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This from a charity volunteer, known to News OnTheWight, who wishes to remain anonymous. Ed
The council Isle of Wight recently announced the appointment of a new director of housing who will implement a new action plan to tackle homelessness.
I volunteer with a local charity. To preserve anonymity, I will not say which charity, and I will refer to individuals in the plural.
Housing is a compounding problem
I share now the reality of the situation with housing on the Island. Although we are not a housing/homeless charity, housing is a compounding problem for many of our clients.
We have had a few who slept rough, and we have many more who are sofa surfing, some of them long term, or trapped in unsuitable accommodation.
Model tenant with health problems
For example, let me introduce you to ‘P’, whose severe health problems meant they had to give up work some years ago. P rented privately and was a model tenant until 2019, when their landlord decided to take the house back – over the summer, at the height of tourist season in one of our coastal towns.
We wrote to the landlord asking for more time to find P somewhere to go, and were turned down. In the two-month run-up to moving out, there was literally nothing available.
Issues with Island Homefinder
We signed P up for Island Homefinder, but the login details took weeks to come through. P either lost them in the upheaval of moving house or accidentally put them into storage.
This is typical when someone has chronic health problems, often exacerbated by poor mental health and being let down by the DWP, with relationship breakdown thrown in for good measure. The present system is a barrier to accessing help, and the more vulnerable the person, the bigger the barrier.
Moved on again
P ended up going to stay ‘temporarily’ with a friend, putting most of their belongings into a storage unit (which costs money P can ill spare). Some months later, the pandemic hit. P was still at the friend’s house (both of them shielding) – until the friend died and the relatives lost no time telling P to leave so that they could sell the house.
As most of us are aware, the private rental market is now even worse than it was three years ago.
More problems with Homefinder
P’s Homefinder account from 2019 had been deactivated and could not be revived. Our charity keeps records for six years after the last contact.
Why can Homefinder not do the same?
Interview with housing team
We helped P put more of their things into storage, and notified the council that P was homeless (sofa surfing). I sat through a telephone interview with P and someone from the housing team that went on for over an hour (the same interview we had done in 2019).
We gave full details of P’s medical history, including a list of medication. When we’d finished, the team said that someone would phone back, probably within 48 hours, to complete the next step. We explained that P takes strong painkillers and sometimes cannot answer the phone – the medication often leaves P too ‘foggy’ to have a coherent conversation or even get out of bed. The housing officer promised to keep trying.
Request for ID
As far as I know, that call did not come. Ten days or so later, P received a letter (at an address where they receive post but are not always present, because they are sofa surfing) requesting proof of their ID and local residence.
By the time P contacted us, it was close to the deadline given in the letter. I rushed to send an email to the housing office explaining why P no longer has photo ID: it expired some years ago and was not renewed because P is too unwell to drive or to go abroad. I asked the housing team to accept, in lieu of ID, a document from 2015 that proved P has been present in our area and known to our charity for these seven years. I also returned two signed consent forms.
Extreme ill health often means being bedridden for several weeks
We were also requested to submit proof of P’s disability (PIP and ESA award letters), which took some time. All of their paperwork except the most recent is in storage; the award letters are not recent.
P’s extreme ill health often means being bedridden for several weeks at a time. We had to wait until P had a good-enough, coherent day to undergo two telephone interviews with the DWP (because ESA and PIP are handled by different departments, of course) and ask for copies of the award letters. The letters took two weeks to come through. I explained all of this in another email to the housing team, quoting their reference number for P’s case.
Case closed by Housing Team
Around the time that the award letters were due to arrive, the housing team wrote to P to say that ‘as they had not heard back, they were closing the case’.
This was nonsense – they had heard from us several times, in detail, and we had returned the signed consent forms. We had explained very clearly why it would take some time to supply all the paperwork and why P is so vulnerable.
Mental health crises
P receives high level PIP and ESA, has a Blue Badge, and has had serious mental health crises brought on by chronic illness and compounded by insecure housing.
We emailed the housing office to point this out. In return we received a completely new form, the Homelessness/Duty to Refer, which nobody had mentioned at all in the preceding two months.
Four months later
It is now four months since my phone call to the housing office to try and register P for Homefinder. P has been too unwell for weeks to give us a list of their medication, which we need in order to submit the Duty to Refer form.
Two of us at the charity know P well enough to summarise their medical history, but we do not keep a list of their medication, which changes from time to time.
Constant battles
In these four months we have not even been able to get a new Homefinder account, let alone get P housed, despite keeping communication open, submitting more than half of the paperwork including consent and proof of long term presence on the Island, and having previously registered P for Homefinder in 2019.
And this is someone who is supposedly high priority due to serious illness and disability.
The system is a barrier to the most vulnerable
Not only is the present system a barrier to the most vulnerable, its model is outdated: the assumption that homeless people are all, or mostly, ex-offenders or have substance abuse issues ignores a fast-growing percentage of the actual homeless.
Very few of our clients are addicts or ex-offenders. The face of homelessness today looks different.
How exactly will a new director of housing and a new action plan help someone like P?
Forced to stop working due to ill health
Or another client, J, also receiving PIP and ESA, who lives in a caravan because they cannot afford to rent anywhere else, and their health problems are exacerbated by cold, damp conditions. What are their chances of getting housed?
Like P, J has no substance abuse issues and is not an offender. They worked until poor health forced them to stop. A long term relationship broke down, and boom – out on the street, into a caravan (which is preferable to sleeping rough, but totally inadequate for a 60-year-old with a disability).
Sofa surfing with children
Or C, who had to sofa-surf with their teenage child for most of the pandemic because their landlord raised the rent and they had to leave. C was in full time work, but could not find anything they could afford.
Or K, who desperately needs to move house after criminal activity by an ex-partner put K and a child at risk – but there is nowhere for them to go: take a number and join the queue.
Older residents trapped in substandard private rental
Or the Rs, a couple in their 70s, who are trapped in a substandard private rental (cold, damp, badly maintained) which is nevertheless too expensive for them, but they have no other option.
They would only be entitled to one bedroom in social housing, and they need an extra bedroom for when they have family to stay; they help out regularly with child care.
No.151-199 in the Homefinder queue
Last week I looked at Islander Homefinder with another client whom we had somehow – through sheer luck – managed to register in record time. There were just four local one-bedroomed properties listed.
The screen showed that our client was, variously, no.151-199 in the queue, again despite being higher priority due to severe illness. Is there any point at all in their bidding on those four properties?
Why is the burden of sorting out their own accommodation put on people who are unwell?
The system is not fit for purpose
No, the system is not fit for purpose, and I question whether the appointment of an expensive new director and a flurry of press releases will do anything to improve matters.
Every coastal area of the UK (and in many other countries as well) is grappling with similar housing problems, and for identical reasons. Cornwall and Whitby have begun to explore ways of addressing them. We should all watch closely and take notes.
‘Choice Based Lettings’ is Orwellian doublespeak
Another client has just received a letter from ‘Choice Based Lettings’ at county hall. This is Orwellian doublespeak.
If there is nothing available, there is no choice.
All the choice is in the holiday/second home market.
Image: christopher lemercier under CC BY 2.0
