Call to reserve empty States housing for emergency use
Thursday 20th May 2010, 1:00PM BST.
DEPUTIES want empty States housing to be used for emergency accommodation.
An amendment will next week be placed to the Housing Department’s corporate housing programme report asking for it to investigate the idea and report back by November.
Those backing the bid suggest that three or four homes should be managed by an association for people who find themselves temporarily without a home.
Deputy Barry Brehaut will propose the amendment.
‘At the moment there isn’t a stock of properties that can take people who are in a housing crisis or need,’ he said. ‘Housing has been concerned before that it would have to manage emergency accommodation and it’s always been clear it would not be willing to do that.’
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It is high time all the under occupied properties were put to use for what they were intended for. I have a few friends that grew up in states houses. All moved out years ago. Their parents are still living there.
Two people living in three bedroomed properties. I have spoken about this with each of them & the answer I get is that they are considered to be good tenants who look after the property & keep the garden well manicured.
They are also at an age where it would not be kind to move them elsewhere. “It is all they know now.”
Shocking, but very true. New families are having the start of family life put on hold so that older people do not have their current lives disrupted.
This is not fair for those that genuinely need these properties. All tenancy agreements need to be looked over because many are being abused by those unwilling to change & depriving others of the start that they enjoyed but no longer need.
There is four properties that I am aware of personally. I am sure there is many more in this exact same scenario.
I am well aware some have been forced into smaller properties but there is many more that have either been overlooked or been allocated special treatment for whatever reason.
Would be nice to hear from other people “in the know” about this situation. I can’t be the only person on this island that has noticed this favouritism & unfairness?
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Unfortunatly the law is such that once they are in – only the court can make them leave if they choose not to leave. And court cases and stay of evictions could mean that the temp accomodation is occupied by the same family for over a year!
Contracts and agreements are not worth the paper they are written on and are based on goodwill, which if I was a homeless person, I probably wouldnt have too much goodwill!
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Paul, your comments are part true and part wrong. Yes there are many older people underoccupying family homes. Not because they dont want to move as most do and not because housing want the house looked after and dont want to disturb them. It is because there is no where to move them to. Which is why the current programme of redevelopment by the Guernsey Housing Association in partnership with States Housing is to build 1 and 2 bedroom properties, with alot of them being designed for elderly, ie level access, wheelchair friendly, wet room and eco friendly to reduce cost of heating. It is the fact our population is an ageing one that has lead to the increase in demand which is being addressed.
Hope this helps.
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Good,sensible, and accurate comment ‘AUNTIE GP’. End of discussion.
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Expat80 – couldn’t disagree more! You were right first time round.
Auntie – having a house occupied for a whole year – terrible!! Tht’s a whole year that the blighters aren’t in a cardboard box – shocking!!
Make ‘em freeze!!
What’s the housing stock for then, if not to house people in need?
If the houses were so sub-standard that the prior tenants were moved on, then why would an emergency tenant want to stay? Couldn’t the marvellous engine that is the Housing/GHA house someone properly within a year???
Thats a poor show, given the millions they’ve borrowed, and which we guarantee.
How many units will be completed within the next year Auntie? GHA alone probably fifty to a hundred. Could move those desperate people out within the year, surely?
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Im sorry Bob and when was the last time you were in Guernsey? I say that because its obviously not recently because if you had been here you would of noticed that the streets are not littered with homeless taking refuge under cardboard boxes and newspapers!
Yes I am sure that they could house someone within a year, but if that happened then every person waiting on the list to be housed would make themselves homeless in an attempt to beat the system, it is a completely flawed idea.
I tell you what – if your so worried about “homeless” or as I like to call them, the invisibles, why dont you let them stay at your gaff?
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Well, Auntie, if a family are so desperate as to “engineer” being homeless, then in my book they are very probably in need.
Interesting that you see getting housed as “beating the system”. Perhaps you’d rather housing looked after only those that weren’t in need of some form? Rentiers, perhaps?
If there’s a problem with clinging tenants, that can be addressed within short term tenancy agreements, or by assisting with the alternative accomodation seeking process. If the states finds them another “gaff”, and they decline, then out on their ear. Bit like the dole- don’t take the job on offer – no benefits. Housing could say “look, here’s a slightly mouldy, old fashioned, uninsulated house which you can use for up to three months. It isn’t what you want, and we don’t want you in it – it’s a short-term compromise. But it’s a roof and it doesn’t leak. You occupy at your own risk and on the most casual of terms – no stay of eviction allowed. Meanwhile we will actively help you find something suitable.” (The states can change the law for eviction from designated emergency accomodation if required to facilitate). It does not have to be so difficult. At worst, we’d have another few states houses occupied, albeit temporarily.
Furthermore, Brehaut is talking about a handful of properties, not the entire empty stock. It would be a terrible gamble for someone to take – to deliberately engineer a situation to their own advantage, with so few properties likely to be available. You are also suggesting that there exists a sort of mass dishonesty among those waiting for assistance. If that were the case then they’d have no problem – they’d all be in prison.
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Bob – getting housed is not beating the system. Engineering a situation to make it worse then it is, to obtain housing is beating the system, a system in place for the whole of the list. How would it be fair on the good honest people who do not engineer a bad scenario to get housed quicker? Those that are patient and just wait would be waiting forever, even thought they are in a bad situation themselves. Or people would become disgruntled and start engineering their situation too so as to get housed, in which case the emergency housing would be insufficient. either way leads to anarchy.
I agree the law should be changed to be able to house short term without the need for eviction, but I can not see it happening.
As it stands, I do not see homeless people, from what I can gather, the rare occassion someone is genuinely homeless, provision is made for them by the housing in conjunction with Sarnia Housing, Maison St Pierre, St Julians hostel et al and if it really came to the crunch then a B&B would be paid for by the social security, to my knowledge that has not been needed, and because this has never been needed, I personally do not feel emergency housing is necessary.
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Just because you don’t see them doesn’t make them fictional. They may not be on the streets, but there’s a few on floors, on sofas, in cars, and of otherwise no fixed abode. Even had one or two sleeping under cardboard (among other things) in my parking space before. No fixed abode would make it tough to get benefits, which is maybe why your Social Security option isn’t much used. But it’s not necessarily them that need this. I’m more concerned with emergency family accomodation.
As I stated above, a handful of properties turned over to the management of someone like Sarnia Housing Association would be about what Brehaut is asking for. Problem will be the cost of even basic maintainence, and Housing argue that these are in poor repair to start with. They’ve probably deliberately made many of them worse, to prevent squatters / vandalism, so existing empty properties could be a non-starter. But the housing policy continues, and many more tenants will be moved on, and those newly vacated properties will be in usable condition.
The problem with your approach is that there’s many on the “list” that are perfectly adequately housed and in no immediate peril of not being so. They are almost all there deliberately, one way or another. There are serial breeders that could otherwise live in the private sector, but prefer the subsidised life of “social” housing. They choose to have five or six offspring – that’s engineering a situation too; as are a few single mothers. Some other people turn down better paid employment or extra hours so to avoid the limits laid down by housing.
So we already have anarchy by your definition. The long term engineers are OK, but the short-term, desperate need family, one that may well return to private sector once their emergency has passed cannot be helped as the nightstay unit doesn’t cater for them; they aren’t battered, and it’s summer, so the B+Bs are full for once…and SHA has no vacancies – but there’s fifty empty states houses…
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Off track a bit I know but does anyone know what’s happened to the guy who spent much of his day sitting in the sunken garden opposite the OGH as he didn’t have a job or a proper home and nobody would help him ?
Hope he’s sorted now
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I think you mean Jeremy. All seems to have gone quiet so I can only assume he’s sorted now.
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The last I heard on Jeremy was that he is doing well & is in a steady relationship. He is a stay at home husband being supported by his lover.
I actually saw the happy couple, hand in hand, skipping along at L’ancresse.
Jeremy Kyle, eat your heart out!
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I thought it was called the drunken garden!
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Simon – hee hee :)
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