Hounslow Council rejects Ombudsman’s request to house young mother and baby

Hounslow Council has disagreed with a social care watchdog’s recommendation to house a young mother and her baby. 

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said the council should offer her the next suitable two-bedroom property after finding it made a “catalogue of errors”, which left her sofa surfing while pregnant.

The local authority has not agreed to this recommendation, instead opting to apologise and pay the woman £3,759 to recognise the time she spent in unsuitable accommodation outside the borough and the “distress and frustration” caused by its dealings with the applicant.

The woman first approached Hounslow council in May 2022. Over several months, the Ombudsman reported that the authority:

• Told her she was on the council’s top Band 0 list for a home, despite this banding not existing
• Told her applying as homeless would reduce her chances of getting secure housing
• Asked her to complete five separate questionnaires without being allocated a housing officer
• Failed to respond to numerous requests for information
• Told her that moving out of area would not affect her application, despite this then disqualifying her from its housing register, and leaving her unable to apply to the housing register in her new borough because she has not lived there long enough
•  Failed to deal properly with her subsequent complaints

The Ombudsman’s investigation found that the council took 77 weeks too long to assess the woman’s housing application, saying if it had dealt with her inquiry properly, it would have designated her “eligible homeless and in priority need” and provided her with immediate interim accommodation.

According to the watchdog, the council gave the applicant incorrect information to discourage her from applying for social housing in order to avoid its legal duties to her as a homeless person. This led to her missing out on several secure tenancies.

Sue Sampson, Hounslow Council’s cabinet member for housing management and homelessness, said: “We maintain that at all times in this case we acted legally and in line with housing policy. During the period in question Miss X secured her own accommodation outside the borough. Our priority and responsibility around housing need is for people residing in Hounslow who cannot house themselves.

“We cannot accept all the Ombudsman’s recommendations in this case. The council does not accept that there is evidence that a homelessness application would have been successful, even had one been made. Homelessness applications are subject to rigorous assessment to ensure limited resources are allocated to those most in need.”

>>See also: Ombudsman criticises Housing for Women after incorrect £10,000 charge to resident

>>See also: £330m expected overspend on homelessness services could bankrupt us, London boroughs warn

Ms Amerdeep Somal, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Hounslow council has left a vulnerable mother and her child without the security of knowing where she would call home at a particularly desperate time of her life. As a young pregnant person she has been forced to sofa surf despite clear evidence the council owed her a duty.

“All this has had a significant effect on her. She moved into one-bedroom shared accommodation shortly before she gave birth, and remains there to this day. All the evidence shows that if Hounslow had acted correctly, the woman would have had the safety of a social tenancy when her child was born.”

Amerdeep added that the council is “failing to fully accept the gravity its incorrect advice and practice has had on this woman and her child” by refusing the recommendation to house them urgently, and calls on councillors to do the “right thing” and accept it “as soon as possible.”