Panorama: Britain's Hidden Homeless Crisis

[expatinscotland]

NOW!

As tragic as this homelessness was, the thing that really struck me was the ease that this happened, the hopelessness and despair of those caught up and the fact that it was a bit bigger than people being punished for not meeting rent commitments.

I feel so :( for the people in this programme. I hope it all works out for them.

I am so thankful to have a home for me and the dc's. There but for the grace of God go I.

The counicel "lost" my housing appacalition form so while waiting to.be evicted i couldnt even bid for council housing. Even when i was able to get a house through private rental which my parents paid for which i paid back the stress of it all caused nightmares for months and still now 7 years on i dont feel safe

A sobering and unsettling program.

This is why I'm obsessed with saving... Apparently I need to relax
A little bit

Looking online Patricia paid 54k for 40 Fuller Road, Dagenham 15 years ago. 3 years ago the house next door sold for 162k.

If she had £100k equity, why didn't she sell before she was evicted? I know she had cancer but if it was a choice between losing everything and selling for a profit wouldn't her friends - who now have to accommodate her - help her sell?

And if she didn't have all that equity then why not? Did she keep re-mortgaging to withdraw the equity?

Sleeping Yes, we obsessively save, we have 24 months worth of mortgage payments in the bank but I still shop at Aldi and Poundland to keep saving more. My family think I'm barking mad!

and then there is a thread tonight on MN called Mortgage Free, will you ever be

I feel sick, I really do

She may have lost the equity in the divorce.

The couple in the £500K house, the caps may have been too low for them to stay in the area where the girl was going to school and doing exams, but in that case, then maybe to house her with the sister and the three of them move into a two-bed flat within the caps.

I wish we had that!! Our savings are going to start again in January.
We used ours to keep me off work for the maximum time possible on maternity leave earlier this year...

I don't care how 'stupid' the family who had to leave the big lovely house were, they had worked hard to get it - albeit not perhaps thinking ahead as much as they could have - would I have ? probably not... and it is still horrible that they had to leave, just as much as the six child family had to leave. It's not a competition - your home is your home and whatever the circumstances are, it's still shit :(

still a while behind

I know, we are very lucky Sleeping. We have a small house and as our income has increased as DH has progressed in his career and we have just stayed in our little house whilst friends have moved into bigger and more impressive houses. We have just maintained our standard of living, which is comfortable, despite his pay rises instead of getting use to more money and buying more expensive things. So every extra penny we get goes into savings and then once a year we do a mortgage overpayment.

It means we don't fit in very well with our friends though, they all have fancy houses and wear Jigsaw and Reiss and we are in a teeny terrace and still wear George@Asda but I love the security.

This was so sad and it could so easily be us. We are one pay check from being in this situation it is so scary. Wa make a game of making forts from duvets because we can't afford heating but I feel so blessed to have this flat. I hope these families and the many more like them find somewhere safe and dry to call home

I feel like crying after that. I feel sorry for all of them, but in particular, Kevin, as he was so alone :(, and Patricia. I really hope he's ok in his shared flat. Shame on Barclays Bank for evicting someone going through cancer treatment .

Yes, Patricia may well have lost the equity in the divorce.

Banks often still refuse to allow the 'owner' to sell when in even the slighest perceived negative equity. The banks get their money back by attaching an alleged debt to the previous owner up to 12 years down the line, often when they are just getting back on their feet.

This alleged debt will include everything - arrears, cleaning the house after repossession, maintenance after repossession, changing the locks, etc etc. Bloody awful.

I missed the first bit.
What happened to Kevin for him to be homeless?

Kevin took a job as an investment banker in the US, moondog. He lost it, and his marriage and all his money. He was sent back to the UK by a charity that paid his flight.

He was an investment banker in London, then went and set up a business on Wall Street but he went bust when the credit crunch/recession hit and then hoping it would make things better he invested his personal money into his business hoping to keep it going but it still failed and he lost everything. A charity paid for his flight home to the UK and he slept in the park

Blimey.
He really was an investment banker then?
What happened to his wife and money?

The wife and money are gone.

Very sad programme.
It's a bloody scandal how expensive property in Britain is although suspect some of those people didn't help themselves.
Used to work in council housing dept. years ago and the blithe disregard to rents and arrears was astounding.

Kevin just showed up and then had to sleep rough while they ruled him a UK resident again and he could get JSA.

It's a real "there go I for the grace of god" moment as you never know what may be round the corner.