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?

Agree completely.

It's very sad for OP's friend but there no obligation for statutory services to facilitate anyone choosing anything now. There's no options to pick from, no better choice. It's what you're offered, or nothing.

Yes, this is incredibly likely. Tell your friend just to find another single mother who she is willing to leave her kids with while she magically finds a night shift job, thus solving all of her problems.

This. I’m sorry for the situation she’s landed up in, but she’s not even helping herself. They’ve literally tried to give her a suitable flat to put a roof over her children’s heads and she refused because she wanted something ‘better’. What an earth was she expecting? She’s chosen homelessness over a home for her kids. And now she’s got her friends trying to contact anyone who may listen when she’s already screwed herself out of any entitlement. There’s so many people in her situation that you don’t get second chances for turning your nose up at what you’ve been offered. She needs to do what millions of other single parents with babies and toddlers have to do, find an ofsted registered childminder where she can get the majority of the costs paid for her, get a job and find a private rental and make up the shortfall for the housing element she’s entitled to. I had to work with a small child, baby and toddler and make up the £400 shortfall on a property. I’m sure she’ll manage with a 2 year old and a £200 shortfall. She’s out of other options at this point.

She seems VERY entitled. I doubt she will go to work like the rest of us have too.

She'll gladly take a property even with a shortfall on housing benefit. I don't even mind lending her £200 a month to make up the shortfall.

The problem is no landlord is taking her.

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

Please stop with this. You haven’t spoken to the Tory MP. You spoke to their assistant and as far as I can see they tried to join up SS and the council to try to work together to help your friend

The only one making your single parent friend homeless is your single parent friend

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

Probably because they don’t get guaranteed rental income.
The rent part of HB is paid to the tenant and if the tenant chooses it is then paid to the landlord.
The council does not automatically pay landlords directly.
I agree with others that something isn’t adding up

It was spelled out to your friend exactly what would happen if she turned down a suitable council property. It is also very easy to lookup what would happen. So it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise to her when she turned it down regardless of what her friends and family said

Where was your friend living when she turned down the property

Asking for help from charities etc might help her but at this point she has to deal with the issues she has in front of her and needs to be proactive in getting a roof over her and her children’s heads

If she can’t afford the area she is in for a private rental then she has to find an area she can afford.

She also needs to find out what is the councils policy on refusing their offer and find out the time frame to get herself back on the waiting list for a council property in the area. It could be 6 months, 12 months etc to get herself to be seen again

This all started because she wasn’t proactive in trying to get a roof over her head and not listening to those offering to put a roof over her head.

Either the flat offered wasn’t suitable or it was. If you are facing homelessness then you can’t be picky with what you are being offered

@Ihatethenewlook
'This. I’m sorry for the situation she’s landed up in, but she’s not even helping herself. They’ve literally tried to give her a suitable flat to put a roof over her children’s heads and she refused because she wanted something ‘better’. What an earth was she expecting? She’s chosen homelessness over a home for her kids. And now she’s got her friends trying to contact anyone who may listen when she’s already screwed herself out of any entitlement. There’s so many people in her situation that you don’t get second chances for turning your nose up at what you’ve been offered. She needs to do what millions of other single parents with babies and toddlers have to do, find an ofsted registered childminder where she can get the majority of the costs paid for her, get a job and find a private rental and make up the shortfall for the housing element she’s entitled to. I had to work with a small child, baby and toddler and make up the £400 shortfall on a property. I’m sure she’ll manage with a 2 year old and a £200 shortfall. She’s out of other options at this point.'

I completely agree with you.

The woman has got herself in this mess and her friend the op is blaming it all on her not thinking straight because of her previous situation, which is either patronising or the woman is manipulating her to do all the work in Sinai g her a home. A house that is as a flat wasn't good enough for her.

The op needs to take off the rose tinted spectacles regarding her friend.

Because she’s made herself a poor choice for a tenant. No one is going to want a jobless tenant whose housing benefit isn’t even going to cover the rent, and is relying on handouts from her friends to afford to pay her landlord. It’s ludicrous. The amount of support available in this country is astounding, and I can’t get my head around how people act so entitled towards it, especially when they’re like your friend and don’t even contribute to the cost of it via tax etc. She’s come from an admittedly horrible situation, but has instantly had a roof put over her and her children’s heads via emergency accommodation, has been offered permanent social housing, is getting money given to her via benefits, has the opportunity there to access almost completely free childcare for her to be able to work, plus offered a huge amount of money that will cover the majority of a private rental, but is refusing to make the effort for any of it. She wants her friends to get all kinds of services involved so she can have another chance for another council house because she didn’t fancy the first one. For her to get a private rental she needs to prove she can afford it. So she needs to get a job instead of handouts from her friends on top of the £800 monthly housing benefit

The problem she’s going to find is that there’s a bit of a shortage of available places for rent at the moment, so landlord’s can be as picky as they want to be.

We live up North and the situation is the same here. My friend and her partner are looking for a new place to rent and even with a good history/references and 2 full time jobs they have been turned down 5+ times in the last 2 months. There are so many people going for each place that the landlord can just choose who they want, so I can imagine if it’s anything like that where you are then your friend is going to struggle.

One thing she could possibly do (again I believe this is still the case, unless it has recently changed), is it’s possible to fill in a rent direct form which means that the housing benefit element will be paid direct to the landlord, and if you genuinely are willing to pay the excess then put that in writing with the landlord. That way your landlord IS guaranteed income, without this the money would be paid to your friend and it is then for her to pay it to landlord so he’s not guaranteed anything.

She doesn't mind working. But how is she supposed to work when her youngest child only gets 15 hours in nursery a week. 15 hours working isn't going to pay her rent.

Paying for additional childcare is insanely expensive.

She wants to better herself and work in future. She's just trying to get on her feet right now. She's not planning to be on benefits forever.

But any one of us could find ourselves in a similar situation where we need state support. That's why the safety net is there.

She just needs a plan on what to do next. Telling her "go get a job" isn't helping. She has no formal qualifications, a bit of experience doing menial work that won't pay more than minimum wage, and a child that's only in nursery 15 hours a week, an authority that won't house her, and we're in the middle of a rental and housing crisis right now.

It's not as easy as "go get a job".

ConcernedCitizenUK

Why did your friend have a SW in the first place if there were no concerns about her parenting.

You do need to keep your story straight though. Is the Tory MP trying to take her children off her and taking a hardline because she is a single parent or are they offering to help her by paying the first months rent for her out of their own pocket.

The 2 scenarios are at odds with one another

Yes she'll happily have her rent go direct to the landlord and my offer is genuine if it's two or three hundred a month. Can't domuch more than that. But that should take her up to £1100 a month which should get her something.

But she needs a landlord willing to take her on.

Would this offer of a direct debit be made via the letting agent?

On the childcare front if she gets a minimum wage job universal credit will cover 85% of childcare costs. Much more than the 15 hours she currently gets.

It is a part of the system which dare I say it works well though I don’t feel it is widely known about.

I completely understand that the immediate issue here is housing but another short term housing solution plus finding a minimum wage job could put her in a much better position in 2 months time.

My story is perfectly straight thanks as it's a completely true story, and I have all the evidence and happy to share some screenshots with PII removed.

It's not at odds to say "well if you can find a property we can help you with first month deposit and rent, but you've made yourself homeless and the council have said that they'll refuse to reverse their decision, and if you can't find anything then your children will need to go into temporary Foster care until you find something".

And social workers do not only involve themselves when children are at risk. You clearly don't know many domestic abuse victims. When you go to the police regarding domestic abuse, social services are given a referral and offer to help the victim with moving forwards as a support system. It doesn't mean the children are flagged automatically as "at risk". The social worker is an adult social worker who's supposed to be helping her.

You seem to want to pick holes a lot. Might it be because of your political persuasion or your views on single mothers or domestic abuse victims?

OK that seems like an option. She drives and her car would be suitable to use as a taxi and she was thinking about becoming a taxi driver. I doubt she'd make huge amounts of money but if she can get daycare whilst she works then she might be able to make enough to secure a property. She'd have to do a bit of running around moving her child from nursery to daycare but would taxi driving is fairly flexible.

Would this option be available to someone self employed and would accountants be able to help with this?

Edit: also is childcare only 9 to 5 or can she also get it in evenings? I can talk to her about taxi driving but my understanding is that it tends to make the most money on evenings and weekends, not 9 to 5.

Doing this may help her convince a landlord to take a chance on her (it shouldn’t be so difficult, but unfortunately this does just seem to be the state of things at the moment), if you’re willing to commit yourself to £x per month and she is willing to sign the form. It would also be a massive help if MP/whoever is able to give first month, deposit etc.

You do seem to have to really sell yourself to get approved for rent now so it’s worth just playing the game on that front, that’s all you can do, minimise the risk for the landlord as much as possible. You can let the letting agent know of this offer yes :)

With taxi driving, remember there are costs associated with starting that- it’s going to cost her about £500 to become a taxi driver, does she have that money? She’d also then be responsible for her own taxes or she’d have to pay an accountant.

Re. The childcare, I think she’d probably struggle to find gov funded childcare for an evening.

She’d be better off going into her local pub and asking for a job there, often weekly pay so less cash flow issue, no cost to her to start meaning she can spend on childcare at first. Also having a contract of employment will be much more helpful for her when applying for properties than self employed taxi in terms of stability.

This story is weird.
You said she has a baby in a pram, they do not get 15 hours child care, or has this baby evolved into a toddler?

Where are the family who advised her to refuse the flat?
How does she afford a car but not a bnb?

No nurseries aren’t in the evening or weekends!

Id be contacting every available flat in the SE if this was me, not moaning about MPs and social workers who are doing their jobs.

Hi everyone. Just an update. I've managed to find a bedsit that has offered a viewing this week, in a different district also.

I'll speak to her about it when she's out of citizens advice.

Will she be able to get the housing benefit component of her benefit for a bedsit when she has 2 kids? Will they ask her how big the house is and will they refuse to pay housing benefit on an overcrowded house?

The bedsit will be available jan 1st and he seemed open to benefits. £800 a month plus £200 for bills.

I'll go to the viewing with her and bring my pay slips and ID and try to convince them it'll be a secure income and tenancy and offer to be a guarantor.

She may need to accept relocation elsewhere, somewhere cheaper, or needs to find a job and childcare like most families now, uc will part fund childcare if a low income

The social worker is an adult social worker ??? So your friend is disabled or otherwise vulnerable enough to meet the threshold for an allocated adult social worker? Adult services have no obligation to house children or parents under section 17. You're also incorrect about adult social services (!) being referred to to support women fleeing DV. Children's social services only get involved where children are at risk - even if only at risk of homelessness. I'm sorry but you really don't have the full picture here even if you think you do.

The housing element of UC will be paid up to the maximum entitlement whatever kind of property she rents.

The bedsit will be available jan 1st and he seemed open to benefits. £800 a month plus £200 for bills.

Is the landlord aware that she is planning to live in the bedsit with two children?

The story isn't weird. Some people are just trolls or triggered by single mothers needing help clearly.

As I mentioned, she was in emergency accommodation for over a year. I think maybe even 2 years altogether as she remained in her emergency accommodation whilst she appealed the decisions etc and didn't leave until she was physically evicted from the emergency accommodation.

Children can require a pram up to 2 or 3 years old.

I've met the child and he's like a toddler who can walk but not mission around long distances, and obviously he's been growing throughout this long process.

He's currently at the age where they get like 15 hours in school but not the full amount. Her other son is 2 years older and gets the full amount of time in school.

And she lives right on the breadline with her car. She doesn't have a single penny more than her current financial commitments.

She can pay the odd night in a bnb but not weeks and months whilst she resolves the situation

I have the full picture.

As I said. She was offered a social worker when she went to the police, and it was for the intent of helping her get herself sorted and moving on. Not because the children were flagged as at risk.

I don't know if she's classed as an adult social worker, I assume that's the term used for social workers that are helping adults get themselves sorted but I might have got the terminology wrong.

Its not because she has any disability or anything like that. She's fully mentally stable and functional apart from some depression tablets she was prescribed during this ordeal because of the toll all of this is taking on her. But that was after she engaged the police and social services.