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?

WHAT DOES IF TENANCY holder culpable actually mean?

in a tenancy you are responsible for the people in your home and visitors to your home. does this = culpable?

I think they mean if the tenancy holder is the one actually convicted, not if it is the child of tenancy holder custy.

If that is the case then thats the most sensible approach put forward

Are we supposed to report the thread or something to try and get attention? or should we all individually ask mn for a response to the thread?

tenancy holder culpable = sending your child out to steal for you but maybe just not supporting attempts to deal with their wrongdoing?

Pan I think at the moment it's wait and see how sensible the courts are about this. Until there actually are some cases where eviction has either been granted or refused then I doubt you'l get the weight of support necessary for a mumsnet campaign. However I have no doubt that the politicians will be watching to see how far they can go without protest and this serves notice.

how can you prove that a child was sent to steal?

is that culpable

the wording is distinctly ambiguous

Hello all,

Apologies for the failure to respond. Almost everyone on the Campaigns team is away, and will be away until the end of August - so it's very unlikely that anything would happen before then.

It might be that that timeframe means that this is unworkable. If not, given the complexity of the situation, it would be good if you could come up with some suggestions about what exactly you think we should be calling for/doing - really specific points. (This isn't to say that we will necessarily be going ahead!)

Thanks
MNHQ

thanks Rowan.
We/I appreciate that MNHQ is fairly busy, and I didn't know ther ewas such a thing as a 'campaign' team!

What we are talking about here is very messy in terms of how things may develop, and certainly in terms of 'the law'. And also in that the individual decisions being made in civil court may be impacted by the gross decisons being made in the criminal courts.

What we do know is that quite a few thousand people will be sentenced over the next few months, for a variety of offences. A lot will be in 'social housing'.

We do have time though , because the cases of eviction will take months to arrive at civil courts. But if the words of the setencing judges so far are to be taken, all decisons are at the whim of the judge sentencing. Isay that because today, in my job, I read the full statement he made before sentencing on Tuesday. He ( Judge Gilbart) stated he hadn't been given direction from the govt about how to deal with cases, AND..if he had, he would have ignored them. He also gave a 'disposal -type' preferrred whic hwas utterly swigeing. ( I can cut and paste that tomorrow if needs be?). So he was sentencing on his personal views alone.

How it impacts on this thread is that judges are being given a 'right' to deal with cases as they seem fit, so forget the case history to provide direction.

How MN responds, if 'we' wish to is tricky. The atmosphere of the 'blame-game' is well under way in criminal courts. How MN helps to prevent that seeping into the innocents in tenancy-holding social housing circs. is the messy bit. Messy yes, but v. worthwhile.

Press releases, media interview, making most of MN media connection, MN on Fb and twitter, individual interviews ( I am happy to contribute to that),
That sort of thing.

But yes, we see how things develop re eviction processes.

Rowan,

Can you please draw this to the attention of the 'Campaigns Team' then when they are back? I am sure they will know what to do regarding progressing it. The eviction process can take quite a few weeks so this, I think, is in the "Important but not Urgent" box. Thanks.

inside housing pan

To evict or not to evict? Social landlords? views on evicting tenants convicted of riot-related offences

Pro-eviction
Barking and Dagenham Council
Brent Council
Croydon Council
Gloucester City Homes
Greenwich Council
Hammersmith & Fulham Council
Manchester Council
New Charter Housing Trust
Nottingham Council
Salford Council
Southwark Council
Waltham Forest Council
Wandsworth Council
Westminster Council

Eviction to be considered in some cases
Amicus Horizon
Birmingham Council
Derby Homes
Ealing Council
Hackney Council
Haringey Council
Liverpool Mutual Homes
London & Quadrant
Metropolitan Housing Trust
Peabody
Places for People
Riverside
Wolverhampton Homes

Anti-eviction
Camden Council
Genesis
Harrow Council
Home Group
Midland Heart
Sandwell Council
Southern Housing Group
Sutton Council
Tower Hamlets Council

ive worked for two of the above and neither are pro eviction i'm glad to say

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/18/full-picture-of-riot-sentences

The Riot Report is a study by Inside Housing, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation www.linkedin.com/groups/Welcome-Riot-Report-group-lot-4051115.S.66867563

I agree very much with Pan - this is a dreadful, punitive measure which will (as usual) hit hardest at those who are already at the bottom of the heap.

If some woman has a son she's already struggling to control and three or four younger kids, what good does it do anyone to punish the whole family and make them homeless? You've got four children on the scrap heap, probably pushed out of their school, the parent/s possibly losing their jobs - and the long-term cost will be immense, not just to those individuals but to a society which then has to deal with the fallout.

Punish the offender of course - that goes without saying. But punish a whole family because of a one-off crime by one member? How is that justice?

It'd be interesting to cross reference those lists of pro-eviction councils with a. pay packets for chief executives and directors - how many staff earn more than the prime minster - and b. the number of official inquiries that show their services are crap. And whether there's any difference between pro, anti and 'in some circumstances' councils. Birmingham, for instance, had the highest paid chief exec in the country at one point - not sure if that's still the case - but a social services department in disarray that had been condemned, repeatedly. And was making all sorts of essential workers redundant, slashing the services vulnerable people rely on while stuffing his own pockets full of cash.

(I seem to remember the crap-ness was due to under-staffing and poor leadership rather than social workers being deliberately rubbish, IIRC the reports referred to failures up the management chain - ultimately it's the chief exec who is responsible for spending decisions.)

i don't know how councils are rated, audited and monitored -

audit commission gone

all this co-regulation bollocks

www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/YourlocalcouncilandCouncilTax/YourCommunity/DG_196382

Well done Custy!

Abolishing the Audit Commission was crap. Same job still needs doing. Just hogwash - 'ooh look at us we've abolished a quango, aren't we efficient'. No, you numpties, you'll end up spending MORE money. Real reason is surely to avoid the embarrassment of report after report showing that there are huge problems. Transparency my arse - far less transparent to have little local websites that don't get the media coverage of a strong Audit Commission report, nor the ability to aggregate.

www.manchester.gov.uk/downloads/download/4441/annual_statement_of_accounts_201011_subject_to_audit

manchester accounts

Wow, custardo. What you can find out if you knew where to look!

Those lists from the Inside Housing article show a really mixed bag don't they? It does sort of undermine the sense of 'political pressure' from gvt referred to a long way up the thread.

Still concerning that the biggest associations and coucils in the G/T M/c area are signed up evictors. (New Charter is the one that holds just about all of the stock in Tameside Met. Borough.

I think mumsnet should run a general housing campaign as well as fighting any unfair evictions.

I am in private rented and my landlord has given me 2 months notice to quit as he wants to move his brother in. All perfectly legal. I have 2 children, one is school age.

We are on housing benefit. Since the LHA cuts there have been very few properties in the entire city we can afford. I am NOT in London or the south east btw. I found two affordable flats near to DD's school but the landlords would not take housing benefit. I found one that was not local that would involve me paying a top up on hb. There were no places in the local schools and it will cost me £20pw in bus fares to get to her current one. That, along with the HB top up would put me into a position where I would be unable to afford food or heating.

I am on the housing list. Even though homelessness is imminent I am not a high priority. High priority is reserved for families already in hostels. Looks like that's where we are headed.

I just want to curl up and die at the moment.

have you presented yourself as homeless at the council?

there is something called the housing option team - or something similar which will looka t your options, maybe mediate with yourlandlord etc.

Thanks custardo.

Have been there today.I am worried about ending up in a hostel as there are not many private rentals I can afford and the housing list is long. They might be able to negotiate more time with the landlord though.

"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?"

No- Many councils already evict famillies where a family member is convicted of certain offences. I have worked with women from famillies where young children havebeen evicted with their mother because an older child was dealing drugs. No one has bothered with these people in the past but now because it is riot related ( and I personaly have no sympathy whatsoever in these cases) everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

ok - it's the end'ish of August, when the MN Campaign Team are making their weary way off the beaches...and perhaps back in the office next week.

I'll mail MNHQ as a sort of prompt for them to discuss this proposal.