How to get a council house -C4

[heyhulahoop]

Anyone watching? It's so depressing. So many zero hours contracts and racist rants.

I realise the show last night will have been edited to portray a certain image, but it just left me feeling so sad that some of society's most vulnerable people are treated the way they are. These people need help and support, not an attitude from a civil servant.

It was really sad to watch and I feel so sorry for anyone facing eviction. It must be so stressful. The housing officers should at least act like they care a little bit and shouldn't be employed if they have that attitude towards people in need.

I didn't understand why the lady with the 8 year old son was told that Social Services would be called, she was terrified they were going to take him. I felt most sorry for her. The council should at the very least have given her the money for the flight to her family. 2 plane tickets must be infinitely cheaper than a child being brought up in care, and much kinder. There should be a reserve pot of money to help with things like this in exceptional cases.

There needs to be more social housing. Housing benefit needs to be paid direct to landlords, I don't know why it isn't.

I didn't understand why the lady with the 8 year old son was told that Social Services would be called,

They decided that she had made herself intentionally homeless which meant the council had no duty to house her when she was evicted for not paying her rent. This meant her son was homeless and they have to report that to SS as he would need intervention to provide him with a place to stay.

It was indeed very sad. Felt sorry for the young vulnerable couple who were living in the studio flat with mould. He'd been in care his whole life and probably hasn't been taught how to clean... You don't necessarily know that hanging clothes inside and not opening windows makes the situation worse. he needed an irish auntie to once round and give him a hand to tidy up...

I didn't know the background to the story of the young girl to shome it was suggested she could have a flat in Birmingham so I may have got the wrong end of the stick
BUT
she did not have to go to Birmingham - no-one was frogmarching her to the station to get on a train
she could not get housing where she was living so this was offered to her as an alternative. I agree the housing officer should have explained why Birmingham was suggested and been more sensitive to the fact that the yound woman was upset and did not seem to understand.

Mollie the point is she either went to birmingham or the council would offer her no more help. So yes it was birmingham or homeless. She didnt misunderstand anything.

nonno i also felt very sorry for that couple too. Especially when it was suggested that they open the windows and the mum said they couldnt do that as the baby would get sick. It was her ignorance about the ventilation that was making him sick but she didnt understand. I think she thought cold from the open windows would make him ill. I've seen it on MN too, people who never open their windows and dont understand why people do!

The couple with the mould are sharing a tiny bed sit and live essentially in one room.
A room that size accommodating a couple and a baby is going to have problems with ventilation.
I hate the way councils try and place the blame on vulnerable people saying the mould is down to lifestyle like drying their clothes on clothes horses inside. This is what every council says when it can't afford to get rid of the mould and places the blame on tenants living in cramped conditions.

What are they supposed to do??? They live in one room and have no tumble dryer.
Yes they could open the window but as regards to wiping the walls they might have thought that could disturb mould spores and they would be breathing it in.
Every program about benefits has bedsits where landlords are charging phenomenal amounts and its full of mould.
Bedsits should be for one person only.

'This is what every council says when it can't afford to get rid of the mould and places the blame on tenants living in cramped conditions.'

Our HA flat says that. The place has damp, but it's all our faults.

I had to laugh at the inspector advising them to pull the furniture out from the walls. Yeah right! The size of that room they had barely any space as it was! There was nowhere to pull the furniture to!

Oh and i hope it doesnt sound like i was blaming those parents for the mould, of course there will be mould with 3 people living day and night in 1 room with no laundry dryer. I just meant that her fear/ignorance of the outside air would have been contributing to the baby's illness.

Totally agree with you and i knew the housing officer was going to blame them too and say it was lifestyle. They always do. They never take responsibility for innappropriately housing them.

Some properties are just always going to mold because they arent built properly. I have lived in 4 houses as an adult. I live exactly the same way in all of them, i dry my washing inside during winter, on radiator rails, i have windows open all day every day and the only one that developed mould was the council built one. It had been bought and was privately owned when i was living in it and the LL said i was causing the mould. I really wasnt. It was just that house. I guarantee there was a problem before i moved in and after i moved out.

Bloody hell, series 1 of this was pretty sympathetic IIRC?

I am not up to date. I will have to look on catch up.

' I guarantee there was a problem before i moved in and after i moved out.'

There is with this. It's a council/HA flat that is built like shit, cheaply. All the flats have damp. Instead of fixing it, the HA prints off expensive glossy leaflets and pays someone to distribute them to all the tenants about how they, the tenant, is causing damp and mould.

We have a condenser tumble drier, open windows and run a de-humidifier. There is still damp and mould in here.

Yep expat! I have heard about the leaflets. Its a joke! They dont care. They know people will give up complaining.

I bought a dehumidifier whilst living in that house because i was determined to be blameless. There was still mould.

The programme was totally depressing and just illustrated how dysfunctional our housing market is. How people can afford to house themselves on crap wages is beyond me. The poor baby coughing made me feel so sad.

cake they're not civil servants - civil servants are Crown employees who serve the government. This heartless bunch are council officers.

I found it quite terrifying tbh. I really hope to never have to be dependant on the council to house me. Private renting is expensive but i'm doing everything i can to manage it and stay where i am.

Yep, still mould.

One of the windows cracked in its wooden frame, just like that, of course, they blamed us.

Of course it was you. You want to live in a house with cracked windows. who wouldnt?

saw the first 15 minutes of it, the housing officers were vile, then that girl being racist , had to switch it off

With a window that still goes black with mould despite being opened daily and wiped down even with a dehumifier.

That girl was infuriating! pure hate filled ignorance, spouting her shite because she wasnt getting her own way. And her mother too pointing out that everyone outside was kenyan

Indeed expat whats not to love?

Oh, I definitely love all the dickheads who work for them, Mrs. Indeed.

The council should at the very least have given her the money for the flight to her family. 2 plane tickets must be infinitely cheaper than a child being brought up in care, and much kinder.
You must have missed the end bit. Child didn't go into care. Relatives paid for flight to Barbados.

agree hb should be paid striaght to LL

It's a win win situation

People get a roof over their head/a home - the owner is always guaranteed to get their rent to pay their mortgage

Well that was completely fucking depressing.

I do think some of the applicants were presented in an unsympathetic way, but the whole impression was of a hard-faced unempathetic system which is so strained it is broken.