Featured Photo: Photo by Mike from Pexels
I have mentioned a few times on this blog about the attempt for me and my brother to find our own place and move on into an independent life. As two individuals with Autism it isn’t easy and we are currently receiving help from a housing organisation and our district council to try and find places. The process is slow, very slow actually, but we are happily prepared to wait as long as it may take – a virtue that so many others do not have in our place. What’s more is that it can be hard for us to be available for anything that does pop up as the window is very short as the housing market is so competitive, and my sister who would accompany and get us there is not often too available as she works full time to support herself and us. Naturally coronavirus has also slowed up the housing process a lot as well, pretty much to a standstill, again we are able to easily put up with this, but so many others who again do not have such a virtue are very likely struggling during this period and facing homelessness on the streets.
So far me and my brother have been able to attend two places that had been offered to us, one last year which was not at all satisfactory due to the awful state of the building and flat itself, although this is not the one that I have come to talk about as even compared to this the one we recently visited was far, far worse. These places have been travesties and it is an absolute disgrace and so many will be forced to live in these places as they simply have no other choice, it is either a roof over the head, no matter how dirty, broken or dangerous it is, or the streets. I’d like to note that both places we’ve visited so far were offered through the district council via a program of working with landlords and estate agents, as well as offering any council-owned homes that may become available, although now a days such places as these are sadly rare. My sister would be a lot more comfortable with us moving into a council-owned home rather than a privately rented accommodation as it would be more security, less risk of being moved out due to some kind of landlord/estate agent related reason, but that deserves another whole blogpost in itself.
But today I am here to talk about the absolutely appalling conditions and social situation of the last place we visited, which took place on 12th March and how for vulnerable people such as me and my brother it would be incredibly dangerous for us to live there. We have tried to make the Council aware that me and my brother are vulnerable people through having Autism and that we need a place where we would not be subject to conditions that would produce vulnerable dangers to us in our day-to-day living, but bureaucracy often leads this to little consideration. But this place we went to on the 12th even for a person that is not vulnerable is still appalling.
And so, I want to highlight this specific offering here as a record to specifically highlight its dangers and conditions, how even the current tenants there are keen to get away from it, why our district council really needs to take our vulnerable conditions more seriously, and how the landlords who own these places and estate agents utilised by them are sly and deceptive and clearly only caring about money rather than having any moral ground or consideration for their knowing abuses of the council program, such people who do not care about the state of their properties or safety of their tenants, and the absolute irresponsibility of offering up such places to people who are so vulnerable, many of which will have no choice but to accept it, putting themselves in vulnerable danger just so they won’t be thrown out on to the streets by the system, where they then become trapped.
To be clear I do not expect grand luxury or anything fancy at all from a place to live, but I do ask for respect to my dignity and safety. I ask for a place that is safe and comfortable. So, with that made plain let’s go over the last place we saw and how it was an absolute insult.
Me, my brother, our sister, and our aunt who we are very close with and helps support all of us with these things, arrived at the block of flats. From the outside the flats themselves didn’t look bad and we had at least a glimmer of hope that it may be what we are looking for, a simple comfortable and safe place. The neighborhood around the flats looked a bit rough, and a little messy but really all things that can be looked over as long as the block and the flat were appropriate, there were no real red flags at this point.
At first, we were confused as to what flat it would be as my sister had gotten an email from the council for a flat 8, while my aunt had gotten a text from the estate agents for a flat 11. A bit of a mix up but nothing that could not be figured out. So, we decide to guess and my aunt goes with flat 11 and punches that number into the bell-call system of the block, we suspected that it may be possible the landlord and estate agent may already be in the flat. Over the comms came a woman’s voice who we at first assumed to be who we needed to see, we explained to them we were looking for a flat to rent and she buzzed us into the block.
Now I want to impress upon you the initial reaction to what we walked into, the ground floor of the block was quite the mess, for some reason there were kids’ toys scattered all about the place, but again we can only assume that there simply was no better place to put them, it isn’t really a red flag to anything, just a bit strange. My sister decided to look a bit further up, we discovered a punch hole in part of the wall, and on about the 3rd or 4th floor was just a couple trolleys of rubbish for some reason, not really that nice, but again it is not something that can’t be dealt with. I guess we just found the punch hole to be most concerning, did it entail unruly tenants or was it simply just a one-off case of vandalism? We would soon acquire further information.
The female tenant of flat 11 was the first to greet us, she was a young woman with kids, and boy did she have some things to tell us. She informed us that flat 11 was not the one up for rent as that is where she lived and that flat 8 was the correct one. Right after this she dug right into the state of the block and its tenants, saying that we should not at all take up our offer to live here and that many of the good-natured tenants including herself wanted to get out of there. She explained the reason for this was because the block of flats was being used as a dumping ground for let’s say, unruly individuals moved down from places such as Dagenham and Barking (London boroughs) and that a number of them were drug dealers.
She informed us further that fights within the block were a common occurrence and that the latest altercation had left blood in part of the hallway that had not been cleaned up until a week later. Now just think about this, the terrible state these people are having to live through, with young kids and all, it’s a terrible and awful situation. And a situation that would be just unthinkable to put vulnerable people into like me and my brother into, who would be ripe for exploitation by such unruly peoples. It is all just extremely concerning that this place would be offered to us, despite informing about our vulnerabilities to the council.
But this isn’t even the worst of it, the female tenant then informed us about why flat 8 was now empty. She told us that the former person living there was a tenant who had gotten into trouble with some drug dealers who were now after him and that due to this he had abandoned the flat as he was afraid for his life and wellbeing. At this point we were just speechless, absolutely speechless, putting anyone into such a situation would be incredibly immoral and irresponsible, and possibly very dangerous, but to even consider offering such a place to vulnerable people such as us is disgusting and extremely dangerous to our safety.
My sister was absolutely fuming at this point, and we all knew this as when she gets angry, she becomes very silent and speechless. You can imagine by this point we had already decided, without even looking at the flat in question, that it was going to be a no, 100% it was going to be categorically a no.
Eventually the landlord and estate agent turned up, in a nice fancy car may I say, and dressed in a nice fancy suit, resembling nothing to the area and no connection at all to the social situation of the place. They were perfectly ready to rent us this place without informing us of anything that the female tenant had helpfully informed us of. And so, my aunt confronted them about these things
To little surprise the landlord attempts to downplay what the female tenant had said by saying – wait for it… wait for it… the blood had only been there for five days… not a week. Oh well I guess that just makes everything so much better, not only did they confirm what the woman had said, but they amended the time period to something basically just as bad. They also confirmed that the former tenant of flat 8 had absconded but were reluctant to say why, I can only imagine why they were reluctant to say why. They also tried to say that they only owned some of the flats in the block so what happens in the block and its maintenance and cleanliness was not their responsibility and that… fights happen. Well thanks, fights happen, of course they happen now and again, but they should not happen on a regular basis, perhaps they should consider removing some of these unruly people, or maybe they just simply only care about getting their money, I think that seems clear – money, this is what it is always about.
At this point it was very clear that not only what the female tenant had told us was all-but true, but that the landlord and estate agent were willing to be happily immoral and rent out this place to two young vulnerable people with Autism without a single care in the world.
So, let’s go over this. They confirmed that fights happen. They confirmed blood was on the floor for too long a period than it should have been. They confirmed that the last tenant had absconded and were clearly uncomfortable to go much more into it. And now they were trying to manipulate themselves out of it by saying they aren’t responsible for the block… which I may add is up for debate.
Why is it up for debate you ask? Well, the female tenant came back out again and informed us that the landlord was a liar, and that he did own all the flats and that all the tenants rent money went directly to the landlord. And as such they – or he – was responsible for the state the block was in.
So that is that really. We went outside while the landlord went up to sort some stuff out in flat 8 which we were no longer going to go and look at. The estate agent tried to get us to look at some of their other blocks of flats, but after what we had seen we were not at all interested in what these immoral people had to offer, and the cheekiest part… he then upped the price and tried to have us go for something that was outside our price range. And then when that didn’t work, he tried to play the old good cop routine, by bad-speaking the landlord (his boss) who was as said in flat 8 at this point, the estate agent was trying to act like he was on our side, it really just felt like a con at this point. We were done with these people and their manipulations, and so we left them.
Considering the situation many in our place are, they would have little choice but to be forced to accept these living conditions at the manipulative expense of these immoral peoples who full well I believe know what they are doing, exploiting a council-run program that feeds them a comfortable supply of desperate and vulnerable people who have little other option but to take what they can get, filing up these places to continue the money stream. It’s all for money, they do not care for our or anyone’s situation who fall into their greedy immoral hands.
For these desperate and vulnerable people who do not have the support me and my brother have, they cannot afford to wait forever, they are limited with options and face the streets, they have little choice but to accept these conditions. Me and my brother can only thank and be so grateful for the support that my sister and our aunt give us. They also helped us to understand the manipulation, which many in our position would likely not be able to comprehend or would feel too pressured or anxious to push against what they may realize as manipulation, and also simply again they may well not have the support we have and so have little choice to but accept what is slapped in-front of them. Again, I strongly believe that these landlords and estate agents know this, and use it to their full advantage.
And the district council is not completely off the hook on this either as after all the program is theirs. The good intentions of the program are what is good about it, but in practice there are many, many flaws with it. Allowing these partnerships to continue, these exploitative partnerships, is very immoral and there needs to be more reviews of those who they do partnerships with under these housing programs. There I know are elements in the council that understand the problems but that bureaucracy is a slow beast, and it is hard to make anything change. Certainly, one of the people we work with through the council to find places seemed shocked at the conditions we described and even said they would pursue the removal of the particular landlord and his company from their housing program, so perhaps in that we can save someone from a bad fate.
But sadly, there was little more that could be done. He informed us we would have to make an appeal about why we have rejected the place offered and they will decide whether they will offer to find us a different place or not – again this spells out to you why desperate people will be forced to accept the place given, as not only do they face prolonging of financial insecurity, but that also they may simply be chucked off the program altogether and left with no options but the streets. This is something else that needs to be figured out by the council.
In conclusion the simple fact of the matter is that people with Autism, people with learning difficulties, and other vulnerable peoples do not belong in so many of these places that get offered up, and they would simply be left in great danger and subject to manipulative exploitation under such social and living conditions. It is on all councils to do more to support people like us to find a place that is suitable for our condition, and not just be happy to toss us into a place where we would in such danger.
Councils need to do more. Immoral estate agents and landlords need to be condemned. The housing programs need to be reworked. People need better support. Reviews need to be conducted to correct and eliminate these conditions. We should not have to be forced into awful conditions and danger due to desperation. I do not think asking for a simple place that is safe and comfortable is too much to ask for, it is all anyone deserves in life at the very least.
I have put forth no names or addresses for reasons of privacy and security.
Thank you for reading this post, if you have any queries please Email me, you can find my Email in the Contacts & Community section. Please also follow The Weekly Rambler on Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest and Facebook which you can access through the buttons at the bottom of this website. You can also use the social media buttons under each blogpost to share with your family, friends and associates. You can also subscribe to Email notifications at the right-side of this website to know whenever a new post goes up (you can easily unsubscribe from this at any time through a button in each Email notification), or alternatively you can use an RSS Feed Reader. Please also join my FB Group The Weekly Ramblers Readers Group where readers can more easily talk with each other and also with me whenever I am on, you can also find it in Community.