Below is our email ping pong starting with her response and it was quite long so omitting stuff about the support service. In brackets is what I did not have the energy or will to fight about.
As explained previously the owner of your current temporary accommodation is not renewing the lease as they want the property back and so this means that Pathmeads will continue the process of regaining possession of the property and we will continue to identify alternative temporary accommodation for you and your son. (No mention that the lease also ends between the council and the housing association. Over the past 5 years I don't know how many letters I've had from the council saying it's about to end)
Whilst I understand your wish to be more points, there is no intention to award additional points to your application for housing. (Not for vulnerability, overcrowding, instability, anything)
We have had a number of cases where our homeless households have had to be found alternative housing because the lease on their housing association temporary accommodation has come to an end and the lease not renewed and in those cases we have been able to assist those families through further temporary accommodation or private sector housing, without awarding extra points. (Only 30 of us are being evicted through housing association/council lease ends. You'd think they'd make some kind of exception but no, we're homeless, we're nobody)
Our Allocations Scheme does not award extra points because temporary accommodation is being lost.
I hope in my previous emails that I have tried to assure you that the Housing Department has not placed any restrictions against your housing application and you are being treated the same as all applicants – tenants, homeless and other applicants who require housing. (I don't think so, or do you ignore all medical letters? All letters from a child's school? How do you explain all those I've met or seen on the register who have gone before us?)
It is unfortunate that the demand for housing in Camden far outstrips the supply and this does mean a lengthy wait for many of those registered for housing. But this situation is not unique to Camden but many other London boroughs also face the same problem with the demand for housing.
Dear [Allocations],
[My new support worker] phoned me after I sent you that email so thank you very much.
The council has a record of every letter and email I have sent on behalf of my child, so I hope it acts in his best interests when the time comes and all the leases collapse beneath us.
I'm also very aware there is a crisis in Camden, despite many families being housed before us who have waited less time. I have written to the Prime Minister and his Deputy asking if they could return the £283 million allocated funds for housing to the borough so that repairs can be done on all those empty properties so that fewer families go through what mine is currently going through. I put my return address as 'care of' Frank Dobson, the Miliband brothers and coalition members living in the borough, at the House of Commons, because obviously I do not know where I'll be living when the money comes. I also hope they care enough about the borough to do something.
Thanks for getting back to me.
Regards
Sue de Nim
(I don't understand that the allocations scheme doesn't award extra points because 'temporary accommodation is being lost'. What difference does that make?)
Hello Ms de Nim,
In terms of the Allocations Scheme, it means if it is not mentioned in the Scheme, we can’t do it. Therefore the Allocations Scheme makes not mention of awarding additional points for the loss of temporary accommodation, so therefore we cannot award additional points.
I hope that explains matters for you.
Regards
Thanks for the explanation. That has to change doesn't it for how many times must a child like mine, with a mother on her own, face eviction after eviction after eviction, witness his parent's incapability of coping with it? You don't have to answer that because I don't want to know.
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