Summary: Mr C approached the Council as homeless, the Council failed to respond to his initial correspondence and then sent him to another council rather than properly assessing his information and helping him. The Council accommodated him over a week later, but he had been street homeless in that time and approached social services to get help. The Council will apologise, pay £300 and review its procedures.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I will call Mr C, says he made several approaches to the Council in July and August 2018 for housing assistance, the Council failed to respond to written correspondence and failed to provide promised telephone calls. Mr C approached as homeless and the Council would not assist him and told him to go to Croydon.
2. Mr C says the Council discriminated against him as he is an Irish Traveller, by saying there were no Irish Travellers in its borough so his connection must be in Croydon. Mr C says a Council officer was aggressive and intimidating. Mr C says he lived in Lambeth for the last five years and has been on its housing register for 28 years, this is where his local connection is. After two and a half weeks street homeless the Council eventually housed him in temporary accommodation. Mr C has mobility issues and during his time street homeless he had a fall and went to hospital. Mr C is upset by the Council’s actions towards him.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered:
• Information provided by Mr C and the Council.
• Information provided by Croydon Council.
• The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and associated guidance.
• The Protection from Eviction Act 1977.
• The Equality Act 2010.
• Responses from Mr C and the Council to a draft of this statement.

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What I found

6. Mr C was living in private rented accommodation and was on the Council’s housing register. Mr C emailed the Council in July 2018 asking for an appointment with a housing adviser, the Council did not reply. Mr C emailed the Council a month later, again asking for a meeting with a housing adviser and said his landlord had threatened to evict him several times in the last few months.
7. At this point the Council became aware Mr C was threatened with homelessness, and the prevention duty of the law would apply. This means the Council should help Mr C to remain in his current accommodation.
8. The Council says it responds to emails within 48 hours. During this time Mr C emailed again to say his landlord had changed the locks and thrown out all his things while he was out. Mr C was now homeless, and the relief duty of the law would apply. This means if the Council is satisfied that Mr C is homeless and eligible, it must take reasonable steps to help him secure accommodation for at least six months.
9. It is a criminal offence for a private landlord to evict someone without giving proper notice and following the correct legal process. The Protection from Eviction Act 1977 gives the Council powers to investigate complaints of unlawful eviction and to prosecute a landlord responsible for unlawful eviction. The Council allocated the case to an officer to investigate but has no notes to show what happened. The officer has since left the Council.
10. The Council did not respond to Mr C’s email, so he attended its office three days later. Its not clear what happened during Mr C’s visit, the Council accepted a homeless application that day but says Mr C made the application online.
11. Two days later Mr C visited the Council’s office again. The Council says Mr C became abusive and aggressive, so it was unable to help him. The Council says Mr C told it he had applied to Croydon Council, so it told him he should return there. The Council gave Mr C a letter to Croydon Council saying Croydon Council was responsible for Mr C’s homelessness application. Mr C disputes that he was abusive and aggressive. Mr C explains he told the Council he approached Croydon some years ago but had been living in Lambeth for the last five years. Mr C says the Council officer told him because he is an Irish Traveller he must have a local connection to Croydon, because that was where members of the Traveller community were currently living.
12. Mr C approached Croydon Council as Lambeth told him, but Croydon would not help as said Mr C’s local connection was with Lambeth as he had been living there for five years.
13. Mr C contacted Lambeth’s social care department who arranged an appointment with a housing adviser. The Council gave Mr C interim accommodation while it assessed his homelessness application. It has now helped him get a private rented tenancy as temporary accommodation, so he has accommodation secured for at least six months.
14. Mr C lived on the streets until the Council provided accommodation; a period of nearly two weeks. Mr C has mobility issues, he says he had a fall while living on the street and sustained injury.

Was there fault causing injustice?

15. The Council failed to respond to Mr C’s emails in July and August. When Mr C told the Council he was homeless, it should have acted quickly regardless that his contact was by e-mail.
16. The Council says it acts on emails within 48 hours, but this means it is disadvantaging those that cannot easily get to its offices as those who approach in person would be assisted the same day. The Council has a public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010 which is a duty to think about how their policies or decisions affect people who are protected under the Equality Act, such as those with a disability. This means the Council must eliminate discrimination, and advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who don’t. The Council should have some way of prioritising emails which need a more urgent response and should ensure its decision to respond to e-mails within 48 hours does not disadvantage those with a protected characteristic. In this case Mr C was disadvantaged because of his disability, he has mobility issues, so it is not easy for him to get to the Council offices. Mr C e-mailed the Council for help with his homelessness situation and did not receive a response. The Council says it responded by telephone but cannot evidence this. I cannot know whether that happened and if it did how promptly the Council contacted Mr C.
17. There is no evidence the Council considered whether Mr C had a local connection to Lambeth. The Council says it acted on Mr C saying he had already approached Croydon. I would expect the Council to show what was said and the advice it gave, for example “Mr C told us he approached Croydon Council the week before so we have issued him with a letter referring him back there until its enquiries are concluded”. The Council should have found out when Mr C’s approach to Croydon was so it could give the correct advice, it then would have discovered his approach was several years earlier. The Council says it could not help Mr C because of his difficult behaviour, however it had enough time to give him a detailed letter for Croydon Council and therefore should have been able to establish when Mr C had approached Croydon.
18. At the time Mr C visited the Council’s office he had already sent it several e-mails asking for help, had filled in an online homelessness application form, was on its housing register and had been living in its borough for five years. There is no evidence to show the Council considered any of this when it referred him to Croydon Council.
19. Mr C says the Council discriminated against him as an Irish Traveller, and that a Council officer was intimidating. There is no evidence to support that happened so I cannot make a finding of fault on that point.
20. Mr C says he had a fall while living on the streets; this was the first day and it is possible the Council would not have accommodated him by then. I do not link the fall and subsequent consequences to a direct result of fault of the Council.
21. The Council failed to properly deal with the possible illegal eviction by Mr C’s landlord. The Council has said it will investigate the matter now. Although this error does not cause Mr C an individual injustice, it does leave worry that the landlord might be treating others the same way.
22. There is a pattern in this case of poor record keeping by the Council, which means it cannot show whether it acted correctly. The Council’s actions led to worry and unnecessary time and trouble for Mr C. It is likely the Council would have accommodated Mr C sooner had it responded promptly to his homelessness application, and fully considered the circumstances when he attended its office. I accept if Mr C was behaving in a difficult manner it would hinder the Council, but it clearly had some opportunity to assist him as it gave him a detailed letter to take to Croydon Council.
23. Mr C should not have felt the need to involve adult social services, his MP and local councillor in order to get housing help from the Council. If the Council had dealt with his case properly when he first contacted it, he would not have had the time and trouble of contacting those people and of going to Croydon Council. The Council would have helped sooner, and Mr C would not have been street homeless for as long as he was.

Agreed action

24. To acknowledge the impact on Mr C and to prevent future failings, the Council will:
1. Apologise to Mr C for not responding to his correspondence, for not interrogating whether he had a current homelessness application with Croydon Council, and for failing to process his homelessness application sooner. The Council will pay £300 to recognise the impact on Mr C.
2. Review its procedures for responding to e-mails. By responding in 48 hours it disadvantages those who cannot easily come into the Council’s offices in person where they would be seen the same day. This treats those with disabilities less favourably so is not in line with the public sector equality duty of the Equality Act 2010. The Council could consider something along the lines of an automated response to e-mails telling the sender they will be responded to in 48 hours, but if the contact is of an urgent nature, for example someone who is homeless or threatened with homelessness, they should come to a council office, telephone, or complete an online homelessness application.
3. Establish why it did not pursue the unlawful eviction case, or have any records showing actions and decisions taken, and implement any identified improvements. Complete its investigation of Mr C’s eviction in a timely manner and tell Mr C the outcome.
4. Review the record keeping in its housing department, identify and implement any improvements to ensure it keeps adequate records of key contacts received, advice it gives, actions taken, and reasons for decisions. If the Council is satisfied it currently has adequate procedures, it should remind staff to follow those procedures.
25. The Council should complete action a within one month of the Ombudsman’s final decision, and actions b to d within three months. The Council should provide evidence to the Ombudsman of its compliance.

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Final decision

26. I have completed my investigation on the basis the agreed actions are sufficient to acknowledge the impact on Mr C and to prevent future failings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman