"Oh good, she's White"

After I posted my letter to Brown I went outside my door to see if the shortlisted had arrived. They had, there were a number of women with buggies outside. As I went to go downstairs I run into the Good Caretaker. "Are they doing both flats today? I'm going to go and accept them, fuck it, I don't care."

Down I go and see a man and woman, who I learn are the Ward Manager and the Estate Manager. "You can't smoke on the balcony," says the Ward Manager. I stare at her, two more tokes to finish it and put the butt in my pocket. "Have you come to see the flat? What's your name?" she asks, the Estate Manager takes out his list of people. "Are you on our shortlist?"

"Yes," I reply, "Sue de Nim, but I'm not shortlisted. I've come to accept it anyway."
"I'm afraid if you haven't been shortlisted you can't come in."
"I don't care. I don't need to. My son's friends live here."

I tell her my story, I tell her what I've been going through. I tell her it's about time I was shortlisted. She tells me the system allocates those with the "greatest need" and suggests that if I think I've got a case, to take it to a lawyer. I tell her I've done that, and the council knows I've done that and failed because lawyers wrote to them and they never bothered replying. I go back to the "greatest need" thing. In this time, three muslim families have arrived and one of these mothers waits outside with one of the buggies.

I ask her how the system decides who's in greatest need. She sidetracks this and says: "There are one or two people it doesn't benefit."

"What?" I say calmly from my lack of sleep. "Am I one of these one or two people who don't benefit from this system?" and she just looks at me. She's not going to talk to me anymore.

I turn to the Muslim mother. "Have you been waiting long?" I repeat it as she didn't expect me to start talking to her. "Three years," she replies with an exhausted tone in her voice, not dissimilar to mine.

"Where do you live?" I ask.
"In bedsit. My two childen, my husban," and shakes her head.
"Haven't you been offered the Private Rental Scheme?"
She shakes her head again. "Yes, but two childen, my husban and me I don wan everytime the landlor make me move."

I understand this, oh yes I do, so later in my email to the council I say "Why are they being shortlisted to view a flat and I'm being bullied into the prs, going into a hostel if I refuse?"

There's a British girl there, mixed race, with a toddler and I make an assumption that she's a lone parent like me and feel my anger abate a little. The others all had their husbands with them. Immigrant families, their spoken English to the Ward Manager was poor and I couldn't understand what they were saying to one another regarding the flat.

Suddenly everyone's gone and I ask the Ward Manager (who for the sake of this post was Black British)"Did anyone accept it?"
"No," she says, quite surprised. "None of them."

She tells the Estate Manager that they should go upstairs so I think righty oh, I'll go accept that one too. Once up there the kitchen fitter that I saw the other day comes out of the flat.

"Why are you power dressed?" he says.
"Power dressed? In a denim mini? I had a little breakdown last night and just wanted to get out of my jeans. Pick myself up, pretend in the school playground that everything's ok in my world."

Immigrant families are coming up to see this one aswell and then a British girl turns up with her partner and baby.

"Oh good, she's White," I say to Kitchen Fitter, thinking out loud. "Makes me feel better." He looks at me quite surprised. "Well..." I tail off for even I am quite surprised.

"There was a British girl downstairs, I think she's a lone parent like me. The only lone parent amongst these families."
"Well it doesn't make any difference does it?"
"It should," I say. "Imagine, you and me are married and I'm working, we'd just have to pay £50 a week each for that. £50 each!"
He looks at the flat and his eyes light up with only what I can call desire. I continue: "I might be able to pay the rent on that flat on my own. I can't pay the £250 for that box upstairs."
"I get your point," he says.

"Nah," I hear the White girl say to her partner. "I'm scared of heights, I can't take that, it's too high." The other families come out, speaking their native dialects.

"They're leaving," says Kitchen Fitter.
"The door's still open," I say.
"Yeah, I'm going back in there, finish the job."
"Oh right, oh ok, nice talking to you, bye!" and I walk down the balcony and barely shout over to the Ward Manager "Did anyone take it?!" I repeat it. I repeat it again.
"She won't stop following me!" I hear her say to Estate Manager. Following her? FOLLOWING HER?? I ask the Estate Manager as he's walking down the stairs. "Did anyone?" He shakes his head no.

No! None!! I race to my flat and straight away email 'allocations' and 'needs and access' to tell them to give it to me! I didn't mention 'immigrants' once. You can't with these council people, political correctness and all, equality and all. I'll spare you the letter, it was a garbled mess. For example I write: "Once again I want to clarify I was not a problem up there. When Ward Manager told me I could not smoke on the balcony (so where, in my flat it's a bad polluting habit that I already fail to hide from my side.." My side? My side? I meant my son. Punctuation was all out of the window as well.

I go and meet my MP, I go and pick up my son and I talk about the days events to a British mother. She listens without judgement (oh I could kiss you I could kiss you). "I'm not proud," she says. "But I used the race card." She tells me her story. "I said "you're being racist and three days later my daughter and granddaughter have a flat. Coincidence."

"I feel I'm being discriminated against," I say. "For being "white", being "intelligent," for "having resources" but I can't play any race card." I was relieved to see the White girl, because it signified to me, that neither could she. I do wish I knew how she got there though....

I am an immigrant myself in Camden. I wasn't born in the borough. But three notices in 6 years is beyond a joke now.

Five years ago Dobbie, my MP at the time, wrote to me saying "To be honest, I am at a loss to know how to advise you further..... but the process for all who find themselves in such a situation is that temporary accommodation is offered until such time as permanent housing becomes available. Camden Council would therefore be in great difficulty in offering you permanent housing at this point, going as you would before the hundreds of families before you who are in temporary accommodation waiting a permanent housing offer."

2004 he wrote me that. We are 2009. Those hundreds of families have been housed. Our turn now, surely?