life

Yesterday I received a letter from Wandsworth council informing me that they would not assist me with my impending homelessness. Currently I live in a three bedroom flat which I share with two others. We have been given an eviction notice for the 3rd of April and the others will be moving out by then. Myself, well I have no money for a deposit and my LHA rate won't cover much anyway so I can't find a place. Because of the DWP messing me around for nearly a year I am about to enter a debt relief order which will prevent me borrowing for 1-3 years and will eliminate any chance of securing a deposit, without entering the order I'd have about 8 court cases in the coming months and a lot of visits from the thugs in black suits known as 'debt collectors' and 'court appointed bailiffs'.
If I were to just stay in the flat I'd be responsible for the rent and bills of three people, that's £270 rent, £14 council tax and about £35 in utilities every week. I get £150 a week total plus about £4 off the council tax bill. Then I'd have court costs, breach of contract penalties, would probably be sued by the agency for the holding deposit they would have to refund the tenants and any compensation they might have to pay for breach of contract, interest to my flatmates on their deposits and would have to repay their deposits as no doubt the money would be swallowed by the rent. So the council is telling me that it is reasonable to stay here despite the fact that I will be clocking up £200+ of debt every week I stayed, and that could be up to two months while the landlord gets a court order. And all this debt would be excluded from the debt relief order!
There is another kick in the nuts, if the court includes in its order that I am to be evicted for non payment of rent (i.e. the co-tenants' portion) then I will be classed as intentionally homeless and then they still won't assist.
So on the 3rd of April I lose everything, my home, most of my possessions and any prospect of stability in the foreseeable future.

Wandsworth council is the cheapest borough in the country for council tax, this band C property is just £606 a year including mayoral precept. In Havering my old band C house used to be in the order of £1300 a year, more than double. Havering is also Tory too. The thing is that Wandsworth scrapped everything they could legally (and sometimes not legally) get away with. They contracted out pretty much everything thereby slashing wages, they placed people in the private sector for a housing solution before rules were even passed by the Lords, they abolished counter services and the ability to pay in cash at their offices. Call backs from their phone lines take about a week and it takes about two weeks to get an appointment to see someone about benefits. They could easily raise the tax by £100 a year per household and still be one of the cheapest and half the national average. With the £5 million or so net, that would generate they could increase housing stock by 100 every year. If they increased band D to £1000 per year, still just over half the national average, they could generate somewhere in the order of £35 million, that's enough for around 600 homes per year, or homes for around 1400 people per year. They wouldn't have to keep it up for very long either, after 20 years there would be an increase in social housing stock in the borough of 12000 purely on the back of that increase. The increase in social provision also reduces prices in the private sector which further reduces pressure on social stock.

As a brief moment of folly, if Wandsworth increased council tax to £1373 (the national average) then it would have somewhere around £60 million extra at its disposal. That is enough for over a thousand homes a year (cost price construction for 1 bedroom properties used as an average in this case plus land cost), that means that in just 20 years there would be social provision for an extra 40,000 people. Again private sector prices would be much cheaper too, current property prices in the borough roughly equate to the saving people make on council tax compared with Lambeth, Merton and Richmond. Increase in the council tax means that people wouldn't actually pay any more as property prices and rents would fall back to meet the difference. Cheaper rents also means that people are more able to live in private housing on lower incomes thereby freeing up social stock. Increases in social stock also reduces private rental prices, eventually you reach equilibrium between the two factors but with far cheaper accommodation for all in the borough and more of it.

Sadly, all this fancy is for nothing and will never happen. In two weeks time I will be faced with the choice of sleeping on the streets or essentially squatting in this place until forcibly removed.
I will join the thousands of hidden homeless for some time and fairly soon and will be denied the therapy I need to return to productive life on the basis that I won't have stable housing.