"Should A Victim of a Sexual Assault Find It So Difficult to Be Rehoused?"
Emily had learning difficulties and suffered from anxiety and depression because of this. Despite this, Emily managed to successfully live independently, and her mother visited her every day as her Carer. After a couple of years of living in her flat, Emily was sexually assaulted by another resident living in the same building. Despite a police report being made and Emily informing the Housing Association of the incident, the Housing Association were unwilling to move her to new accommodation as there was no evidence to support Emily’s assertions. The Housing Association did not have CCTV in the corridors of the building and there were no witnesses. Emily approached the Council for help but was initially advised to go back and speak to the Housing Association.
As having to live in the same building as the perpetrator of the assault was having a profound affect on Emily’s mental health, her Counsellor referred her to JustUs for assistance.
JustUs triggered a homeless application with the Council and Emily was given a telephone assessment. During that assessment it became abundantly clear that the Housing Officer was not referring to any of the supporting evidence that JustUs had provided to the Council as the Officer was merely looking at historic medical records that bared no relevance to the current situation at all, so the Officer made the decision that Emily was not homeless.
JustUs made a First Stage complaint to the Council raising a number of issues in the way that the assessment was conducted, and that Emily’s learning difficulties had not been taken into consideration, however these points were disregarded, and the complaint was not upheld.
A Second Stage complaint was made and as Emily’s mental Health was continuing to deteriorate, JustUs arranged a meeting with the Chief Council Officer to discuss Emily’s case. As a result of this meeting, it was agreed that Emily’s learning difficulties and her mental health had not been sufficiently taken into consideration when the ‘not homeless’ decision was made and subsequently the Reviewing Officer at the Council visited Emily at home. The Reviewing Officer overturned the ‘not homeless’ decision and Emily was given another assessment by a different Housing Officer. At this second assessment, and once again with the support from JustUs, the Housing Officer made the decision that Emily was homeless and in priority need and Emily was placed on the Housing Register.
Emily was eventually offered a new property through the Housing Register and JustUs supported her in signing the new tenancy. A change of circumstance for her Housing Benefit was made to the Council to ensure that the rent was paid for her new property. Despite this, Emily received a phone call from her Housing Association a month later to advise her that her rent was not being paid and that she was accruing arrears. JustUs contacted the Housing Benefit department to try to ascertain why Emily’s rent was not being paid and a process of trying to get this resolved then began. Over a period of 3 months JustUs supported Emily to speak with the Council, to provide necessary documents to them and to chase the department for her Housing Benefit to be reinstated. This process was made significantly more difficult as it appeared that there were communication breakdowns within the department and the correct information was not being given to the right person. Whilst this was happening, the Housing Association was contacting Emily every week to chase her for the rent arrears and eventually informed her that she was going to be issued with a Section 21 Eviction Notice.
As Emily was finding this situation completely overwhelming and now fearful that she was about to lose her new tenancy, Emily asked JustUs to speak with the housing Association on her behalf to try and prevent the Notice being issued. JustUs contacted the Housing Association and provided them with an explanation as to what had happened in regard to Emily’s Housing Benefit and that every effort was being made to get this reinstated. The Housing Association were sympathetic and agreed to not issue the Notice but needed to be kept up to date with the progress of Emily’s Housing Benefit claim.
Emily’s Housing Benefit was reinstated for her new property and after a number of further phone calls to the department, JustUs managed to get her claim backdated so that all of the outstanding arrears were cleared. Emily now remains in her new home safely away from the perpetrator of her sexual assault and safe in the knowledge that her rent is being paid.