Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Original poster

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

323 replies

ConcernedCitizenUK · 04/12/2023 21:41

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?

OP posts:
Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:27

Luna42 · 04/12/2023 23:55

Call the shelter helpline with her tomorrow, you need to be with her or she calls herself, as it's her that needs to listen to and follow any advice.
She may be able to get legal help to challenge the intentionally homeless decision.
As a victim of DV she was entitled to be housed, albeit in a flat. She might be able to appeal to them on the basis that she had bad advice, and was suffering the mental impact of the abuse and the loss of her home.
If there is no other reason for the children to be taken other than the housing issue this is very short sighted of the council. It will be much cheaper to house her than the costs of court proceedings and foster care.
She could also ask for an urgent meeting with her housing advisor ( the person from the council who has made the intentional homeless decision) and her social worker and preferably their managers to resolve this.
As others have said, unless there is more going on I'd be surprised if they will action removing the children tomorrow. Could it be a threat to get her to engage? Or even that the social worker is trying to pressure housing to change their decision?

I'll be calling shelter with her today, so we'll see what the outcome is of that (thanks to those who suggested shelter).

She was suffering mentally, and that's demonstrable. She went to the gp after she escaped her marriage and was prescribed depression tablets. So that angle may work.

I'll see if we can organise a meeting with the council and social services, and I'll attend also. I'm from a more professional background and might be better at pressuring the authorities. But my feeling is that the council and social services and the MP also are not really that interested in helping her. It's a tory council and constituency so probably take a slightly more hardline view on these situations and probably see single mothers as a drain on tax payers money rather than someone in need of help sadly.

I do suspect the threat is likely just to pressure her to sort her own situation and stay with family rather than a genuine threat.

I've told her to disengage with the social services and we'll try to help her find a private rental in another local authority and then get her back on the social housing list again.

I'm able to be her guarantor as I'm confident she'll look after the home and pay her rent on time. And I'm on a good professional salary.

But even with a salaried guarantor it's not easy to find anywhere.

OP posts:
Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:32

bellac11 · 05/12/2023 08:16

Social care can sometimes fund short term hotel stays but ultimately the duty lies with housing, they have to house her temporarily while they complete a homelessness assessment which looks at their longer term duty

However within that, are all sorts of other options such as renting privately with UC and HB, using the councils rent deposit scheme or asking social care for the rent deposit and first months rent, asking social care to support with the top up under S17

She may have to live in a bed sit in order for her UC/HB to cover the rent, such is life

And thats why the story doesnt make sense

She is already getting benefits and paying rent won't be a problem, as long as its not significantly above the cap.

But getting a rental property now on benefits is really difficult. Even though they're guaranteed their rental income, landlords just don't seem to want people on benefits as tenants.

She'll gladly take a bedsit or one bedroom flat. But she's been refused those properties on the basis that it'll be overcrowded with her and her children.

I'm open to suggestions. We'll be calling up every suitable property we can find today and I'll be attending the viewing with her and offering to be guarantor so we'll see what happens.

OP posts:
Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:43

kkneat · 05/12/2023 07:11

Your friend can apply as homeless to another borough. You don’t need a local connection if you are in fear of violence in the borough you have come from. She then needs to request emergency accommodation from the borough. If it’s a London borough they’ll start saying they’ll place her out of London to put her off. Also has she appealed against the intentionality decision? Her appeal would be on the grounds that she acted in good faith. Also social worker won’t/can’t take the children if she’s caring for them well expect social worker is saying this so that she will take any private rented. She needs some specialist housing advice from as suggested Shelter or Mary Ward legal centre or another legal advice centre. She could ask a solicitor for a free 30 minute consultation needs to find one that specialises in housing law

She's not in London. She's in the South East. I don't want to say the exact local authority to protect her privacy.

She's more than happy to move to another district. But she was in temporary accommodation for a year or more whilst waiting for the council property she was offered.

So can she still claim her safety is at risk when it's been a big gap between the DV situation and now?

I'll gladly take her to another council today to apply homelessness if it's that easy. But are you sure she can do that? Because it's going to make things worse if we apply and they refuse and keep her details on record. We already have another district in mind and are trying to find private accommodation there to build a "local connection" to attain eligibility for a council property and get a fresh start.

So getting refused at that district is going to be counter productive.

But if she can automatically request homelessness there then we might aswell skip the step of finding private accommodation.

So it's important we get accurate advice at this point. It was bad advice that got us here in the first place.

There are a lot of misconceptions about how the system works, and the rules have changed a lot over the last decade also. So the public perception vs the actual rules are quite different. We need solid advice on our next move

OP posts:
swapcicles · 05/12/2023 08:46

Any relatives that have a caravan or similar sitting on the drive?
Obviously not ideal but neither is her current situation.

Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:48

Nicole1111 · 04/12/2023 23:48

Has she officially challenged the decision
that she made herself intentionally homeless? Provided supporting evidence of why she wasn’t operating with full capacity at the time?

She has already appealed and the appeal failed unfortunately

OP posts:
Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:51

swapcicles · 05/12/2023 08:46

Any relatives that have a caravan or similar sitting on the drive?
Obviously not ideal but neither is her current situation.

No nothing like that. We just need to urgently find a solution for housing. People suggesting she sleeps on someone's sofa with her kids and such like, people aren't that helpful unfortunately. Maybe people will let you stay there a few days in an emergency, but most people don't want an entire family bunked up on their front room for extended periods of time. Including the people who gave her the bad advice in the first place and caused this mess.

OP posts:
tomatoontoast · 05/12/2023 08:55

clareykb · 04/12/2023 23:07

The bit about the kids being taken in to care doesn't add up. Social Workers (I am one ) can't just remove children in this situation we would either have to go to court, get police protection (if children are iminently at risk) or section 20 which is a voluntary arrangement that she would need to agree to. For this to happen it would be likely that the children would have been on a child protection plan for several months and Mum would have been told to get legal advice.

I would check exactly what the situation is there so you can support in the best way and so you friend has understood what is happening.

This is correct. Something isn't adding up with your friends story.

Chalkdowns · 05/12/2023 08:55

If you were on the other phone to a charity for an hour and got cut off, then I would try again. Why would you give up on that path?

Bobtheamazinggingerdog · 05/12/2023 08:59

ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:08

The children are not on any protection plan and there is no court order in place to remove the children.

If you're a social worker then you'll be aware that social services have a duty of care towards children that a child cannot be left homeless, but that duty of care does not include the mother.

Go and ask your colleagues what happens in cases of "intentional homelessness" when a mother and children are faced with imminent homelessness.

They offer Foster care as an "interim solution" whilst the mother sorts out accommodation.

Show quote history

No they bloody don't!
where have you heard this nonsense from? We have an entire team who finds and supports homeless families who aren't entitled to housing through normal routes. In 20 years of social work I've never taken children into care because their parent is homeless. It's not possible. Foster care is more expensive than housing for one thing!! It's insane. It would be illegal! It would contravene the child's article 8 rights.

bellac11 · 05/12/2023 09:03

ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:51

No nothing like that. We just need to urgently find a solution for housing. People suggesting she sleeps on someone's sofa with her kids and such like, people aren't that helpful unfortunately. Maybe people will let you stay there a few days in an emergency, but most people don't want an entire family bunked up on their front room for extended periods of time. Including the people who gave her the bad advice in the first place and caused this mess.

Show quote history

People do sofa surf though, unfortunately that is how it is for some families

Cant she live with you?

bellac11 · 05/12/2023 09:04

Plus she probably had other people at the time giving her the right advice and she chose to ignore it. She caused her own mess, not the other people

Bobtheamazinggingerdog · 05/12/2023 09:05

ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:27

I'll be calling shelter with her today, so we'll see what the outcome is of that (thanks to those who suggested shelter).

She was suffering mentally, and that's demonstrable. She went to the gp after she escaped her marriage and was prescribed depression tablets. So that angle may work.

I'll see if we can organise a meeting with the council and social services, and I'll attend also. I'm from a more professional background and might be better at pressuring the authorities. But my feeling is that the council and social services and the MP also are not really that interested in helping her. It's a tory council and constituency so probably take a slightly more hardline view on these situations and probably see single mothers as a drain on tax payers money rather than someone in need of help sadly.

I do suspect the threat is likely just to pressure her to sort her own situation and stay with family rather than a genuine threat.

I've told her to disengage with the social services and we'll try to help her find a private rental in another local authority and then get her back on the social housing list again.

I'm able to be her guarantor as I'm confident she'll look after the home and pay her rent on time. And I'm on a good professional salary.

But even with a salaried guarantor it's not easy to find anywhere.

Show quote history

So because it's a Tory council you think the social workers are all tories who don't care about single mothers or doing their jobs properly? Is that how you actually think it works?

WarningOfGails · 05/12/2023 09:12

I know some refuges would still take her. Then she could go on the housing list again.

Mrsttcno1 · 05/12/2023 09:19

ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 08:43

She's not in London. She's in the South East. I don't want to say the exact local authority to protect her privacy.

She's more than happy to move to another district. But she was in temporary accommodation for a year or more whilst waiting for the council property she was offered.

So can she still claim her safety is at risk when it's been a big gap between the DV situation and now?

I'll gladly take her to another council today to apply homelessness if it's that easy. But are you sure she can do that? Because it's going to make things worse if we apply and they refuse and keep her details on record. We already have another district in mind and are trying to find private accommodation there to build a "local connection" to attain eligibility for a council property and get a fresh start.

So getting refused at that district is going to be counter productive.

But if she can automatically request homelessness there then we might aswell skip the step of finding private accommodation.

So it's important we get accurate advice at this point. It was bad advice that got us here in the first place.

There are a lot of misconceptions about how the system works, and the rules have changed a lot over the last decade also. So the public perception vs the actual rules are quite different. We need solid advice on our next move

Show quote history

OP you’re right I believe, unless things have changed VERY recently. She will need a local connection to be able to apply to a different area so she will need to build that, it doesn’t have to be living there though, a local connection can also be work related so if she can get a job there that could also count as a local connection.

littlegrebe · 05/12/2023 09:20

Are there any non-Tory local councillors? Even if she's not in their ward they may be willing to intervene on her behalf, especially if they sit on any relevant committees (housing, children's services etc).

Current best practice is to bend over backwards to keep children with a parent where it's safe to do so as it's far far better for the kids and also cheaper than foster care even if significant support is required. However, overworked members of staff can occasionally get it wrong or not have the clout to make things happen between departments, and when that happens someone more senior asking questions can help to unblock things. If everything you're saying is correct and there are no other social work concerns this sounds like a very dysfunctional council but it's worth a go.

anunlikelyseahorse · 05/12/2023 09:22

I've told her to disengage with the social services

^
Why would you advise her to do this?

The4teddybears · 05/12/2023 09:24

She has gone through the rigorous homeless procedure and been classed as homeless so received priority to get to the top of the list and be offered somewhere and she refused so they’ve taken her priority away BUT she should still be on the council ordinary housing waiting list She won’t be right at the top of the list but she might get somewhere and I think she should still have an active housing application .
If her homeless officer didn’t fully explain to her the consequences of refusing her homeless property offer then they failed her and I’d use this to form an official complaint to try to get her one more offer. If she did know the consequences and still refused then you have to ask yourself how homeless is she ?

Bobtheamazinggingerdog · 05/12/2023 09:25

Mrsttcno1 · 05/12/2023 09:19

OP you’re right I believe, unless things have changed VERY recently. She will need a local connection to be able to apply to a different area so she will need to build that, it doesn’t have to be living there though, a local connection can also be work related so if she can get a job there that could also count as a local connection.

Show quote history

You don't need a local connection to apply for emergency accommodation due to fleeting DV. Any LA will house under an emergency relief duty and assess whether they have to provide longer term assistance. However that relief duty might be considered discharged because she turned down emergency accommodation in her home LA.

Pancakefam · 05/12/2023 09:32

You think none of these professionals care? Total nonsense.

And disengaging from social services won't be in your friend's best interests. Was it you that gave the bad advice to turn down the flat? And now you feel guilty?

Giving up on refuge so quickly also seems strange.

Deliasdelilahs · 05/12/2023 09:34

If her housing is provided through section 17 of the children's act, then she needs to cooperate fully with them. Any disengagement could result in them terminating their agreement to house the family and seeking legal powers. They are putting pressure on her to resolve the housing situation, as it is expensive for them to keep them there. But so long as she is cooperating with them and not showing any signs of neglect or abuse towards her children, then they are required to provide housing until she can make her own arrangements. It's a fragile situation though, if they say jump she needs to ask how high. And she needs to be finding a long term solution. Housing won't change their policy, they make it very clear now that you cannot say no to an offer of housing that they deem suitable if you're homeless. It's like letting your kids go hungry because you won't work or claim benefits, in a crisis the social worker is going to make sure the kids are fed, but if there is no long term plan they can't just feed the kids indefinitely, that's the parents responsibility and if they can't do it somebody else needs to take that parental role on (foster carer, special guardian etc.)

Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 09:36

bellac11 · 05/12/2023 09:04

Plus she probably had other people at the time giving her the right advice and she chose to ignore it. She caused her own mess, not the other people

Including me actually. I told her she needed to take it. The flat was in a rough area and it was a 4th floor flat and she was concerned about getting the pram up the stairs. And the house had 2 bedrooms but no front room and she was already struggling with mental health, and concerned about the impact of two noisy children with no front room to play in.

But the email from the council was very clear that she could accept it and then apply to change, and that if she didn't take it, all this mess would happen.

Unfortunately others told her that this is just a bluff and that they won't leave her homeless and she needs do stand her ground and they'll offer her something else.

I told her at the time that she was making a big mistake.

But she's here now and we can't turn back the clock, and need to find a solution. She fully accepts responsibility for her bad choice.

I just think victims of domestic abuse, still suffering the psychological impacts of her abusive relationship, deserve to have a second chance when making an administrate mistake based on a false understanding of how the system works.

OP posts:
Deliasdelilahs · 05/12/2023 09:36

I don't think people realise how little safety net there really is now. It only takes one mistake to fall through it and find that there is no longer any help to get back up

Deliasdelilahs · 05/12/2023 09:41

She really needs to search for any housing that will accept her on benefits and move to wherever it is. It would be the same going into a refuge, you could get sent anywhere in the country, so if she was willing to go to refuge that could work too. Yes horrid to move away from support networks etc. but if it keeps her family together

Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 09:43

In response to the questions about engagement with the social services.

I've not obviously suggested she stop answering calls.

But if they're not going to help house her and going to threaten to take away her children then they're not adding any value.

Usually it's been her chasing her social worker and not the other way around. Her social worker seems unhelpful and lazy.

So I'm suggesting she stop contacting them. If they contact her I've suggested she just be polite and let them know she's working on resolving her situation.

She's a capable mother. Kids well taken care of. No drugs or alcohol. Cooks decently etc. Kids are healthy and well looked after.

She needs help getting housed, not her kids being taken away.

If the social services can't help then they're no use in the current situation.

Best thing seems to be to get a private rental in a different local authority. Its been tough to do that in practise so far but hopefully if we persist, we'll get a breakthrough.

She's going to citizens advice again right now so we'll see what they advise. And I've requested we call shelter together afterwards. And I've looked online and found a few good properties so I'll call them myself and offer to be guarantor etc and see if I can have any better luck.

OP posts:
Original poster
ConcernedCitizenUK · 05/12/2023 09:46

Pancakefam · 05/12/2023 09:32

You think none of these professionals care? Total nonsense.

And disengaging from social services won't be in your friend's best interests. Was it you that gave the bad advice to turn down the flat? And now you feel guilty?

Giving up on refuge so quickly also seems strange.

My impression of them was that they didn't care. I'm sure there are others who would be much more helpful. There is probably also an element of this being a lot more common now and services being overstretched. The MP said they had someone else in the same area in the exact same situation when I spoke to her.

The MP did offer to pay first month rent and deposit and offered some emergency accommodation so they've not been totally useless. And social worker gave I think about 4 weeks of hotels now. But that ran out yesterday and they took a much harder line this time and basically told her that she's on her own and the kids are at risk

OP posts: