Chichester Council To Compensate Woman Separated From Her Children Following Eviction

Chichester District Council has apologised after an issue with emergency housing saw a woman living apart from her children for almost seven weeks.

The woman, known as Ms Y, approached the council for help after she was issued with a section 21 eviction notice by her landlord.

This meant she and her teenage children – both of whom have special needs – had two months to leave.

But a complaint was made to the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman following problems assessing Ms Y’s housing and support needs.

Those problems saw her living alone in bed and breakfast for more than six weeks, while her son stayed with family and friends and her daughter stayed mostly at a therapy centre, which didn’t have proper sleeping accommodation.

The Ombudsman found the council to be at fault for the way it assessed Ms Y’s needs and for failing to consider her concerns about being placed in interim housing which was unsuitable, given the special needs of her children.

It was agreed that the council would arrange for a senior manager to apologise in writing to Ms Y, and that she be paid £350 in recognition of the distress and worry caused to her.

A council spokesman said:

“Providing housing support is a top priority for us and so we are disappointed that we have not met the standard expected on this occasion, and we have apologised to the client for this.

“We recognise that the client did not receive all of the notifications that they should have throughout the housing assessment process, and we are making improvements on how we monitor and audit this process. This has also included additional training for our staff.

“Although we have increased our temporary accommodation over the past few years, the right type of accommodation for the family was not available at the time it was needed, due to high demand.

“A key priority for us has been to expand our temporary accommodation further because of the increasing demand we are seeing, and we are pleased to report that we have recently been able to secure additional temporary accommodation to assist us in meeting this need when it arises.

“However, we are always looking to expand the options available, in order to meet the individual needs of our clients.”