What does a 62 year old man on just above minimum wage do when served with section 21 eviction notice and cannot afford anything on the current rental market?

[Mxflamingnoravera]

I have a friend aged 62 who has been living in a pretty awful but liveable one bed flat for six years. He works full time in a call centre on little more than minimum wage. The flat was recently assessed by the local authority as part of a new local licensing scheme for private rental properties in our city. It needs a lot of work done on it and today he was served with a section 21 order because (he was told) the builders say it's too much work to have him stay there whilst the place is brought up to standard.

He has looked around an there is nothing under £900 a month in our city. He cannot afford this. He has no car and cycles everywhere. So he needs to live fairly close to his workplace.

He is devastated, he cannot live in a shared house at his age. He is a very private, shy man, has few friends and no family.

I'm at a loss to know how to help him. He cannot live with me, i have no space and do not want a lodger.

There is literally nothing affordable in our city. He is looking at homelessness in January. What happens to people like him?

He doesn't work near the airport, it's Bristol, I've checked.

He is now on the HA list and has bid on two places. He's 10th and 15th on the list. He's going to the council tomorrow . He has a UC interview next week and a meeting with CAB housing team. He is following up every Avenue. Tomorrow is ex forces route.

He wrote to the wrong MP (my fault) his MP is Kerry McCarthy not Karin Smyth. But it's been passed on to Kerry. The local councillor has said to go to the council housing office, so that is tomorrow. It's a full time job finding his way through all this, but he is diligently following up every avenue.

She does know him, but she's not experienced in all the different variations of "shared housing", some of which might indeed be suitable for his specific needs with a small amount of compromise (eg giving up white goods

Something else that someone with kids wouldnt be expected to do.

Great update @Mxflamingnoravera . He’s doing everything right. Lots of helpful info on here, its good he’s had you to filter it for him.

Thanks @Seymour5 it seems only fair given all the wonderful advice from here. He is so diligent if given a list of things to do. Thanks also to do @JenniferBooth for recognising that his singeldom shouldn't mean sharing. I'm mostly ignoring the share comments now, there's no point in arguing this point any longer. As @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia put it it's become like the stop the cheque thread on this matter.

There has been a terrible incident in Bristol today causing 400 people to have to leave their homes. A block of flats has been declared unsafe. I cannot even begin to think of the impact this will have on housing in this city. Those poor people, told to leave now with just a few belongings.

@Mxflamingnoravera Ive just seen this on the news Where are they all going to go. I wonder if the single ones will be expected to share or get rid of their white goods. The shit that is going on in social housing has been going on for years. I used to post about it a lot under another username

If I’d repeatedly said please stop advising shared housing because it isn’t an option, and then had to wade through dozens of posts advising shared housing, I would have been a lot ruder, believe me.

Glad to hear your friend is closer to getting help. Maddening that he could so easily have missed out if he didn't have a competent friend and a brigade of MNers behind him.

Utterly rage-inducing that he's not alone. For all the talk of benefit fraud it is dwarfed by the amount of benefits that are never claimed. Joke being of course that a depressed and homeless friend of OP would cost the state far more than one claiming benefits.

https://policyinpractice.co.uk/closing-19-billion-unclaimed-benefits-gap/

If he does qualify for PIP then he might also be able to get help from access to work which might pay for taxis to enable him to keep working if it’s not possible to cycle.

In fact, it’s worth applying for access to work anyway as you do need to receive PIP. You just need to be disabled which he is.

as you don't need to receive PIP

Fixing that typo. I'm in the middle of the A4W application process. There's a long backlog BTW.

If he gets his housing sorted does that mean we have a "by the power of Mumsnet" bat signal officially?

(Anyone else remember the thunder cats?!)

I remember Thundercats but I thought that "by the power of Greyskull" was from the even older cartoon featuring He-man and She-ra.

Well, no. If he had older children who had flown the nest, he'd receive housing help that is the same as what he can access now.

Preferential arrangements for parents with dependent children are for the benefit of the children, not because we are favoring people who have reproduced.

@Kokeshi123 exactly- which is why sadly if you aren't a higher earner and want to separate - your options are likely to be a bit wider if you have children still at home-especially older children

Anchor housing but they usually have a waiting list

At his age and still working he deserves more respect

@Kokeshi123 People without kids are getting bloody sick and tired of being told to EXPECT less thats the point. This thread is full of it, This man has done nothing wrong , is on minimum wage and yet being treated as "lesser"

AND im willing to bet that if the call centre he works in was open over Christmas AND it was his turn to have Christmas off and if some of the parents on here (telling him to expect less) were his colleugues they would be haranguing him to swap. Id lay money on it!!

People without kids are getting bloody sick and tired of being told to EXPECT less thats the point. This thread is full of it, This man has done nothing wrong , is on minimum wage and yet being treated as "lesser"

No one should be treated as 'lesser' than anyone but surely no one is disagreeing that children should be prioritized when it comes to housing.

Prioritizing children shouldnt mean that a single working person should have to be in a flat share or HMO

Parents on here were even begrudging him a one bedroom flat which is meant for a single person.

That’s pretty good to be 10 -15th on the list
is that with a specific HA
I would imagine it’s because of his age
if he sees any type of over 55 / sheltered come up
then he should bid on it - they come up frequently and often the ones who might be able to take it may not bid

in my experience once the LA have accepted him due to his age and the section 21 from his landlord he will get a over 55 place before any eviction

good luck and he’s lucky to have a good friend

Being 10 or 15th on the list has nothing to do with your specific circumstances, it just means you’re the 10th or 15th person to apply for that particular property.

You are assessed into a band according to need, and then you are allowed to apply for properties within that band. It then shows you where you are on the waiting list for each property you’ve applied for.

Ok, but yesterday you said he worked “way out by the airport” which as I said, isn’t in Bristol.

No it doesn't. Your position in the bidding list completely depends upon your priority status. Obviously the more people who bid for a particular property, the higher the likelihood that many will have higher priority than you and so as more applications come in you may drop down the list. But someone has to be highest priority. One day it may be OP friend.

Also OP if there's no properties in his band/bedroom allowance to use all his bids on he should bid on properties that aren't in his band/bedroom allowance. The HAs aren't always quick to allocate properties, tending to advertise them sometimes before getting them into a fit state to live in. So by the time they're ready to allocate it, all the most eligible people who were high up in the queue may have all been given something else by then and it can go to someone who never thought they'd get it because they were 30th on the list or because they're in the wrong banding for that property or because it has more bedrooms than they need. So tell him he should use all his allowed bids each week, even on property he thinks he's got no chance of getting, if there's not enough truly suitable ones to bid on. Because you never know.