Housing - The Reality

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in Richmond Informer on Tue 2nd Mar 2004

My Friday surgery brings in the real world. Several cases recently have brought home to me the desperation of people without a secure home.

One young woman with a baby faces eviction by her landlord. He wants his flat back. She wants to work, not rely on benefits, and found a job in Teddington near her mum who will baby-sit. But the council will make her only one offer of temporary housing and it is miles away, inaccessible to Teddington. She takes the house and goes on to benefit; or takes the job and loses a home.

A young man in a RHP flat in Nurserylands is trying to improve himself through an industrial apprenticeship. Half his meagre pay goes on rent. Yet the authorities judge that he does not need financial help and should be able to live on £43 a week. But £30 a week is spent travelling to work. He has growing rent arrears. He faces a choice: to give up his home or his apprenticeship.

A young mother in Hampton Wick has been abandoned by her husband who has disappeared overseas, leaving big joint debts. She cannot maintain her rent and faces eviction. The council will find her emergency housing once she has become homeless, but not locally, so she will lose her job and her child will have to leave her school.

Lastly a man who slept rough has found sanctuary with a kind woman in Twickenham. He is trying to cure his alcoholism. Sadly, she cannot keep him, and as a single man, he will not be re-housed as homeless but go back on to the streets.

All these people are trying to improve themselves and fight adversity. But the harsh realities of the housing market and inadequate social housing are crushing them.