Friend who went through DV now faced with homelessness and losing her kids

[ConcernedCitizenUK]

Hi everyone, I am supporting a friend who is really struggling and we don't know where to turn to for advice and support. Trying my luck here.

She went through an abusive marriage and has 2 small kids.

She left him and got a non molestation order on him and went to the police.

They had a council house but it was in his name, so she left and went to a council to declare homelessness.

Her previous council home was a nice 2 or 3 bedroom house but the council offered her a small council flat.

Unfortunately she received some really bad advice that she should be firm and refuse the property and the council will get her a bigger house.

She did that and the council banned her from being on the housing list and declared her "intentionally homeless".

She had a social worker to support her and also spoke to her local MP for help. But the MP seemed more interested in trying to take the children off her than help her (a tory MP).

The social worker organised hotels for a few weeks and tried to change the councils minds and then now have said they will no longer fund hotels and if she doesnt find housing by tomorrow they will take her kids and put them in foster care.

I have tried contacting journalists, womens aid charities like Refuge, Womens aid etc. They dont even respond.

Womens refuge charities will not help, since she is not in immediate danger, as she left her ex a while ago now.

I have no idea where left to turn to get her help. I am talking to all these people on her behalf and she is also talking to citizens advice etc and we cant find any help at all.

Any suggestions on what to do or who can help?

The reason I said today was because that's when her hotel bookings ended that social services were paying for. And she went back to them to ask what she should do now and they said go to your sisters or a friends, if you can't find anywhere then the kids can be placed in Foster care.

Not sure why you're struggling with that.

I've not embellished anything.

And my email to journalists was before all this happened. It was a basic email like my OP. Not a lot of details

No honey, my local authority operates within the law, which is national. Your friend was referred to children's services 2 years ago when she fled and again recently when she was made homeless. She wasn't open to a social worker for 2 years. What a frustrating waste of time this whole thread has been. You've been so confidently wrong about so much whilst insisting you know every aspect of the case. I started off trying to be helpful and your incorrect scaremongering posts got my back right up along with your aggressive and accusatory tone. Nobody can help you or her on this thread because it's full of things that are incorrect.

As an ex UK social worker it sounds believable.
Budgets are very tight and housing isn't usually covered by them.
I have known of other families where it has been highlighted that only dc actually need to be housed.
They would be housed on a voluntary basis. In reality it is more designed to get families to work harder at finding housing themselves.

OK bye then. Since the thread is a waste of time and my tone is so awful, I'm sure you can find other threads that will be more to your tastes. Your inputs haven't been particularly helpful so I'm sure we'll manage without any further input from you

So where are they staying tomorrow? What has she been doing day to day 2 years ago in the emergency accommodation?

She got legal aid for a divorce and forwarded me the correspondence between her and her lawyer. Her ex refused to receive the divorce paper and the judge refused to progress the divorce in his absence and i believe that was the last she heard from the divorce lawyer. I can double check

I think she may have been very unlucky if that's the case and needs further advice.

You can apply for a Divorce if you don't know the address or email. Right of Women have some information on it here.

What am I missing, why are you apparently trying so hard to help your friend, but can’t stop going on or supporting hatred of tories, it’s actually coming across as more Important to you than helping this woman.

oddest thing I’ve read, ok we get it. You hate the tories.

I liked her entire post. Only a small section of the post talked about the tories, and that wasn't specifically what restored my faith in humanity.

It was just her general understanding that my friend is a human, she made a mistake but still deserves to be housed etc.

The fact that you saw my post as anti tory says more about you than me.

I've not really mentioned the tory element much after my OP except when people bring it up.

If you think rishi sunak is a good prime minister then good for you mate honestly I don't care

Usually, if you are a victim of dv you cannot apply for housing in the same local authority (and sometimes neighbouring ones) for safety reasons.

You can however, apply for housing in any local authority in the country (as a victim of dv).
As she has a non mol in place this would be sufficient evidence.

She needs legal advice to look at getting an occupation order, to get back into the previous home and get ex out. This would also be completely in the children’s interests before foster care! Does depend on risk though.

This does all seem a bit odd. Keep persisting with womens aid. If you know the local dv support organisation that may be more helpful and they can organise refuge spaces.

Of course you liked it. She agreed with you. It’s very clear how you react if people don’t just agree.

and I’m not going to engage in my politics with you. Don’t try so hard.

FYI I think that usually to be a guarantor you have to be a home owner.

Yes I'm struggling with the fact you literally drip-fed a piece of information in the same post (hotel booking date) and then proceeded to take the piss on why people couldn't understand beforehand. SLOW CLAP.

Honestly as many PPs have picked up, the entire vibe of this thread is off. If your friend is struggling so much, why can't she come on here and help straighten up the facts? If her hotel booking ended today, where is she now? If she's literally on the streets in December (unlikely scenario but you never know with the Queen of Dripfeed here) then what's the social worker doing?

It honestly feels like OP is grief-vulturing a friend's situation to make it all about herself and her hatred of MPs and politics. I don't even think you are that closely befriended but you live vicariously through her tragedies. You insist that you know her situation re: social workers and time frames but many social workers here have pointed out this can't be the case. It feels quite bizarre that a friend would go into such extremes to peddle someone's tragic life story to the media, journalists, MPs and public online forums. Did your friend give you permission to do this? Does she know her private life is all over MN?

A far more logical strategy as a true close friend would be to help her find work, help her find additional sources of income, take the kids off her hands so she can get back on her feet. Using her DV past and impending homelessness as an opener for journalists and social media is in pretty bad taste. You keep talking about her situation like you know her well but the details are vague and you are more invested in arguing with everyone instead of taking any constructive advice.

So the primary? Nursery? School has a welfare office who just so happened to be in today, who was able to speak directly to the social worker, and the social worker back peddled? What happened to you disengaging not contacting the social worker? Bloody hell, I need to know the secret number of how to get hold of social workers on speed dial in a non emergency situation. It can be days before the beggars return my calls...
As someone with a masters in creative writing you should know the importance of using the correct terminology, I have an MSc so yes of course I'm a 'stickler' for correct terminology, data collection and analysis. It's okay though I'm not pedantic when it comes to spelling, punctuation and grammar.

I thought this thread would be deleted overnight

What a load of rubbish

No you don’t but it helps. However they run both credit and affordability checks, so I’m not sure how the op can pass as if she can only afford 200-300 a month to help this person. she would need to demonstrably be able to afford 1k a month,

All that your friend is facing isn’t the result of just one mistake. It is a whole stream of “mistakes” together with the entitled attitude that everyone should run around after her

But also the social worker had been looking for a private rent for her whilst paying for her hotels for a month, so there was still hope

Unless you live in an area of the SE that has been untouched by modern technology. Why can’t your friend look for her own rental.
Why aren’t you suggesting she looks for her own rental. As opposed to having an overstretched SW doing it.
You say she is perfectly capable of looking after her dc but why then is she not capable of typing the word Rightmove into her phone or going to the local library and using one of their computers to search for her own rental property
Why were you both waiting on someone else to do everything.

But as for people sympathising with the tories and their ideology towards people who "don't help themselves", I'm absolutely fine with people believing that rishi sunak is doing a sterling job running the Country

What has Rishi Sunak running the country got to do with your friend not helping herself. Who do you think should help her and her dc if not herself. When will your friend ever take responsibility for her own actions or inactions.
Spending 2 years waiting for a council property, was 730 days of mistakes. Being warned that if she turned the property down there would be no more offers and then turning the property down. What was it your friend was expecting was going to happen?

She was never on the council tenancy. It was in her exes name

What has that got to do with anything. They were married so by default this council property became a “joint asset”

*She got legal aid for a divorce and forwarded me the correspondence between her and her lawyer. Her ex refused to receive the divorce paper and the judge refused to progress the divorce in his absence and i believe that was the last she heard from the divorce lawyer. I can double check.

As far as I'm aware, to divorce someone in England, you need proof that they have received divorce papers. Difficult when he's difficult to find. If you want more detail I can prob screenshot some of the correspondence and block out the PII.

She tried to divorce him early after the police involvement and non molestation from family courts but it stalled for the reasons I've mentioned*

Why can’t she now go for a no fault divorce and ask for the council house tenancy be put in her name as ex has clearly moved on.
Who has been paying the rent on this house.

Your friend’s ex cannot now contest a divorce. If she knows where he lives and has served the papers on him then he doesn’t need to sign them as they are deemed to have been served

Even if she is unsure of his address her solicitor can send the divorce papers to one of his family or friends to send the papers on to him

Even taking out a newspaper advert notifying him of the divorce can be done.

It doesn’t take much to locate someone. SM platforms, HMRC .gov websites etc

Lol yes every request for help that you don't approve of is a pure fabrication concocted by people who are clearly attained at investing days discussing a make believe scenario of a woman with housing issues. Sounds like pure entertainment.

Yes, someone at the school who has responsibility for things like social services referrals came and spoke to my friend on her request, gave her advice, and called the phone number on my friends phone and spoke to the social worker.

I don't know what issues you've had with regards to your children being taken into care etc that required having a social worker, but yes it's pretty common to have your social workers phone number. As someone who's been through care, I can attest to that.

You've most likely been trying to call the social services to report your neighbour or something, using the main number for the building, and yes in the scenario it will not be as easy to get someone, especially if you have to deal with complicated automated systems that may be significantly above your IQ capacity.

And yes I know the importance of correct terminology in my field. I also understand that when speaking with laymen who have no formal training in my field, that I can excuse them or clarify to them if they get terminology mixed up, which is fairly common amongst non-experts when discussing.

The property is being sublet to other tenants (which is against the rules) and when an attempt to deliver the letter was made, they denied knowing him. Photos were taken of an attempt to serve him papers and the judge rejected it.

Attempts were also made to family but he's instructed his family not to cooperate and so far she's had no success.

As for the newspaper thing. You know something her solicitor doesn't. I can suggest she emails her solicitor to suggest it, but this was not offered as an option previously.

It's a legal aid lawyer so no idea if they know about that and are willing to put the effort in but I would have thought it would be common knowledge if true.

I've not come across that in English law personally. I've seen something similar in Scottish divorce law.

Her ex being named in the tenancy has everything to do with it. I was responding to the question "is she named on the tenancy". Why wouldn't that have anything to do with my answer?

I'm not bothering to answer on the tory stuff as I just don't care. Clearly some rishi sunak fans are mad triggered by a throw away comment about a crap tory MP but it's not worth investing time on, it's not the point of the thread. Tories will be a distant memory this time next year regardless.

Which "string of mistakes" are you referring to? I'm only aware of one major mistake, to reject the council property she was offered.

And yes, she has an Internet connection. If you've actually been following the thread, the issue is not finding a property, but getting accepted on benefits. The MP and social worker both helped her search because they might be able to persuade a potential land lord better than her. But noone had any luck to date. I've also tried to help but as soon as you mention benefits they're not interested.

Me being "only" able to afford £200 to £300 a month to top up my friends rent is because I have my own life also. I'm not going to pay her entire rent for her.

She already is entitled to benefits to pay the main bulk of her rent, and she's entitled to up to £800 a month. So with an extra £300 a month it takes her to £1100 which should get her a decent private rental in the area if we find someone willing to take benefits.

I'd pass as a guarantor as I have a significantly above average salary.

Not everyone who disagrees with you loves Rishi Sunak or has a low IQ

Many people have genuinely tried to help, you seem to want to work against them.

The sister she was with when SS visited, are her or even just the kids able to go back there for a little while?

I think the council house tenancy may be worth pursuing too, google suggests you can be added to the tenancy if you are married.

Me being "only" able to afford £200 to £300 a month to top up my friends rent is because I have my own life also. I'm not going to pay her entire rent for her.

She already is entitled to benefits to pay the main bulk of her rent, and she's entitled to up to £800 a month. So with an extra £300 a month it takes her to £1100 which should get her a decent private rental in the area if we find someone willing to take benefits.

I'd pass as a guarantor as I have a significantly above average salary.

As a guarantor they’d want you to be able to afford the rent entirely, not a contribution to it added to her contribution. Plus on a personal basis you do genuinely need to be able to afford her rent as if she doesn’t pay it. How much would it put you out if you did have to pay large rent arrears?

Presumably you have significant savings? If so could you loan her 6 months rent to use upfront? That may convince landlords to rent to her.

Absolutely. If someone disagrees with me politely and with evidence and logic, that's actually useful. I don't mind being corrected if I get something wrong.

But let's be honest. Some pretty crap unhelpful comments were made in the thread that were not any useful contribution or correction but simply trolling because they don't like single mothers or the welfare state, or are hard-core tories or right wingers.

Anyone genuinely trying to help me, even if they disagree with me in a polite way about something, I welcome that 100%.

She has taken her kids to her sisters for the last few nights but her sister had made clear to the social worker that this is only a very short term temporarily solution as her sister doesn't have time to watch small kids or the space in the house to host an entire family. So it's OK as a very short term solution where the alternative is sleeping rough or losing the kids, but nothing beyond that.

We can have a look at the tenancy on the old council house