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?

I would start with citizens advice as they are local and will be best placed to know who all the local agencies are and the relavant people to contact as well as what local policies and procedures and ways of working are. They can also sign post her to other support if needed and they can’t provide it. I know you’d said she’d tried and they weren’t open. If you Google them it should what times they’re open for different matters. Sometime they also offer drop in sessions in other buildings such as food banks or churches, so there might be one of those it’s easier for her to attend.

My friend refers to her as social worker and the MP emails refer to social worker and social services etc so that's why I've used the term social worker. But I don't think it matters too much even if it is some other type of support worker. But even though my friend is no expert in these matters I would presume she'd only use the term social worker if she heard other people use it in her context.

Oh ok, I just wondered as it’s likely she’s got different people from different agencies involved. If she doesn’t have an IDVA this is something she could discuss when she sees citizens advice.

In terms of the implications of being classified as intentionally homeless, it seems to vary from council to council.

During my conversations with people involved with my friend 5 years was mentioned. And someone else mentioned there needs to be a "break" such as if she can get private housing and registered with council tax etc which then causes some sort of fresh start. But people on this site have said 6 months. So it's not clear. But either way, it seems preferable to move to another authority at this point.

You should be able to find the councils relevant policy which covers this online. In my area it is the councils ‘housing allocations policy’. If you Google the name of the council and allocations policy or lettings policy something should come up. My councils policy says ‘ if an applicant refuses the offer of accommodation, the housing register application will be suspended for 6 months’

It’s unlikely another authority would accept her but you could try look up their policy as well or contact their homelessness department and ask to discuss.

I earn above 3 times the annual rent on a 1.1k a month property and she's unlikely to go higher than that so I think that's OK.

That's positive then.

It was some sort of courier who delivered the papers and took photos to provide to the court as proof but the judge rejected it. Then the divorce just stalled.

Maybe she needs to ask the solicitor about this again then, to find out what evidence the court does needs to meet the requirement of feeling the papers as having been served on him.

Sorry that's not very clear which bits were you and which bits are me. My phone would let me do it another way!

"My friend refers to her as social worker and the MP emails refer to social worker and social services etc so that's why I've used the term social worker. But I don't think it matters too much even if it is some other type of support worker. "
it matters because part of this thread was about the risk of your friend losing her kids, a support work wouldn't be able to threaten removal of the kids. It matters because you said you have all the facts, you clearly don't, you have what your friend has divulged to you, that's not the same as having accurate factual information.

She went to the school today and they have some sort of welfare officer at the school and she told them about the threat to her kids and they were appalled and have called her social worker.
How did the welfare officer call the social worker, if you're now not sure she has a social worker? I mean this wouldn't have happened anyway, a safeguarding lead wouldn't just go 'oh, okay we will take the parents word as gospel truth and tell the social worker, who might not be a social worker, that it's all hunkidori and to leave you alone' can you really not see the problem here?
Btw why did you refer to your friend as 'this women' it's oddly impersonal.
it's also odd to have said "I've met the child and he's like a toddler" this is clearly someone you are very close too, and yet 'met' the child sounds like you don't have much to do with the children.

I don't only have what my friend divuldged to me, as I also have emails and a long phone call with her MPs assistant and a lot of screenshots and pdfs of letters amongst other things.

People in the group clarified that a court order in front of a judge is needed to take kids away and I'm pretty sure none of that has happened. It sounds more like an empty threat to push her to sort herself out combined with an offer of temporarily housing them on a voluntary basis as opposed to anything more serious. My friend was obviously alarmed at the suggestion that her kids be housed at Foster care initially. But in the end her sister agreed to take the kids for 3 days to avoid Foster care. I expect that the social worker was pretty much expecting that to happen anyway as soon as Foster care was mentioned. Social services saved themselves a hotel bill so I guess that's a win for them.

Also my friend isn't withholding any facts from me. I'm confident about that. I have the full picture. That doesn't mean I can explain it all with the correct terminology.

But in terms of some sinister Skelton in her closet that she's not told me about on purpose. No. I don't think anything like that exists. I think she tells me everything in order for me to help her best. And the vast majority of what she says has been corroborated by other documents etc that I've seen

I've already explained. She spoke to the person from school and asked her if there is a risk to losing the kids and the person said not if the only issue is homelessness and then called the social worker in front of my friend to find out what's going on and apply pressure.

That doesn't mean she took anything as gospel truth. Obviously she had a two way conversation with the social worker, but the social worker wasn't like "OK but you're not aware of X, y and z which totally changes things". So it was pretty clear from the conversation that the only issue here is homelessness, that the kids shouldn't be at risk of going into Foster care, and the mother needs help with housing.

When the social worker got the push back from the school worker she back pedalled because she knew she couldn't get away with it the same way she got away with fobbing my friend.

You say it wouldn't have happened but that's exactly what did happen. And it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I've already said I'm pretty sure it's a social worker. My friend refers to them as her social worker anyway so that's why I call them her social worker. I'm using the same terminology she uses. No reason to doubt it.

As for why I referred to my friend as "this woman". I'm not gonna entertain any questions that are not genuine questions to help figure out my friends situation. Questions only designed to try and portray this entire scenario as something I'm conjuring up for a laugh will be ignored. You can analyse every detail of every post as much as you want to try and disprove the story.

I've posted a screenshot previously of my calls to shelter. Did I graphically modify them? I have emails from her mp with an mp.gov email address I can screenshot and all sorts of other stuff if you really need proof this is real.

But honestly if you think this scenario is fake then why waste your time on it? Invest your time in threads where you actually believe the poster rather than wasting your time trying to disprove this post because I used "impersonal pronouns". That's not a good use of your time or mine

Where is your friend now OP?

What progress was made today?

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?

As she was married it is immaterial whose name was or wasn’t on the lease agreement as the house (council rented or bought) becomes a marital asset in divorce proceedings. So she could ask the judge to award her the council property as exh isn’t living there and her needs are greater than his

*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*

The mistakes she made and continues to make are that every single day for 2 years she was in temporary accommodation she made no effort to find a suitable private rental

There are landlords that take people on benefits but I doubt you would find them in the South East. She needed to widen her search till she found places that she could afford on her own and find an area where landlords do take people on housing benefits.
The problem is she prefers to waste everyone’s time trying to fight against councils and landlords irreversible decisions.
If a landlord has a mortgage on a rental property then it would be going against the terms of their mortgage to take someone on benefits. All the persuading by SW’s and MPs won’t get them to break the terms of their mortgage

Your friend needs to move to a much cheaper area. One where the landlords owns the properties out right and can rent to people on benefits because they don’t have to follow a mortgage companies rules

As someone with pets and 4 adults in the family we sat down and for 3 days solid we each took an area and phoned every single rightmove rental listing that didn’t state No Pets and after 3 days and probably over a 1000 phone calls we got 2 properties to view.

If someone says no pets we didn’t go to our MP hoping that a word from them would make them change their minds or sit waiting by the phone for answers and stew on the fact that 998 landlords said no to us. You have to just keep calling and spreading your search parameters wider and wider.

How many properties has your friend actually phoned up over. Given we were doing around 100 phone calls each per day.

Just adding this link here again @ConcernedCitizenUK for The Family Rights Group in case it got lost upthread. https://frg.org.uk/

The Family Rights Group is all about supporting families to stay together. I'm certain they will be able to advise on the legalities of your friend's situation and whether the local authority are operating in the correct way around this.

I can't quote the PP, but the first paragraph of my post stated a fact. Then I gave the opinion that this is not the time to throw a new job into the mix. There needs to be some stability in the children's lives and the mother's life at this moment in time.

Thank you, I'll forward this on now. Got to be worth a try

We went to view a property together today. I was only a studio flat though and they were clear about no kids. They were happy to take her on as a tenant though with me as a guarantor. They're a live in land lord so she wouldn't have any chance of sneaking her kids in. So we need to see if maybe she can leave the kids with her sister a few months and use this property as a stepping stone to establishing a connection with a different area that hasn't barred her from social housing.

Or maybe we need to just keep looking until we find a 2 bedroom property that's deemed suitable for kids.

Need to look at everything and decide what to do next.

She also wants an appointmemt with citizens advice as soon as its open

Don't most areas require you to have lived there for several years to establish a local connection? The studio flat with live in landlord doesn't seem like any kind of solution.

*We went to view a property together today. I was only a studio flat though and they were clear about no kids. They were happy to take her on as a tenant though with me as a guarantor. They're a live in land lord so she wouldn't have any chance of sneaking her kids in. So we need to see if maybe she can leave the kids with her sister a few months and use this property as a stepping stone to establishing a connection with a different area that hasn't barred her from social housing.

Or maybe we need to just keep looking until we find a 2 bedroom property that's deemed suitable for kids.

Need to look at everything and decide what to do next.

She also wants an appointmemt with citizens advice as soon as its open*

Just why???

Why did you view a studio flat with a live in landlord and it states no children when she has 2 children

Why is she wasting her own and every bodies time on properties that are not suitable.

Why does she need to see CAB. Is she going to get them to plead her case with the landlord.

She knows what she has to do and that is move further out to be able to afford somewhere that will take children, that will take people on benefits and that she can afford without any else’s help.

Surely her sister would prefer her to be staying there with the kids then to take just the kids as least your friend would look after them.
That bit alone makes zero sense.

Dancingonaslice I get the impression this is just par for the course.

I think the friend just expects that everyone runs around after her whilst she goes to view unsuitable studio flats and gets to blame everyone else for not helping her

Apparently people expecting that she should help herself is a nasty Conservative Party Policy

I come from a Northern Town which was greatly affected when the mines closed.

There were 2 groups of people. Those who realised the pits were closing and sold up everything they owned and towing a caravan took their families and headed south for work and those who were still unemployed and waiting for the government to open the pits again years later

The attitude of ConcernedCitizenUK’s friend remind me of the latter group.
Where doing what would be normal adult stuff, they expect that other people should do that for them.

How well do you know this friend? Is this a long term friendship or a more recent within the last few years friendship?

As there there are a few things you don't know, which is odd if you are close. You weren't sure if the previous house was 2 or 3 bedrooms and the latest 1 or two bedrooms. Then you say you have met the youngest child, which is a bit odd if you see them regularly. Then the whole sw thing which you admit you are not 100 sure on.

Or, could it be more to do with the fact you earn above average salary wise and she is clinging on to you to bail her out. Which is what this thread seems to be all about.

If you are such a good friend, why hasn't she had the offer to sleep on your couch?

If your friend needs to sort out accommodation urgently, then she doesn't have time to waste on viewing unsuitable flats. There's no point in renting a studio flat where there's no space for her children.

I agree the OP's friend has been stupid in not taking an unsuitable highrise flat when offered. Maybe in times gone by, not taking it would have meant a few months more in temporary housing and the chance of a better offer. Not a risk I think I could take but one I can understand on some level.

But in all seriousness how is it that if she has the means available to support herself at the local housing allowance rate (albeit with hb support) that there are none available? This should be a concern to everyone one of us with children who will be entering the workforce soon. Everyone saying to move further out - unless that's still within your authority region you are quite simply stuffed.

A quick google and I came up with a few places that accept benefits and would be suitable for children and would be in her budget and are in the South East.

if I can come up with 10+ places in seconds then why aren’t you getting the same results

The "South East" is quite a large region!

Do you know the local housing allowance for most of those (that's the maximum and full entitlement to housing benefit)? I know the area I live it's £750 for a 2 bed.

And I'm in the South East!

*Eglatina · Today 18:49

The "South East" is quite a large region!

Do you know the local housing allowance for most of those (that's the maximum and full entitlement to housing benefit)? I know the area I live it's £750 for a 2 bed*

Well the places I found are with in budget

Further afield there are private rentals for well within HB budgets

Really? Quick search on rightmove for £700-£800 brought up around 20 properties, and they were mostly student houseshares or for over 55s and the odd one in Southampton, Portsmouth, Canterbury, Norfolk and the Isle of Wight! There are cheaper areas in most regions of course, but the market certainly isn't flooded 🤷‍♀️ how many local authorities in the south east? And you can't switch authority areas unless you have a local connection.

There's literally 1 x 2 bed flat on for less than £900 (£875) on rightmove in my district (Horsham) and as I say, the local housing allowance here would only pay £750.

Just on Rightmove going further out this is just within 40 miles of Yorkshire 3 bedrooms

http://p.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E61326&minBedrooms=3&maxPrice=600&radius=40.0&sortType=2&propertyTypes=&mustHave=garden&dontShow=houseShare%2Cretirement%2Cstudent&furnishTypes=unfurnished&letType=longTerm&keywords=

Over 400 available for 2 bed places

Type in any county for under £600 per month and you will get to see there are cheap places to live.

Then there is the Movingsoon website which has Housing association stuff

There are places you just have to look. Friend ended up in Lancashire after her divorce because it was the only place she could afford.

She spent 2 years there getting on her feet again before moving back to North London where her family is from

Sometimes you just have to move.