House is tired of advising the homeless people with low incomes who have no priority need for accommodation.

Sometimes Foyers will help young people, some hostels might temporarily help others. Rent deposit schemes might help a few (even fewer as many LA’s will only offer them to those who have a Priority Need, figure that one out!) if you are lucky enough be accepted and find a landlord willing to take whatever form of bond might be offered. A crisis loan might help a few as it can pay for rent in advance if you are lucky enough to find a landlord who accepts housing benefit.

For the rest House despairs. Who knows why the ‘Social Fund’ can’t pay for deposits.

 House knows of a housing adviser who ended up lending their client £100 just so they would have a roof over their head. The client was a single homeless person who had got themselves a key worker and a support worker whilst coming off drugs. Sadly they weren’t vulnerable enough to have a priority need. Their rent deposit application was turned down.

They didn’t know anyone. They were sleeping rough and shoplifting for food whilst trying to find accommodation. Most Landlords they contacted wouldn’t take Housing Benefit. Most wanted £500 + deposit plus rent in advance. The client was beginning to despair. The temptation to relapse into drug addiction was great.

 Finally the client found a Landlord who only required £250 deposit. As the client only had £150 the adviser came to lend them £100.

Should they have done so, professionally maybe not, but can one blame them?

The £100 may well have prevented the client relapsing into drugs and from shoplifting with all the cost to society that these two things bring. Finally the £100 just gave a person trying to change themselves a roof over their head and a chance to better themselves.

Sad.

The Homelessness charity Shelter is asking people to sign an e-petition regarding our rather outdated overcrowding laws. Please sign up HERE.

Whilst House thinks the law on overcrowding won’t change it certainly won’t if one doesn’t try!

Thanks to the LAG blog, House, being a fan of prevention rather than punishment, found THIS video very interesting.

If you’re Homeless or threatened with homelessness in 28 days and want assistance from a Local Authority then a Local Authority should treat you in accordance with the Housing Act 1996, particularly Part VII. In addition to this they should take note of guidance contained within the Homelessness Code of Guidance.

Unfortunately for you the Department for Community and Local Government don’t like  Local Authorities acting in accordance with the Law. The reasons for this are many, one of them is that it messes up their nice statistics such as these taken from here.

Now preventing homelessness can be a good thing (and House does, in certain circumstances, see the value in Rent Deposit schemes) but as the CLG don’t enquire too much as to how LA’s reduce homelessness LA’s will often refuse to assist you in accordance with the Law. For example if you are homeless and give the LA reason to believe you are homeless then if you are told to go away and you do you won’t be recorded as a homeless statistic because the LA won’t have taken a ‘homeless approach from you’. Great for the stats, bad for you.   

This is not to say the LA won’t help anyone, that’s because it would look rather too suspicious and the CLG don’t really won’t everyone to know they are quite aware that LA’s aren’t helping people as they should.

Further to this, House has reason to believe that some organisations that you might seek advice from in order to challenge the LA won’t help you to the best of their ability because they receive funding from the LA and this might be withdrawn if they complain to the LA too much.

This is why House likes to show tricks commonly used to get people to go away. You can see some tricks HERE. Other tricks will be  published by House in due course.

Sadly it would appear that homeless people aren’t valued much by society so this isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

Inside Housing is often worth a little visit. House found this article quite interesting. A quick Google reveals (item 3) the discussion around the impact of G v Southwark.

House doesn’t have much to do with Social Services in London but from House’s experience of Social Services in House’s area one wonders how Mark Scott comes to the conclusion joint working protocols are working ‘well’. House is open to the idea they might but can’t help think that they are indeed ‘not’ working well.

House admits that linking the editorial comment in this months LAG regarding the recent plenet report ‘Measuring young people’s legal capability‘ and Channel 4’s Hollyoaks might seem a bit odd.

House happened to watch last Friday’s episode, the 16th Oct, (don’t hate House)  and rather oddly got angry at one of the storylines which involved a family who had fallen into £40 worth of rent arrears. The Landlord of the property promptly let himself into the property, demanded his rent and when it was not forthcoming gave the family (who would have been periodic assured shorthold tenants) 24 hours notice to get out of his house. The tenants promptly packed up their belongings and having no where to go as a family found separate accommodation.

Now House blames Nearly Legal for the fact that House was then trying to think about how much the family could then sue the landlord for. But NO the show made no hint that the Landlord had done anything wrong at all. This annoys House as House has happened to see things like this on other soaps to. Yes yes House knows they are fictional but when it comes tenants always get the wrong end of the stick!

Hollyoaks makes a point of the fact that it provides support with the range of issues its storyline raises but with this point they are sorely lacking. It shouldn’t annoy House but with so many young people seemingly believing everything they watch on TV perhaps they could have the Landlord being visited by the local Tenancy Relations Officer!

House has sent an email to the Hollyoaks team and awaits a response!

House doesn’t have much of a life.

Again just a quicky as it was only mentioned briefly by a Letting Agent who was talking to House. Said Agent stated that a few small Letting Agents had been put out of business due to the fact they used to rely on the fact they held the tenant’s deposits and this assisted them greatly with their cashflow.

Just a House quicky, THIS LHA calculator is rather handy. Enjoy!

Link added to.

House forgot to watch Masterchef and ended up watching a rather depressing Panorama. One doesn’t know whether to feel sorry for the probably  ill educated, badly raised, bored, drunk persons featured in the show or whether to think that as they are consciously choosing to be twats they would be better off euthanized.

House wonders if anyone else has a housing related case that haunts them?!  It might be a case where you now wish you did something differently or a case where the Judge ordered something that left you bewildered and perplexed.

House has case from the latter category that still occasionally pops up its ugly head to send shivers down House’s spine.

When House was new to the world of advising he had a case that involved a one of two joint tenants who went to Court having been served with a NSP on Ground 8,10 and 11. The claimant had stated that House’s client (who had not yet been to see House) was the sole tenant and brought proceedings against just House’s client to be. After the hearing, at which an outright order and a Money Judgement in the tenant’s sole name had been made, the tenant came to see House who, on advice,  appealed the decision.

House went to the appeal (for House couldn’t find any decent representation in the twenty four hour notice of the appeal hearing that House had) which was heard by a Circuit Judge. House was very scared of the big, bad Circuit Judge!

House wasn’t that prepared (very bad new House…). House thought that when the Judge heard that the tenant was in fact a joint tenant that the possession order wouldn’t stand against House’s client and that any Money Judgement should be made against both tenants. But NO, according to the Circuit Judge and despite House’s meek protestations to the contrary, the Court could order that only one of two joint tenants should deliver up possession in 14 days and then the Court Bailiff could seek to enforce the order by evicting said tenant and not the other and that it was right and proper to make the Money Judgement in just  (perhaps as a reward for turning up to the hearing…)

House has tried to put this case out of House’s head for good, but to no avail. House hopes that it is right to be baffled by such an outcome!

House was happy to read a subsequent, unrelated, Court of Appeal decision in which said Circuit Judge was most criticised for his decision in the case.

Does anyone else have any cases that still haunt them?