"Get packing"

I was about to post a little something on how council's have finally been given autonomy over their boroughs and budgets but the Government's made sure it's got little cash to play with so who to blame when the libraries close down blah blah when there was a knock at the door.

Tommy my Pathmead's housing officer. I wasn't expecting him. He must've written, he always does, just forgot.

He came to tell me I will not be receiving a bailiff's order through the letterbox because they know I can't handle letters when they come through the door.

"So how will I know when I have to get out then? I want to know first."

He said that that the housing association and the council had prioritised my case and unanimously agreed:

"because of your ability to communicate with mass media I can't divulge to you any undertaking in relation to alternative accommodation in Camden."

"Eh? What? I haven't written anything for ages and besides my first priority is to protect and safeguard my son."

I reminded him that I didn't not mention the council in my Guardian piece "because this is a national problem, I couldn't single out what's going on here when other places might be worse and anyway, I love Camden."

He told me they might have found something for us. Because it's temporary it's "likely to be very expensive". There'll be a lease end down the line, will have to keep bidding, but for what anymore?

Oh England, until Wednesday I could hope for permanence, for security, a life off benefits if I got a decent job.

"The bottom line is," I said with my tear duct drought, "if I don't take this place we'll be put in a hostel?"

"You want to go into a hostel?"

"Me? No, no way."

"Some people are lucky if they go into a hostel, many are put straight to the private sector. Your points get bumped up in a hostel, no?"

"I don't think so," I stuttered and only remembered after he'd gone the child deputy told me about, older than my child, who's been in a hostel all his life, whose mother has been offered temporary and hasn't taken it.

As he left he told me to call him in 10 to 14 days. He told me to "get packing". I said I couldn't until I knew where I was going. He said "please."

I surrender. My second battle to get my child into a council flat and I've lost.

Council accommodation has been stripped from England it would seem and housing is being handed over to 'social landlords.'

I am lucky, you might say, that the housing association will put a roof over our heads. I'll be grateful if it's near my son's school.

My future question therefore to the powers that are breaking my country will have to be:

"Am I the last "unemployed" single mother ever to get helped with housing?"

Well....