Thurrock Council (05A09461)
Homelessness Maladministration causing injustice
24 October 2006
The important focus on prevention of homelessness should not lead councils to adopt a ‘gatekeeping approach’ – meaning they refuse to take homelessness applications from people who may be eligible for help, said the Ombudsman.
He found serious failings by Thurrock Council in repeatedly failing to take homelessness applications from a woman who had fled domestic violence from her husband in Nigeria. He recommended the Council to apologise to the complainant, pay her £2,250 compensation and review its training for front-line staff to ensure they have a sound grasp and understanding of homelessness law and practice. He suggested that this report could be used in the training to illustrate poor practice.
‘Miss Williams’ (not her real name) fled to the UK following domestic violence from her husband in Nigeria. At the time she left Nigeria she was pregnant. As she had very few friends or contacts in the UK it was important to her to live within a reasonable proximity of those she knew. She experienced complications during the birth of her baby that required her to undergo medical treatment for some time. She also suffered from depression.
Shelter complained on behalf of Miss Williams that the Council failed to investigate whether it owed her a duty as a homeless person when she requested assistance with housing on three occasions following her arrival in the UK: in May 2004, August 2004, and February 2005.
Miss Williams was pregnant and staying temporarily with a friend in Thurrock when she first approached the Council for assistance with housing in May 2004. Her friend had asked her to leave and so she was threatened with homelessness. Miss Williams was interviewed but no homelessness application was taken and the Council has no records of her visit or the advice she was given.
Miss Williams approached the Council again in August 2004. By then, her baby had been born and she was living temporarily in a women’s refuge in Essex. On this occasion the Council took a homelessness application but the case officer later cancelled it. Miss Williams was neither consulted about nor informed of this decision.
Miss Williams returned to the Council for a third time in February 2005 to seek assistance. By then she had left the women’s refuge because her baby had been ill and she had returned to live with the friend who had previously accommodated her. She was sleeping on a sofa in the living room or sharing a bed with the friend’s elderly disabled aunt. Her baby daughter was sleeping in a car seat or sharing the bed with her mother and the friend’s aunt. Again no written decision was issued and so Miss Williams could not challenge it through the review procedure.
The Ombudsman upheld the complaint. He found serious failings in the way the Council dealt with her requests for assistance with housing. He criticised the failure to recognise that Miss Williams was seeking assistance as a person who was threatened with homelessness, or homeless, to take homelessness applications and make adequate enquiries, and to issue decisions in writing. The Council’s record keeping was inadequate, and it was only by obtaining documents from Shelter that he could establish some of the facts. Some of the officers who interviewed Miss Williams appeared to misunderstand some of the fundamental concepts in homelessness law and jumped to conclusions without first making adequate enquiries to establish all the relevant facts. The failures denied Miss Williams the right to challenge decisions by using the statutory review procedure.
The Ombudsman said: “I am aware of the intense pressures councils face in dealing with homelessness applications and the need to meet challenging government targets to reduce the number of families in temporary accommodation. But councils must not forget that they operate within the legal framework of Part VII of the Housing Act 1996, and that homeless applicants and potential applicants have rights and legitimate expectations about the service councils should provide when they are homeless.”
Date Published: 28/01/09