Hi, it’s Karen, April the 2nd, 2023. This really is just one incident of how someone can be evicted through no fault of their own and how the system has failed them.

My friend, last year in around about July received a letter from her landlord. She was renting from, you know, private landlord and he sent her a letter explaining that he wasn’t going to let their property out anymore. So, he gave her six months’ notice. She then immediately phoned the local council and they advised her to stay there until she was physically evicted.

So, she did that. And otherwise, if she hadn’t done that, she would have basically turned around and said, well, you’ve made yourself homeless, voluntary homeless. So, she did what they said and in December she was evicted. So she had to go through all that, you know, the embarrassment and the stress and everything else have actually been turfed out of your home. Local council and the housing just weren’t helpful at all. So what she did, she’s got three children, all young teenage under the age 16. A boy and two girls. So what she had to do was just rely on friends and relatives for, you know, for them to put her up for the night. She split the family in half. Not many people can accommodate for, you know, an adult and three kids. So, not only did the kids go through the stress of being evicted, they’re now split, and some were staying here, and some were staying there, for only for a couple nights at a time. So they were traipsing round with all the carrier bags, with their life in the carrier bags.

You know, she said that her mental health was just up the wall. She was in a real state and the children weren’t coping very well, you know. So, this has gone on for a few weeks, for the end of December and most of January. She couldn’t get in the homeless refuge because that was full. So, there was nowhere for her and three children to go. She then eventually got into this homeless refuge where the four of them were sleeping in the same room, four single beds in a row, which isn’t healthy, and it’s actually not legal for, you know, you get to a certain age and siblings should not be in the same bedroom, but obviously in a homeless refuge they can.

She’s now got a temporary accommodation, which she said is better than nothing, but it’s temporary. She doesn’t know if she’ll be there a couple of months, a couple of years. So, you can’t make it into your own home. You know, you can’t put your stamp on it. And everyone deserves that. Everyone deserves to have their place they can call home and to make it their home, you know, with all the personal things that they want and decorate it how they want and just make it theirs. But this isn’t going to happen.

So, it just amazes me in 2023 how people can be treated. It’s quite frightening how someone can be evicted through no fault of their own, with three kids. Social services, housing were absolutely useless. She was getting no support at all and this shouldn’t be happening. And I think it will get worse because I’ve heard I’ve heard people say that, you know, the landlords with the interest rate going up, it’s harder for them to pay the mortgage. So, a lot of them are seeking another option and putting the property up for sale. So, more and more people are going to become homeless and nobody seems to have anything in plan. Nobody seems to have any idea. No one’s building affordable housing. There’s no council houses going up anymore. And if there is, it’s not enough.

So, yeah, I just wanted to share that. She was going to let me interview her, but she’s traumatised with this ordeal. She’s absolutely traumatised. So yeah, I just thought I’d just report on this. So, thanks for listening.