EVICTED on BBC1 now

[7swansaswimmingup]

so sad

im compelled to watch, ive moved a lot in my life but these poor people and especially the kids,makes me realise how lucky i am

I agree it's awful, and especially for the children who were all so incredibly well adjusted considering what was happening. Heartbreaking .

thanks for thelink sallystrawberry, im going to read it properly when i get in from work and offer my help , that film last night was eye opening and i hope our prime minister wat\hed it, although hes probably already aware it was going on

Great programme. i was aboslutely enraged by the housing association that evcited the family for a late HB payment. Housing associations are supposed to be RESPONSIBLE landlords. THey aboslutely should have played a role in mediating between the tenants and the housing benefit department. When i worked in Housing advice a similar thing happened to a family. The hosuing ben payment came through the day after they were eveicted! They came to us a couple of weeks later when they were in a B&B having been told by the council they were intentionally homeless. Their old home alreday had new people living in it. We kicked up such a fuss that the housing association ended up giving them the next house from their stock that became avialble. it was 3 doors down from the house they had just evicted them from. It was a good victory but the whole situation should never have happened and the family (who had 4 kids) were totally traumatised.

It's so sad and an utter disgrace that the very people that should be helping and providing a safety net, don't give a t*ss.

I'm still so disgusted by this.

The level of waste that comes from these children not being able to get to SCHOOL!

The saddest waste of all on the planet is the waste of a mind.

Those people who were evicted b/c of the Housing Benefit cock up. WTF?! Intentionally homeless.

And they the HB office admitted it was their fault.

But they get FA compensation for that, even though I can wager you my last fiver the council charged them for storing their things.

I didn't watch the programme last night. I just couldn't. It would have just made me ill watching it.

We have been in this situation. Our business was going down the pan and my husband was trying to do what he could by taking on any jobs he could. We were trying to sort out HB and CT. I was suffering PND and other health problems associated with the birth of my first DS and living in a flat designed for 1 person not 2 adults and a baby and 4 floors up with no lift.

DH's grandfather died suddenly so the whole family had to go up to Scotland. When we got back at midnight on the Sunday night we found we had been evicted. Everything we owned was behind a locked door. We were able to go to my in-laws who put us up on a blow up mattress on the floor. We had to fight to prove we had not made ourselves intentionly homeless. The council also weren't worried about the fact that we were sleeping on the living room floor at my in-laws, we were housed. They wouldn't acknowledge the fact we had been trying to get HB and CT sorted for 9 months.

In the end my in-laws had to evict us and I had to go to the Dr's and get referred to a psychiatrist before they would even consider putting us in B&B. This took nearly a month to sort with us only having only the stuff we had packed to go to Scotland for most of that. We got into our old place about 3 weeks after the eviction to pack our stuff up and put it into storage. Which cost a fortune. We were nearly 9 months B&B. The 3 of us living in a room 10x8. The B&B provided us with breakfast but we had to live on take aways for the rest of the time.

Those were the worst 9 months of my life and I never want to have to go through that again. Now I must say that we don't expect things to be handed to us on the plate. My husband has a degree but has even done minimum wage jobs to get the bills paid. Up untill the birth of my DS 5 years ago I had have always worked in management posts etc. Untill we decided to go into business that is. I am in my 40's and have always found work when I have needed it.

Sorry to ramble. But I just wanted to show that it could happen to anyone.

It's a similar situation here, w/some properties - what little there are thanks to Right to Buy - attracting 500-600 bids on them. And these are 'starters', open only to bids from those on the priority list.

In one incredible instance, reported in Edinburgh Evening News, a woman who was stabbed by her husband to the point of critical injury, in front of their two sons, was told she had made herself intentionally homeless by refusing to return to the council home she shared w/her husband - who was out on remand for trying to kill her! - after being released from hospital.

She was then offered accommodation yards from his family, and told she would lose her priority status if she didn't take it!

Her MSP had to personally intervene to get her and her two sons alternate accommodation.

They use the 'intentionally homeless' clause to try to snake out of housing people.

£730m spent on temporary accommodation last year.

Staggering.

How many homes could be refurbished or built for that amount, I wonder.

It definitely can, SAHMoftwo!

I mean, look at these two families, the one guy was a trained bus driver and the other a landscape gardener.

We, too, were late w/rent once b/c of a Tax Credit cock up and the lag time waiting for my husband to get paid.

Luckily, I had the education to be able to sort things out, but others are not so fortunate.

And it's so wrong to do that to people in that situation.

expat,

they said on that programme that there were over 680,000 home empty.

The £2060 that it cost to keep this family in b&b for 6weeks would have paid for a family home nearly 4mths as they were looking for places with a £600 amonth rent. Surely there must be someone in charge of these dept who can see that the money is better spent by renting out homes in the private sector if neccesary.

I also think that we need to build new estates that are solely for renting to council tenents/housing assoc, including those who are still living at home because they can't afford to buy or rent.

Where my mum used to live her last neighbours had waited 20 yrs to be offered a council house, in that time they had bought their home but it was during the 90's and although they were working 2 or 3 jobs each and bringing up 2 children they still lost it.

It makes me feel bad for monaing aobut my situation I got a homeless house straugth away in west lothian with an extra bedroom more than we need, but have neen here 5 months, seeing what happens in Englad realy made me upset it is inhuman, but we were seen as unintenionally homeless luck y for us or it could have been different, our land.lord had to sell our old house
I am being consisdered for a 2 bed property in the another council area and will know by next Monday but again, others are being considered for it too and all I can do is hope we get chosen for it. It never occuired to me to wonder what would happen if we had been classed as intentionally homeless, but I guess that must happen in west lothian too, I just thought if you had kids thay had to house you

it was awful wasn't it

those children were a credit to their parents though - I know we only saw a snapshot but they were so bright and cheerful most of the time despite what was happening to them

i think estates breed ostracisation of low income people and social problems, so building more will just bring more problems.

so i think a more viable idea would be to refurbish empty homes and also to buy already existing homes and offer them at affordable rents - this latter option is still cheaper than the cost of homelessness.

NO MORE RIGHT TO BUY. It's been suspended in a lot of councils b/c it exacerbated the housing shortage.

The greater problem is that this nation's sense of worth is based on property ownership, indeed, until VERY recently the right to even vote was based on property ownership, and until that changes you get stigma attached to renting.

Now in Edinburgh, what the council is doing is renting flats privately at a rate of £500/month and then using these as accommodation.

Also they are paying housing benefit directly to the tenant if the tenant is renting privately. So the landlord may not realise they have DSS tenants.

Can anyone clarify if being a DSS tenant means getting housing benefit in any form or does it mean unemployed and completely on benfits? as we get a little bit of housing benefit as my dh is at uni at moment and we thought that we can't get a private let if it says no dss as we get hosuing benefit? as we right does housing benefit in any form mena you are a DSS tenant?

my typing is terrible does housing benefit=DSS tenant or is DSS people on the dole and completely on benefits? is what I am trying to ask

Housing benefit in any form means you are a DSS tenant, b/c it is used to pay the rent, most of the time directly to the landlord.

that is what I thought too but my dh's friend was like no you 2 are professional type people you are not dss but I said but we get housing benfit at the moment, well thanks for clearing that up as I thought I was right but dh's friend was convinced it only meant people completely on the dole. we get a percentage of our rent paid by hosuing benefit so I guess private lets are going to be few and far between, we will jsut have to hope to be housed by west lothian or the other council I guess, but after watching 'evicted' I no longer feel sorry for myself

thanks expatinscotland

This was shocking, how easy it is for this to happen. I have a real frustration about the housing market, everything is overpriced for normal families and this proves it. All these houses being built and none of them social housing.

I nearly threw something at the tv when it said at the end the council admitted that family shouldn't have been evicted in the first place. How callous an attitude they have!

The councils always seem to have plenty properties for tenants who are seen to be "in need" re druggies, asylum seekers etc. Nice to know an ordinary family is not important enough to deserve a house. The council should be ashamed of themselves but unfortunately, until a politician makes normal families their priority, headline-grabbing issue then they won't give a stuff.

And I bet both of those dads, if given the opportunity, would have taken a derelict house and worked on it with their own hands to make it liveable for their families.

It would have been a different situation I would imagine if the families had been on full benefits and neither of the dads had bothered working ever. That is how it works nowadays. And proof of the stress caused, the mum who was ill, how could anyone make someone obviously so sick live like that. I am surprised disability benefits people didn't step in, again, probably because the dad had worked.

I watched and couldn't believe what I was seeing/hearing, felt absolutly disgusted that all of the families were being treated in that way and scared that HB can make such a monumental cock up and get away with it.

How can they say that the first family made them selves intentionally homeless when their landlord was selling up ? Do the people that make these rules have no brains at all.

My aunt is classed as homeless at the moment. Her home was repossessed after her marriage broke down and her and her 2 kids are currently living with her eldest daughter and her dd in a 2 bed high rise council flat. They have been there for 2 years and the council haven't yet made them one offer and this is in a very rough part of Brum and she said there are empty properties all over the place but twice now she has gone after a flat only to be told that it is reserved for if an asylum seeker needs it

When i was in my flat waiting to be rehoused to a larger property, I went after 2 houses that had been boarded up for ages. I was told that the council had decided that they would cost too much to do up and so would remain empty.

Disgusting.

But why don't they knock down the derelict properties and build new ones over them?

Surely that's cheaper than the long-term costs of homelessness to them?

Or start confiscating derelict properties? That is w/i their power as well.

There are LOADS of them right here - even in the New Town.

Of course, then they'll sell them off for a king's ransom rather than use them for affordable housing.

I know this is an old thread but bbc are doing an update on them tonight at 10.40pm