Dispatches reveals struggling councils failing the homeless

5 December 2011

Councils across the UK are struggling to provide accommodation for the rise in the number of people declared as homeless. 

As a result councils are failing in their duty of care to the vulnerable and the homeless by knowingly housing them in squalid private rental accommodation, Channel 4's Dispatches reveals.        

 The programme also reveals:

• many homeless, including single mothers, are being accommodated in slum-like B&Bs for much longer than the 6 weeks outlined in legislation.
• Housing Minister Grant Shapps promises to help vulnerable tenants and ‘stamp down' on councils that flout laws meant to protect them.
• private landlords are making a fortune at the taxpayers' expense renting properties in horrific conditions.

Background
When a person or family finds themselves homeless the council has a duty of care to  support and help them  find a decent place to live. 

Forty or fifty years ago, many homeless families ended up in sordid bed and breakfasts.  Often referred to as Houses of Multiple Occupancy, or HMOs. 

But homeless charities told Dispatches that the slum like B&Bs are thriving again, because nationwide many struggle councils are failing in their duty of care by sending the homeless families to private landlords who they know to have a bad reputation.

Campbell Robb, Chief Executive of Shelter, says:  "Increasingly we're seeing people put into very poor private rental accommodation or into hotels and B&Bs, and what the council are supposed to do is finding them quickly somewhere to live, we are not seeing that across the country now."

With the on-going economic uncertainty councils' duty of care is now more critical, with a ten per cent rise in people recently declared homeless - over 44,000 last year.

The numbers of people placed in temporary accommodation has also grown to around 189,000 people in the last year, up 14 per cent.

Case Study
To find out how B&B HMO's are making money out of vulnerable people, Dispatches sent an undercover reporter to The Apollo Guest House in South London, a B&B often used to house people that find themselves homeless.  

As a House of Multiple Occupancy the rooms at Apollo should be presented in a clean condition as specified in HMO regulations.

Our undercover reporter found that the £30 a night family room she rented had a door that didn't lock, mould and fungus growing on the carpet, stains on the bed; and a bed bug infestation. 

She discovered that families with young children were living at Apollo and estimated that it took almost £2,000 a week, mostly from housing benefit.

Homeless families are only supposed to be put in B&B accommodation for six weeks.  But our reporter spoke to one mother who said she had been at the B&B for more than a year after an NHS trust working with the council put her in the Apollo after she was made homeless.

When we contacted Croydon council they denied placing this resident at Apollo but four days later they moved her to another B&B.

 

On seeing the footage of Apollo, Bill Rashleigh of the housing charity Shelter says: "The conditions are absolutely atrocious, there's no justification for people living in accommodation like that. They are not permitted to put families in there."

Housing Minister Grant Shapps told Dispatches that he will help vulnerable tenants and ‘stamp down' on councils that flout laws meant to protect them.    

"The council will be breaking the law if they place someone in a property which is inappropriate in the kind of extreme way that you mention," Grant Shapps says.  

"I think it's very important that people like me as the housing minister are pursuing them and where it is bad I'm absolutely going to stamp down on that and I'm going to help those tenants who find themselves in that position."

Right To Replies
Yinka Adedeji from Apollo Guest House, says the conditions Dispatches described were "totally at odds with our observations and reports from the local authority on the satisfactory state of the property."

He says:  "The property is routinely treated for bed bugs and other pests. With regard to the structural faults, it is not unusual for tenants to make false and exaggerated complaints."

Dispatches also asked Croydon Council if Apollo Guest house and a neighbouring Beulah House Hotel  are of an acceptable standard for HMOs licensed by them.

They say that there are six people placed by Croydon Council as these hotels at the moment, none of which are families.

They also say the hotels are used:  "As a last resort...We inspect both regularly under the Housing Act and take any appropriate action....There is a huge pressure on housing of all forms in Croydon, where there are 1600 people in temporary accommodation and more than 300 families in emergency accommodation..."

Dispatches: Landlords from Hell, Channel 4, Monday 5th December at  8.30pm.