Life and eviction at the YMCA

by Janette Ewans

I was shocked today to see a post on my face book page about eviction resistance at the Y.M.C.A. in Crouch End – for two reasons – my own daughter has been living there for the past 2 months and also although I have been involved in activism specifically around housing and homelessness for quite some time now I am still naively shocked when I hear of events like this in the so called ‘nice’ areas of our capital!

When my daughter first secured a room at this hostel – through the homeless route – I was very pleased that she had managed to find a room in an area generally thought of as one of the upmarket areas of the city. I remember overhearing a conversation on the W 7 bus “Crouch End is now officially posher than Muswell Hill because when Woolworths shut they got a Pound shop but we got a Waitrose”.

My daughter was chuffed to bits to have finally got a place of her own – be it only a room. The new Tory imposed benefit laws only allow people under the age of 35 to claim benefit for a room in a shared house in private accommodation and in Barnet where she was living with me only 6% of landlords rent rooms or properties at a rate below the benefit cap and after more than a year of searching it proved impossible for her to secure a tenancy anywhere in the borough. The allowance for a single young adult under 25 with no dependents in shared accommodation is £93.07 in Barnet.

The dream come true has been a bit of a shock since she has lived at the Y.M.C.A. these past weeks.

The rooms are not very big, they are not allowed to decorate as each floor has a specific colour theme, furniture in the room is broken and stained and reports to the maintenance team don’t seem to be addressed. Often the toilets and showers are out of order and it is a long trek along the floor to find another one. The food does not seem to be up to much and my daughter has been vomiting a lot since living there – and has been told by other residents not to worry that it happens to all of them when they first move in but that she’ll get used to it!

The hot water system is very old and the pipes run through the rooms so in this sweltering weather the radiator pipes are hot and the only way to turn them off is to turn hot water off for the whole building, the night I visited I thought I was going to faint it was so warm in the room.

 

And then…

However I need not worry about that now as, following an incident that occurred where there was an attack on one of the hundred and sixty odd residents living there, the whole hostel are now not allowed to have visitors – at all – even from their mothers! I have rung the staff to try and get around this arguing that even prisoners have visiting rights but they were adamant that I would not be allowed in!

The most shocking detail though is the amount of rent charged and paid for by housing benefit – two hundred and sixty three pound a week! And then also there is a charge of nearly thirty pounds a week on top that the residents must pay from their job seekers allowance which, I think, is for food and bills and is non negotiable. The Young Men’s Christian Association doesn’t seem to be so Christian as we may assume and as a charity and a venture to help and support those that live there you would have hoped that a more reasonable rent could be agreed. It makes me wonder – is this a charity or a profit making business? Nearly £44,000 a week in rent seems like an awful lot of money to me.

This is a huge problem for the young people living there as many of them regularly have sanctions imposed on them by the Job Centre and therefore have to find illegal ways of finding the money to pay the astronomical rent or risk eviction! The hostel have a very short period they are willing for rent arrears to build up and then evict. Everyone my daughter has become friends with is in constant fear of becoming homeless. Getting paid employment which is enough to pay the rent is very unlikely for most, if not all, of the youngsters there – so they are stuck in a catch 22 situation, constantly hassled by the Job Centre to apply for jobs they know they wont get or which they don’t want as the wages are not high enough to pay the rent !

 

Eviction

When I spoke with the young adult who was evicted today she was naturally extremely upset and agitated, she told me that her college , Cornell had been helping her with her arrears as the benefits office had stopped paying her rent. claiming she is not entitled as she has a Swedish passport. Although I believe she also has a British parent, she certainly sounded like a Londoner to me. She has been getting housing benefit previously.

She praised the key worker from the hostel and said he had done his best to help her but that management had done nothing. They told her that they had helped by accommodating her so far but now they can do nothing. They have not offered her any help to find alternative accommodation and she had no idea where she was going to sleep tonight.

She feels that although it is supposed to be ‘supported accommodation’ people are treated like they are living in ‘independent accommodation’. She confirmed what my daughter has told me – that the building is infested with cock roaches but also claims that there are rats. Today apparently a pipe exploded and human excrement was coming out of the shower heads and flooding into the corridors. She has written to her M.P. David Lammy but has not yet received a reply. Where she is supposed to go? Nobody seems interested apart from the activists that fight these evictions on behalf of tenants – 2 told me tonight they would put her up if necessary.

 

Young and on the edge in London

I have been aware of the plight of young adults in London for a long time now as I have witnessed many of my daughters friends from school leaving home for numerous reasons, parents unable to afford to support them, overcrowding, family break down, mental health issues etc and believe they are becoming the ‘invisible’ homeless of the capital! Couch surfing is common and illegal activity is often the only way they can support themselves when hit by the benefit sanctions.

Young adults are singled out by Job Centre staff for sanctions, they are easy targets as they are often not articulate enough or confident enough to stick up for themselves and don’t know their rights. If they become frustrated and raise their voice or argue about the way they are being treated they are pounced on by security staff and ejected from the building and therefore incur a sanction for not finishing their interview. I know of some that live on my estate – one of them his father is a police officer – don’t even sign on at all as they can’t cope with the stress – they are the fortunate ones as their parents can afford to support them.

My style of writing is usually humorous but there is just nothing funny about the predicament of the young woman today or the rest of the youth in our capital without a home. There are no jobs, no free further or higher education and very little chance of securing a home. The future is not bright and If the government go ahead with their plan to stop anyone under the age of 25 from entitlement to housing benefit I fear for our young people. Perhaps they will start handing out tents when our young need to claim benefits in the future – but sadly I think the coalition government would see that as too generous.

I hope the young woman in question has found a place to lay her head tonight, housing is a human right and we all need a place to call home.