info on that?

Yes, the riots were exceptional circumstances but rather than making those involved on the fringes more culpable, I actually think it makes them less so, if anything.

I agree with those saying some people have forgotten what it's like to be a teenager - you're easily-led, desperate for peer approval, impulsive and your ability to think through the consequences of your actions is not fully developed. I'm glad I was never faced with the situation in my formative years of watching all my friends loot stuff from shops, unchallenged by anybody and seemingly invincible in such incredible circumstances. I'm not 100% sure I would have resisted joining in (all grown up now though :) ).

Sardine and others who are talking about people forgetting what it's like to be teenagers are right. One of the papers today quoted a judge demanding a parenting order because 'Mum' didn't know where her son was at 3am - she thought he was in bed, he was actually out robbing one of the stores that was attacked. Thing is, lots of 17yos sneak out without the parents knowing - it's quite believable that she didn't know where he was. And that cuts across social class.

I don't know how that judge expects a parent to keep a determined 17yo in at night - what does he want her to do, stand guard all night? Punish the 17yo by all means but blaming the mother sounds very unfair. (And the judge is clearly patronising defendants' families any way, calling the woman 'Mum'.)

Too true edam. My sister used to shinny down the drainpipe outside her bedroom window several nights a week and go and meet her boyfriend who was waiting for her with his motorbike round the corner. We were a very 'nice' middle class privately educated family - the only reason my parents never found out is because nothing really awful ever happened.

Quite Plenty - it isn't that people shouldn't be punished - it's the 'new game' in town that is so unjust.

Really - again Iam finding myself resisting your post.

• I DO make a political connection. ALL of this is politics. What I am finding less credible is your assertions that 'nothing can be done'. As Plenty indicates, it is individual councils lining themselves up to deal 'harshly' with the families of riot-offenders with no sense of proportionality.

• also, I don't see, as yet, Birmigham City Coucil signing up for this, nor the handful of other London Boroughs outside of Fulham and Wands. They may well do so, but they don't seem to be having a political or strategic imperative to do this.

In one of my jobs I supervise people who are seeing riot offenders in custody. ( your dh may be familiar with this work?) - they come back and are amazed at the niavitiy(sp) of the young people they see and hear their stories. Sometimes no pre-cons but just got 'caught up' in the excitement because they were young and daft. So for that the family are under threat of eviction??

In another aspect of my job job, (tonights) I am concerned with the 18-25 yo. group. None, and I mean none of them have any relationship with the 'gang culture'. Despite call-me-Dave's insistence this is relevant.