Earlier this month Katrina and some of her children travelled down to the stall from Colchester to get support and tell us about their housing situation there and the overcrowding they are facing at the hostel they are currently living in. We are very alarmed by the problems faced by her and other families who have lots of children. We do not think that such families should be split up or have children taken into care. Children need security, family life and decent housing.
This is Katrina’s story
We have a relatively large family by ‘normal standards’ but at the time we had the fifth child my husband was employed and earning a very healthy wage. He was made redundant but didn’t expect it would take long to find employment. As far as we were concerned our family was big enough and so another pregnancy was a huge surprise and to be carrying twins was a massive shock. We were living in a 3 bed private rent so knew that eventually we’d need to move to something bigger and approached the council to go on the waiting list. They told us we had to make an application for homelessness to be accepted onto the housing waiting list. We were told that if we refused to move into temporary accommodation then they wouldn’t accept us onto the housing list so we moved.Because we resisted their bullying tactics, we made ourselves a target for punishment. One of the tactics the council tried was to tell our landlord he needed to evict us (this was to ensure we had no choice but to go to the emergency housing they had lined up for us). The day before the eviction the landlord had rung us asking if we had heard from the council as no one was getting back to him and the last thing he wanted to do was evict us. Within hours he must have heard they weren’t going to pay him any more housing benefit and we had approx 15 hours notice before the bailiffs came knocking.So we had to move to the hostel. After being summoned to a meeting we have been told that the council will be discharging their duty to house us yet they are still forcing us to move again no doubt to wait until the last bag/box has been unpacked to throw us out again. They are saying we will be better off in the private sector yet there aren’t any affordable rents and living in a university town means large properties make more money for landlords to let out to students.In the hostel we are housed with other vulnerable people and this is just not suitable for families.To add to it all we have 5 girls sleeping in a room with 4 beds. We are told one will have to sleep on a mattress on the floor which wouldn’t leave any floor room for walking, let alone toys.If you are unemployed for what ever reason you are looked down upon for being a burden on the economy and don’t deserve anything. As for housing officers feeling that people ‘like us’ are bleeding the tax payer dry all I can say is that as far as I am aware we are all tax payers (VAT). Our hopes for the future are to have stability, to know we are secure for at least a fixed amount of time so we can actually have lives and focus on work and education.By telling our story we hope encourage others to speak out against the harsh treatments of councils, to highlight how housing officers are prepared to tell whatever lies it takes to manipulate the situation into their favour such as telling people they will only be in B&Bs for a couple of days that stretch into months. To be told you cannot appeal their decisions and to be grateful for whatever they handout! They prey on the isolation of people so it’s time people got together and exposed them for what they really are.
Focus E15 Campaign 
Hi,there all I can see is that this united campaign of focus15 is the last stand and chance for people to fight for basic human living conditions ,its a fight for a right to live as a proper citizen 😬😮
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Hi everyone.as a religious person I thank good for your excellent campaign for social justice we have to fight together against any form of human suffering,I believe that this battle for equality and social housing its very important because people feel trapped and don,t find any positive solution. Your logo as a socialist campaign is that in this world everything belongs to good and must be by goods law distributed equally to all,when you are not being seen as part of good,s creation there is always space for discrimination and neglect.people that work in housing offices have to avoid stealing as showed in various horrible scandal news,they have to learn that a wrong action regarding a particular family or individual can have horrible consequences including premature deaths.a poor person needing emergency housing deserves the rightfully respect but many times is the issue okey I can pretend this individual does not exist and let this person suffer for years housing injustice until the person die of housing disrepair or any type of harrasment from a particular private landlord the person working in the housing window will always calculate this individual can,t afford a good private solicitor to win any housing rights,sometimes the discrimination will be based on colour ,sex,country of origin anything canbe possible when you have imperfect eyes.your eyes can only see a homeless person as a burden there is not compassion or mercy this days ,is only opportunist people!e that forgot the fact that before working in housing offices they whas also homeless themselves.my daughter is already destroyed in terms of heath because the strong slow burocratic process of giving someone in priority need a decent council home to rebuilt her life.I will always walk as a broken hearted person when I constantly see so much neglect to so many good people.keep the good work and don,t forget that many social activist in the past like Kennedy or lutterking ,johnlennon etc have a very sad end and that people develop greddinest and evil mentality very easy .this is the age of kaliyuga the age of quarrel and hipocrisy for politic administrative power people sale their own moral principles easily letting innocent people suffer worst than worms in inappropriate expensive private hellish accommodations.
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