Tag: borderline personality disorder

Sarah’s story: The housing trust and council response

This week I wrote about Sarah. She told me that she was forced to flee her home some distance away in another borough because of her relative’s violent behaviour. A housing trust which runs a hostel for the homeless in Greenwich took her in after she was registered homeless, but it has handed her an eviction letter, telling her that she must vacate by April 11.

It says that if she fails to hand in her keys by 11am that day, it will be ‘forced to carry out an eviction with the Metropolitan Police present’. It adds that following a review, ‘it has been decided that the services and facilities that the accommodation provides are no longer suitable for your needs’. It does not say why that is the case. Sarah says she’s been told it’s because she’s made a number of complaints to the hostel.

Sarah (not her real name), a law graduate aged 28, moved back home after her studies and struggled to find a job. She says that because she couldn’t find work she was ‘scapegoated’ by the relative. Eventually, she left home in January for her own safety. Sarah has also been dealing with a serious mental health issue – borderline personality disorder (BPD) for many years. After pleading with them to help her, she says The Royal Borough of Greenwich registered her homeless and placed her with the housing trust.

She says the council is paying the housing trust her housing benefit, council tax and for her heating. Her main complaints about the housing trust focus on ‘intrusive’ room inspections at odd times of the day, a card meter regularly not being topped up by the staff – leaving residents without heating and hot water about one day a week – and a service charge made by the staff of £15 a week per resident. She says she was forced to the food bank because of the service charge and because she lost food when a fridge broke down for a few days.

The housing trust (not named to preserve Sarah’s anonymity) has now responded. It says it that Sarah was one of the first clients to move into the new accommodation, and that when she arrived she was given a ‘small loan and a large bag of food’.

The statement says there ‘was an issue with the heating system where the whole system had to be shut down for repairs’. It says the ‘leak in the pipe work was fixed’ On another occasion ‘the gas meter was faulty and we had to report it and accordingly waited for an engineer from the gas company to exchange the meter’. It was ‘due to those problems that there was no hot water or heating for a period of time’. The fridge wasn’t working ‘because someone from the property switched off the fridge function’.

The statement adds: ‘The service charge is for the TV licence and broadband. Gas and electric are only covered partially.’

I asked the housing trust if they were going to use a court order to evict her, but didn’t receive a reply to this. Sarah’s understanding is that they won’t do this because she has a licence agreement rather than a tenancy agreement.

According to the housing trust, there were issues that led to Sarah being given a notice to quit, but that it can only say more if she offers consent in writing. I’ve passed this information onto her. The housing trust also strongly rejects Sarah’s comment that it does not deal with drinking and drug taking at other accommodation it runs. The trust adds: ‘We are working actively and strenuously with the council to reduce homelessness within the borough and to help vulnerable adults.’

Responding to Sarah’s concern that her council case worker was not dealing sensitively with her homelessness issues, the Royal Borough of Greenwich said it had ‘not received a complaint from the resident against the actions or behaviour of any member of Royal Borough staff’. It added: ‘We are committed to ensuring that we support people who access our services in a professional manner, and in a way which is sensitive to any additional needs they may have. If the resident has concerns about her tenancy and the actions of her landlord, we would encourage her to contact the Royal Borough for advice and assistance by calling 020 8921 2618 or email housingaidcentre@royalgreenwich.gov.uk’

Opening the doors: Debt, domestic violence, power relations and an eviction notice

Opening the doors: Debt, domestic violence, power relations and an eviction notice

Sarah, a single woman of 28 and a law graduate, came in on Friday and kindly shared her account of why she needed help.  Before I pass on her story I’d like to remind readers that I don’t speak for those who run this London food bank, although they’ve allowed me to interview their clients. Any opinions expressed on this site from time to time are my own. I don’t represent the food banks in the borough of Greenwich. Neither do I represent the views of the Trussell Trust, which partners with churches in this area to run the food banks.

Sarah (not her real name) must have thought her life was on a more even keel when she finally worked up the courage to escape the violence in her family home. She had moved back in again in 2008 when she struggled to find a job after leaving university. It wasn’t a good time to be graduating. The economy had just tanked. She was also battling a serious mental health issue – borderline personality disorder (BPD). Once home, she says she found herself  ‘scapegoated’ for not having a job and once again the target of  a relative’s abuse and violence.

Now she faces the reality of being evicted (see letter below) from the shared house run by a housing trust in Greenwich – the borough she came to for help.

eviction - no meta

Making the decision to flee her home at the end of January was a difficult one, as she had to leave two younger siblings behind. While she did bring in the police to have her relative arrested, after careful deliberation she decided against bringing charges, because she believed there would be ‘some fall-out’. It would now seem as if this intelligent, articulate and vulnerable young woman is being treated with a distressing lack of respect by those who are ‘dealing’ with her.

Initially she went to her own borough some distance away for help with rehousing,  but she says they ‘put me in a half way house for the weekend, with no money and no food, sharing with a guy who had just come out of prison for armed robbery – despite me having just come away from a situation of domestic violence’. For safety, she fled to our borough, with the help of some of  her wider family network (whom she can’t stay with as it would bring her back within the orbit of the relative she’s fled). After five days of  pleading with this council for help, she was registered as homeless and says she was placed by the council in a shared hostel run by a housing trust that also owns a number of properties in the area.

Sarah says she complained to the housing trust, which I’m not naming to preserve her anonymity, about regular absences of heating and hot water. She also complained about the intrusive room inspections at odd times that she says were carried out. ‘Every time they want to annoy us, they just say it’s time for a room inspection. I feel that I’m being ambushed all the time.’ She says those running the hostel charge each resident – Sarah shares the house with three other people – a £15 a week service charge on top of the money they receive from the council. Sarah says the council are paying for her housing benefit, council tax and heating. She says that there’s a meter for heating and hot water, but that the staff ‘don’t put enough money on the card’, leaving them short at least one day a week. ‘Even when we do run out of heat, there are still signs around saying that if we have an electric heater it will be taken away.’

She says she’s also heard that each resident is supposed to be getting £3 per head for breakfast, but hasn’t received any of that. This week she says it was the combination of the service charge and a broken fridge that took a couple of days to replace that led her to the food bank (she got the voucher from the job centre). Although she gets on well with one of the men (aged 57) she shares with, it doesn’t seem at all appropriate that she should be in mixed sex accommodation at this stage given the issues that led to her being declared homeless. Where’s the safeguarding?

Now the people who run the housing trust have given her a 28-day notice to quit. In the letter they say: ‘We have reviewed your situation, and it has been decided that the services and facilities that we provide are no longer suitable for your needs’. She has been told in writing to move out by 11 April. The letter does not give any reasons why the hostel is thought to be unsuitable for Sarah – or why she’s deemed unsuitable for the hostel.

She says she’s been told verbally it’s because she’s ‘complaining too much’. According to Sarah, they have other houses in the area, ‘where drug taking and drinking are going on, and they turn a blind eye’.

Sarah has a female case worker at the council, whom she says tells her that she’s ‘lucky not to be out on the streets’. At this stage Sarah doesn’t know where to go or who to talk to, and feels that she’s being treated in a contemptuous and degrading way. ‘I know that when you are on benefits people talk to you like crap, but I feel really belittled when she talks to me like that. She knows I have mental health issues, and I know it’s not just me she talks to like that.’

The housing trust says on the eviction letter that it is a not for profit company, limited by guarantee, The letter also displays a registered charity number. Sarah says her understanding is that because she has ‘a licence agreement rather than a tenancy agreement, they don’t need a court order to evict me’.

At noon yesterday I asked both the council and the housing trust to address the concerns raised by Sarah, asking them to respond by this morning. I’ve also asked the housing trust to tell me why she’s being evicted. As yet, I’ve heard nothing at all from the housing trust. The council have told me that they would update me today about ‘what we may be able to come back on, and when’. I’m still waiting, and will of course pass on anything I receive.

What Sarah really wants is to get well enough to get a job. She did some volunteering in the autumn, for which she received some expenses. But sadly that messed up her Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)payments. Two weeks before Christmas her benefits were suspended, and she was told she couldn’t contact any of the ‘decision makers’. Wait, and we will get in touch with you when we’re ready, was the message.

She recognises that ‘certain things that happened are messing me up long term’. She says she would like to take programmes in mindfulness and dialectical behavioural therapy, which has been recommended as an excellent approach for BPD. This may be available on the NHS, but there is of course a waiting list. The good news is that her old mental health trust has a recovery team, who have said they will try to help.

The last thing she needed was the stressful and destabilising experience she has described since running away from a terrible home situation. All she wants – and surely deserves – is some stability and a measure of contentment after many years of hell.

Debt also played a corrosive, polluting role in Sarah’s story. I was among 600 people who attended a landmark free conference at the weekend organised by the Jubilee Debt Campaign Life Before Debt’s extraordinary range of speakers forensically examined debt from all angles, including the morality of debt repayment in the currentl neoliberal economy. It asked: ‘Is it a moral absolute: more important than feeding families, teaching children and providing healthcare and basic social protections?’ This conference made me feel as if I was waking up from a long sleep. It looked at how, six years on from the crash, ‘debt is at the centre of a broken economic system that is hurting people everywhere’.

Sarah says her family was ‘bound together’ by debt – and debt contributed to the family’s implosion. From the outside all would have looked good to the neighbours. Large house, nice cars in the drive. There had been wealth, and there is still work for some in the family. But the money has been ‘squandered completely’, says Sarah. The house is falling apart and the family had to cut back on food and heating. The house went on the market for a while, and Sarah says she felt humiliated when would-be buyers saw how they were living.

The conference talked about the power imbalances between debtors and creditors, and the toxic shame felt by those in debt, who hide the reality of their situation. Campaigns Officer of the Children’s Society Katie Curtis says that debt issues are being felt around the household, causing ‘a mental health time bomb, ready to go off’.

Alinah Azadeh, an interdisciplinary artist, told the conference about creative debt resistance project Burning the Books – a chance for people to add their own stories about debt to the Book of Debts. There is ‘no debt without a story, from private loans, unpaid corporate taxes, unrequited love and lost lives, to political repression, family feuds and missed opportunities….’.

Debt is many things, says Alinah: ‘Debt as freedom, obscenity, excess, a form of violence, a dead end…Debt as crime, fear, lament, a sign of poverty and wealth. Burn the records, redistribute the land, take control.’ The Book of Debts will be burned in a symbolic act of debt relief in Brighton on 22 May.