Panorama: Britain's Hidden Homeless Crisis

[expatinscotland]

NOW!

Then this government is in big trouble, because it'll mean plenty of people who have mortgages will lose their homes.

I have never done btl but the property people I know who have are all trying to ditch them which usually means something!

It was a shocking and appalling watch.
I have a morbid fear of debt and mistrust of financial institutions, largely due to my mother being sold an endowment mortgage which was "guaranteed" to be the best option, at a time when she was v vulnerable (newly divorced, suddenly very hard up, needing a home for her children quickly etc) - she believed what she was told about interest rates continuing to go up, the endowment increasing in value etc and ended up at the end of the mortgage term in a real financial mess. Incredibly luckily by then she had met my stepfather who bailed her out.
But if you are a financial risk-taker - which since the 1980s a succession of governments have actively encouraged us to be - then I think you are potentially doomed. We really need to educate children about how to take risks: which risks are worth taking, which should be avoided at all costs. Really teach them to think through the real impact of the decisions they tske in life.
With regards to the family of 6 - I really don't think Panorama showed the story from both sides. Obviously a one-room flat for a family of 6 is completely inappropriate BUT I don't believe there wasn't more back-story.
Kevin I think is probably less vulnerable than some posters suggest. He seemed quite Buddhist in his calm ability to accept things, but also able to talk calmly and reasonably. I get the feeling he is more savvy than his appearance would suggest, and reckon once he spreads his net wider than investment banking he will get a job.
The family of four burying their heads in the sand really reminded me if the character in the Full Monty who doesn't tell his wife he's list his job and thinks she won't notice. Maybe they consider themselves optimists, while the rest of us wonder at their stupidity?
Patricia. Don't know. Appalling. There but for the grace of God and all that....
And it is truly obscene, the number of homes that stand empty while these people are forced into squalor. What happened to that initiative Philip Spencer had about notifying councils of empty homes?

I cannot believe they placed the lady having chemo in a filthy bedsit after she had worked and paid her way all her life. Apart from the moral and human aspect she could have contracted an infection that could kill her while her immunity is so low . This country is a disgrace at times

Can somebody expain (because i dont know) why the lady with cancer couldnt have her mortgage covered by hb? I thought that was what happened if you signed on or were nt working through illness?

It was very enlightening, how quickly situations can change.

I do think it's so important when times are good to put money aside for a rainy day. I was brought up with a culture of savings, from my parents, and when I was made redundant 3 years ago, my savings really did 'save me'. It meant I could pay the bills. So glad I didn't treat myself to expensive handbags, or extravagant holidays, but put the money in building society.

When my BIL and SIL bought a house, they both had good jobs, and had lived at home rent free for a very longtime. BIL was 32, and SIL 28. They had 100k in savings for a deposit. It was mainly from BIL, who'd not been to university and worked full-time since he was 16. I think SIL had managed to save 40k though. She earned just over 30k a year, and lived at in-laws, and as they are well off, was not expected to contribute to her living cots.

They were offered some insane mortgages, but bought a house for 210k. They wanted a house that if one of them lost their job, or if SIL decided to have a couple of years off work with children, the mortgage could be paid on one income. Their mortgage payments have since come down with interest rates, and they have been overpaying for last few years, to be mortgage free, as soon as possible.

I do think it's so important not to overstretch yourself, and to try and avoid the double income trap.

www.amazon.co.uk/The-Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Mothers/dp/0465090907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355480277&sr=8-1

I did think the family of four, had overstretched themselves with a 100% 500k mortgage, and they still seemed to have lots of stuff, including a nice car. Everything bar the essentials should have been sold, including his iPhone and the trampoline in garden. I personally would not bother with Christmas, if it meant getting a mortgage payment in. Also I think you should always try and sell your property, before the banks repossess. Even if you only have enough leftover after costs for a deposit on a rental.

We read about families living in luxury on benefits, but none of them were offered a council house. The help they received, after paying taxes most of their lives was appalling.

Also, the family of six, why were the children not in school? This made me cross.

It was really thought provoking and I would really like to know the truth behind the back stories.
It has already been said but IMO one of the most important lessons we need in schools today would be financial management, including how to fill in forms, the importance of keeping documentation safe. The difference between loans/leases/hire purchase etc. What interest rates really mean.
The family of 6 obviously had degrees of difficulty in managing their daily family tasks. How did they slip through when council knew they were not managing their family affairs, was there not a social worker involved as the mum seemed in need of guidance.
The family of 4 - well we don't really know but were they actually living in the house they could really afford or was it the one they thought they should have ? OK he had previously had a business with a million £ turnover, but how much actual profit was it making ?
Patricia, - this was dreadful, but I do not understand fully as we do not know the background as to how much her loan actually was. She had no income as far as I could see due to her illness. Yet she was looking after her grandchildren whilst her adult children were working ( 1 of these adult children picked up the child in a nearly new Range Rover) - why were they not paying Mum a fair wage for her services, especially when they knew of the circumstances.

'Can somebody expain (because i dont know) why the lady with cancer couldnt have her mortgage covered by hb? I thought that was what happened if you signed on or were nt working through illness?'

It's for interest-only. The HB pays the interest on the mortgage. If Barclay's did not allow her to switch to interest-only, then she'd be stuffed.

'Yet she was looking after her grandchildren whilst her adult children were working ( 1 of these adult children picked up the child in a nearly new Range Rover) -'

That car wasn't hers. She was standing in front of it as she was being filmed and it was parked in the road.

I was wondering if that family may have been evicted for anti-social behaviour as well as rent arrears, as I thought it was very, very hard to be evicted from a council house. I also couldn't understand why they weren't in school, and their rather wild behaviour was demonstrating their boredom. Maybe I got this wrong, but I thought they said it was the eldest girl who broke the window that led to them being evicted from the first temporary home, and she looked almost grown-up.

All that said, I still feel sorry for them, as the stress of living like that takes its toll, and if DS and I were in a 1 bed flat, cooped up together all day, not going to school, you wouldn't see me at my best either!

I think they were waiting to find a school, but id have put them in any school just to give them some stability. Got the impression that that situation was down to their parents' fecklessness but then again, the family with 100% mortgage were just as iresponsible, just a more respectable veneer. Why did they not sell up, did they gave neg equity?

mollymole - yes, I wondered whether the children could have helped more. We didn't hear about their situation, but I would hate to see my mum's home repossessed.

The dates on all the evictions were mid-August which would explain why the kids weren't at school.

drop in the ocean, but I note the family of 6 kids stopping for takeaway drinks, kid with an x-box, mum with an i-phone (yes, you need a mobile but a £10 basic one on payg will work just as well) and eldest smoking at £££ a packet. Lots more backstory we didn't see, but I think there is some serious money management incompetence here. Is there help for that? Looks like dad was working all hours but was powerless against the financial outflow.

I was also thinking about Patricia, and if she could have sold the house herself. That does assume that she found a buyer, and that she got all the money - but that would then leave her ineligible for benefits (Too much savings) and without enough to buy anywhere else without leaving the area, which didn't look practical.

I am feeling really guilty for all the money i waste on chocolate croissants and the like. Those poor children, all of them.

Patricia was pretty screwed.

There is a good chance she would have had to increase her mortgage to buy out her ex. Thus having minimal equity and no income making any deal with her bank impossible.

Its frightening that neither kevin or the lady with cancer had anybody to put them up, nobody. Its heartbreaking.

Can someone help with a point about Patricia and her property please? They said she and her husband bought it from the council for around £54,000. At the most recent valuation it was £185,000. Why wouldn't she have tried to sell it before eviction. Even if she sold it for £25,000/£30K under valuation she'd still have paid off her mortgage and had money in her pocket.

It is the same with the family of the big house, why didn't they try and sell before? Ok, they might not have walked away with much but better than being evicted surely?

Unless I am missing something very obvious?

I also couldn't understand why on earth Patricia's family were not helping. Perhaps if they had paid her for the childcare she provided she might not have lost her home. How could her daughter not do more?

It looks like Kevin had a blip, but also shows how the US system works - if you are penniless you truly are penniless .....

Family of 6, I think all the swearing indicates that there was definitely more to this than meets the eye.

Very thought provoking pr organ.

I think the family had negative equity? Bought house for 500k, 100% mortgage. Patricia, i dont mnow. Obvious thing would have been to sell up ages ago, she had so much equity. Maybe she kept plumdering the equity, my inlaws kept doing that. They are now totally fucked

I think the point that everbody is missing is that these were just four cases of people who were homeless or threatened with homelessness, whereas in reality there are hundreds (probably thousands) of Patricia's out there, ditto for the family of 6, and the couple with the 2 girls whose home was being re-possessed by the Building Society for non payment of mortgage.

Kevin I think is a different matter. To be honest I didn't believe in Kevin's story - how on earth do we know why he had to flee America and IF he was an investment banker, then I feel even less sympathy because these are the people that got this country into the mess it is in, though both Labour and Tory did not regulate the banks as they should have done. I didn't believe he was sleeping rough or having no food. I think we forget that there is a camera crew following these people around, and a lot of what we see is "staged" (e.g. Kevin turning up for food but he got there too late and said with a grin "the cupboard was bare" - that's crap - he would have been fed by the camera crew and found somewhere to sleep.)

This programme was filmed over 12 months and so they take miles and miles of film and then edit most of it out to show the bits they want to show. The night shelter with the drug users was one bit they wanted to show with the bloke in charge admitting that the people there had issues with drugs and that's the way it was.....and that's the reality.

As far as Patricia is concerned, obviously when she became ill she couldn't work and fell into mortgage arrears and as expat (I think) has pointed out the DHSS will only pay the interest on the mortgage and for a limited period. Yes it was hard on her, and for thousands of others like her, but you can't really blame Barclays. They don't have the resources to treat every case individually and even if they did, everyone would have a sad story to tell, and what then. It wouldn't be long before people were up in arms about "people being let off their mortgage payments because they are ill."

Someone mentioned Patricia in a filthy bedsit, but it wasn't filthy at all. In fact the Housing Authority had no responsbility to re-house Patricia at all because she would be deemed as intentionally homeless and not in priority need (no children) so the fact that they offered her a shared home was probably just for the programme and in reality this would not have happened. I think she always knew she was going to live with friends or family.

Re the big family. Yes there would have been quite a long back story and the programme was out to demonstrate how the law works. They had been found intentionally homeless probably for rent arrears, but there werein priority need because of the children. The duty of the LHA is to provide accommodation on a temporary basis, and much too small for the family, but then they had to let them stay there because of the children. I'm not sure about the bit about the bloke getting a job driving buses, unless it was to show that he was what Osborne calls a striver but it still having difficulty making ends meet, but somehow I don't think the right wing BBC would have wanted that. Again there are hundreds and thousands of families like this out there and no one knows about them. In fact many are worse off because they are put up in B & Bs (always overcrowded and kids running riot, with parents who are defeated by the system). Some B & Bs only allow people back in at about 5.00pm.

Re the family with 2 girls. Well every night on the news we hear of hundreds of people being made redundant and self employed people lose their businesses (as was the case with them) and we don't think much about it - but these people will eventually lose their homes because they can't pay the rent or mortgage. They were a bit more "up market" so had relatives to put them up.

Back to Kevin - as he said the LHA had no responsibility to house him because he was single and homeless. SO how was it, he did get housed in a nice looking house which was shared. And then - he is off to get a job as an investment banker - if he is to be believed. And IF he is then he will not be giving a fig for homeless people. I don't understand why people felt so sorry for him - was it because he smiled and talked nicely - I don't believe anyone sleeping rough with a few quid to their name would be behaving like that.

I think this has demonstrated how most people are totally unaware of what is going on in this country regarding homelessness, and that's why they are shocked. I blame the tabloid press and the Daily Mail who don't want people to know about this stuff as they are cosying up to the tory government, as we have see over recent months. The Guardian will tell you the truth.

One poster wondered why a social worker wasn't involved with the mum of 6 as she needed guidance.......FGS what sort of world do these people live in - don't they know that social workers are on their knees and can't protect abused children because of the way this govt has slashed the budgets of all public services......

OK I'll shut up now.............

I don't think you need a social worker to help you with debt issues. I think there are plenty of other sources, especially if you have internet access. Which anyone with a library nearby does.

When interest rates rise, a rise in homelessness will be not only from those whose homes are repossessed but also those in private rented housing whose BTL landlords cannot pay the mortgage or walk away from the property, meaning it, too, is repo'd.

Nana I find your attitude to Kevin appalling.Soooo because he was once well off he deserves no sympathy and is lying.Lovely attitude!!!I doubt very much he slept rough or spent several nights in a drug infested hostel in the same shirt for the hell of it.

Maybe Kevin had good references which helped to get him a room.In the States if you're down and out you're in the shit.I for one would do anything in my power to get back to Blighty if I got into financial difficulties in the US.

Patricia is the one I felt truely sorry for.

Family with 2 girls should have moved and sold their house long ago.

Family of 6 sorry but perhaps they could have sold their Iphone and the XBox to cover their rent arrears. Definitely more to it in that case however I think it's dreadful that nobody in authority has done anything about the dc re school and enduring such a stressful,miserable life.

I watched this last night and I've kept thinking about it today. I'm still so sad for Patricia - I know she was in mortgage arrears - but her situation was so not her fault (marriage breakdown, cancer, not able to work as result of the cancer), and she was so gracious about it all. Poor woman

The others I had a lot less sympathy for (not including the kids - all of whom I felt sorry for - particularly the ones who weren't even in school - their only hope of escaping the kind of situation their feckless parents were in).

Kevin and the couple with the £500k house had clearly made plenty of money in the past and made some very bad decisions. When the Storeys were evicted and he drove off in a bloody Lexus I thought that said it all. They had clearly not done everything they could to save their house. I'd have sold both cars and got a really cheap little runaround, eBayed a ton of stuff from the house, taken in a lodger, sold that house and rented instead, etc. They were living in cloud cuckoo land.

And the family of six with the iPhone, the X-BOX and teenage smoker. There was clearly a lot more to that story than was said, but I'm afraid I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the parents. Not bothering to provide the LA with the necessary paperwork to keep them in their previous home, leading to them being evicted? That's just pathetic and shows a total lack of motivation to do anything at all to help themselves or their four children. Poor kids