Friend with housing / violence issues

[Gahgahdoublegah]

I've namechanged for this, as I'm not sure if my friend posts on MN.

I have a friend I'll call L. L is a single mum, with a 6 month old DD. She rents a room the other side of the country from me.

She and the homeowner have fallen out, and she's pretty much confined to her room. The homeowner has now started to threaten her. L does not have family and is not entitled to council housing. The baby's father is not contactable.

I've given her details for WA and Shelter to see if they can help her get out.

I can't think of anything else I can do - she is coming for a visit soon, but can only have her here for a weekend.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Is/was the homeowner a stranger prior to L renting the room, or are they a friend/relative?

Is this an informal arrangement with the homeowner or does L have a tenancy agreement or a rent book? If she pays the rent by cheque or direct debit she will have proof of payment .

Is/was the homeowner a stranger prior to her renting the room or are they a friend/relative?

Why is L not entitled to council housing? Who's told her this?

why is she not entitled to council housing/

Again, why is she not entitled to council housing?

Can she record the things he is saying?

shei s not entitled to council housing as she is not homeless

i went to the council and said this, that i have a young baby and a toddler, I am living in someone elses house in a rented room, that they are making it hard for me to cook for my kids, deliberately going in to bathroom and taking ages when i need to get ready for work etc.

they said they would write them a letter and that is all they can do.

Ok so, would she want to move closer to family? If yes you can apply for social housing in a different area if you can prove you have a local connection.

I also think your friend should go and chat to the police for advice.

There has to be a way out of this. She can register for SH anyway you don't have to be homeless you just end up way down the list but it's a start. I think she needs to get prof advice from shelter or WA etc. she can't stay in an unsafe environment with a baby.

Might be worth approaching social services too. They can help with banding too.

Your friend needs to persevere

I'm confused. Have you changed back to your usual name? If so, are you saying that you went to your local authority to seek advice for a friend who lives 'on the other side of the country' and whose la may have different housing policies to your own?

If you are the OP, or if the OP is reading this, can you please answer the questions in my post of 21.17 above and elaborate on what threats the homeowner is making to L.

Why can't she just go rent a room in another shared house ?

That's a good point. She can give notice surely?

IF the homeowner is threatening to harm her she should go to the police: threatening anyone is illegal. If the homeowner is threatening to evict her, then she should go to CAB/Shelter and seek advice on housing. Again, it's illegal for landlords to threaten tenants and mistreat them in order to get them to move out; if the landlord wants her to move then s/he needs to give proper notice in writing.

More information is needed before any considered advice can be given but if the homeowner lives on the premises and gives your friend a letter asking her to vacate her room on a given date, she can take it to her local authority's housing department which has a statutory obligation to provide accomodation for her and her dc from the date she becomes homeless.

It should be noted that the accomodation provided may be temporary and may take the form of b&b or a hostel pending an offer of permananent social/council housing.

As sgb has said, if the homeowner is threatening L she is best advised to call the police.

She won't be entitled to emergency housing at the moment but anyone can apply to go on local authority housing register at any time, if she makes an application now it's easier to update if/when she is homeless than it is to apply from scratch.

As Izzy said if she is homeless the housing authority have to rehouse her in temporary accomodation before finding her a permanent home.

Yes she should call the police.
Recording his behaviour will help to bump her up the housing list, will mean she has evidence if the situation becomes more serious and could even mean the council consider this to be homelessness/emergency and rehouse her.

if she can get out to visit you she can get out to inform police of the threats and take it from there. when she comes to se eyou take her to polcie station and report.

there is no reason for her to continue living there f she feels unsafe.
she can either rent another room or go via police to some kind of emergency shlter.

she can ask shelter for advice about recovering deposits etc later - but the threats need to be reported to police or she will have no vevidence.

if life there is unbearable she needs to move out and quick. what is making her stay there? it doesnt make much sense.

Thanks everybody for your comments. My friend has been speaking with a homeless charity and they are helping her. I'll try and answer some of your questions.

Local council say they have no duty to help because she moved there recently.

The landlord was a friend; I don't know if there's a contract.

There is no family to call on.

She can't move out because she's got no money.

I'm not sure I'm getting the whole story (long, dramatic backstory to L's life) and I agree it doesn't make much sense. It doesn't make much sense to me either.

Thanks again

If the landlord is a friend who is 'putting her up' rather than renting a room to her then she is vulnerably housed, as the landlord can quite legally tell her to go at any time. It sounds like she needs to talk to Shelter/CAB/local council about things like housing benefit and deposit schemes. Is she generally 'vulnerable' eg MH issues, addictions? Or is she very young?

the housing wont help her unless she is legally evicted.

they wont consider homeless as she has a place.

a letter wont do the trick, they will tell her to ignore it and stay anyway. They did this to me.

The only way is to actually turn up at the housing office with suitcases and refuse to move.

Alternatively, contact the family support worker at the local children's centre who will be able to get involved and support housing applications, liase with other agencies etc.

Also if she has links in the place she used to live, like family she can apply there.

Ok makes more sense now - she has no local connection where she is now, that's why she isn't entitled. Got you. But tricky then. Where has she moved from? Local connection there? I think you need to be in a new area 2 years before you can claim housing.

Is she a care leaver? If yes then if under 25 she's entitled to help. You can pm me if you don't want to post publicly - I'm a SW btw maybe I can help

The council has put her in a BnB, so she is safe for now. Thanks everyone.

It may be that the local authority that's providing B&B will refer her back to the la where she has the longest ties but, nevertheless, as stated here there is a statutory obligation for mothers & children accomodated if they are homeless.

I suspect that the homeowner in this case was a man she met on the internet with whom she had some personal relationship over and above that of a landlord/tenant.

I'm glad she's safe and hope that your friendship doesn't become unduly strained by her misadventures.

Correction: to be accomodated if they are homeless.