Panorama.S2014E24.Britains.Homeless.Families
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00:00This is the story of a new housing crisis.
00:07This is primitive stuff.
00:09The children having to go in the toilet in front of each other,
00:12leaning over buckets.
00:14It shouldn't happen in this country.
00:16We meet the homeless families with nowhere to go.
00:19If the children weren't there,
00:21I'd have probably given up a long time ago.
00:24It's difficult in a minute.
00:28If I allow myself to go, I'll probably have a breakdown,
00:31and that's not going to be good for the kids
00:34or for the whole situation.
00:36A generation that can never be sure how long they'll have a home.
00:43What we're seeing is that more and more families
00:45are really struggling to keep a roof over their head.
00:47With over 80,000 children waking up every morning
00:50in temporary accommodation.
00:52The number of households made homeless by private landlords
00:55is on the rise.
00:58We are in business to make money.
01:01We are not a charity.
01:03With a chronic shortage of housing,
01:05where are Britain's vulnerable families going to live?
01:09So you're trapped between an unhealthy house and homelessness?
01:13Yeah.
01:15What does that feel like?
01:17Absolutely rubbish.
01:27The community is packing up and clearing out.
01:36I'll just pile it up.
01:38She's lived here in Ashford with her two-year-old daughter
01:41for eight months.
01:44Is that the last thing that's going on?
01:46No.
01:47She's never been behind with the rent
01:49and never had a complaint against her.
01:52But her landlord has decided to evict 200 tenants
01:56for personal benefit.
01:58I was really shocked, actually,
02:00because I kind of thought that if you just...
02:03You know, if you treated the property well
02:05and you paid your rent,
02:07I couldn't see what the problem would be.
02:09I think I deserve better.
02:11I'm a good tenant and I think this could have been avoided.
02:15Like most in the private sector,
02:17Vicky has no security beyond the end of her short-term tenancy.
02:22In England, 53,000 households were accepted as homeless.
02:27Many were kicked out by private landlords.
02:31If you're the ones that are labelled as the ones
02:33that might not pay their rent,
02:35then people aren't really going to want to rent houses to you
02:38and, like, where do you go?
02:40I think it's all been a bit of a shame, really, to be quite honest.
02:43And then the actual eviction notice on 23rd December,
02:47two days before Christmas.
02:50The landlord sees things differently.
02:53He says evicting 200 tenants on benefits is just economics.
02:58We are in business to make money.
03:01We are not a charity.
03:03If we went to the other extreme of having 100% people on benefits,
03:09then we would go pop because of the default rate.
03:14This is a man with nearly 1,000 properties in his empire.
03:18He says rents are rising faster than welfare payments
03:22and there's now too much risk with tenants on benefits.
03:25Do you think you have a moral responsibility to these people
03:28or is it only profit that matters?
03:30Well, we've had a moral responsibility for a number of years
03:34but it's just reached such a point that we cannot continue.
03:40Is it acceptable, do you think, to evict people
03:43because they're on benefits?
03:45Well, in principle, if they've done something wrong...
03:49No, no, no. If their tenancy ends, they're on benefits
03:51and you're a landlord, you don't want benefits in your property.
03:54Well, first of all, an individual private business
03:57will make commercial decisions
03:59and if they actually decide they don't want to have somebody
04:03on a housing benefit in the future,
04:05that's a perfect legitimate thing for them to do.
04:10So Vicky and her daughter are out.
04:17You move into a place and if you're not expecting to have to move on
04:20in a few months, you start to put down roots
04:22and you start to think about the school that your child will go to.
04:26It just feels so unfair that in this day and age
04:29the rug can be pulled out from your feet like this
04:32in terms of where you live.
04:35Vicky has managed to find another place to live, but many don't.
04:39In the past five years, the number of households made homeless
04:43after leaving private accommodation has trebled.
04:48Private tenancies being ended is the single biggest cause
04:52of accepted homelessness cases in England.
04:56Most will have been forced out by private landlords.
05:00It's a sign of how the housing market has changed.
05:03For the first time since the 1960s,
05:06there are now more people renting privately than in social housing.
05:11This is the age of the private landlord.
05:14The private rented sectors have effectively picked up the slack.
05:17As people haven't been able to buy,
05:19as people can't get into social housing,
05:21they still need to be housed somewhere
05:23and the private rented sector has filled the gap over the past ten years.
05:27It's doubled in size.
05:30What that means is people who used to go into social housing
05:34and can't afford to pay to rent have nowhere to go.
05:40Many have ended up in temporary accommodation.
05:45This is Milton Keynes, and we're here to meet a family
05:49who absolutely capture the problem that hundreds of families face.
05:53There's a shortage of affordable housing.
05:56This family found themselves homeless.
05:58They were placed in temporary accommodation
06:01and months later, they're still there.
06:10The family used to rent privately,
06:12but when their six-month tenancy came to an end, they were homeless.
06:18Hello? Hi, it's Richard Bilton from Panorama.
06:21Hello. Thanks.
06:24The council placed them in this block near the centre of town.
06:33Hi, Paul. Hi, Richard. How are you doing?
06:35Pleased to meet you. Come in. Thank you very much.
06:37So this is home?
06:39Unfortunately for now.
06:41Well, I mean, this is not a big place, is it?
06:43Certainly not. And this is it?
06:45No.
06:47A family of four who have been living in temporary accommodation
06:51for eight months.
06:53A family of four live, eat and sleep in this one room.
06:59It was supposed to be temporary,
07:01but they've lived like this for eight months.
07:04It's a very big embarrassment when you have friends and family
07:07come over here and you see, sort of,
07:09effectively my failure as a dad to my family.
07:13So you do? Yeah, 100%.
07:15Paul and Carla are both working.
07:18They say the couple can afford private rented
07:21and offered to help them find a place and the deposit.
07:24But Paul and Carla say renting privately is just too expensive
07:28and too insecure.
07:30And what they really fear is being made homeless all over again.
07:34We've got nowhere else to go.
07:36This is it. This is, you know, it's here or nothing.
07:39So we have to take it day by day.
07:41Looking any further than that is...
07:45It's very daunting.
07:47They're holding out for the security that comes with social housing.
07:51It just seems like...
07:54..in a way, there's no way out.
07:56It just seems like we're going to be stuck here forever.
08:05Living like this is affecting their health.
08:09See you later.
08:12The couple are both taking antidepressants.
08:17I've been diagnosed with stress and depression,
08:20which is getting to me quite a lot at the minute.
08:24One of the only things keeping me going at the minute is the children.
08:32There's not... You know, if the children weren't there,
08:37I'd have probably given up a long time ago.
08:41So they're my key to keeping me going and keeping my family together.
08:47You know, there's...
08:59It's difficult at the minute.
09:01In England, there are 44,000 families like Paul and Carla
09:06living in temporary accommodation, and the numbers have been rising.
09:12What we're seeing is that more and more families
09:14are really struggling to keep a roof over their head,
09:16with over 80,000 children waking up every morning
09:19in temporary accommodation.
09:21Quite often, you will be in a single room,
09:23maybe four or five of you, sharing beds.
09:25You might be eating food off the floor
09:27because there's no accommodation.
09:29It's terrible circumstances for families.
09:34In the past, the obvious answer for many of these families
09:37would have been social housing,
09:39with the security of a long-term tenancy.
09:43But that model doesn't work like it used to.
09:47There's simply not enough social housing to go around.
09:50There are 1.8 million households in England
09:53waiting for social housing,
09:55and many will be waiting for a new home.
09:58And many will be waiting forever.
10:04The reason is council houses have been sold off,
10:08council houses have been sold off,
10:10and successive governments have failed to build enough new homes.
10:15One of the problems we've got, actually,
10:17when we came to government in 2010,
10:19is that there was 420,000 less social houses
10:24than there was in the period when, 1997,
10:27the Labour government came to power.
10:29Now, we've got to address that base,
10:31we've got to find ways in which we can get decent housing for people,
10:35and one of the solutions is actually using the private rental sector.
10:39The shortage in some areas is so extreme
10:42that councils are looking at radical ways of finding homes.
10:47This is Romford on the outskirts of London.
10:51There isn't enough social housing here,
10:53so the local council has done a deal with the private sector.
10:58The council here operates like a kind of property agent.
11:01They'll say to the landlord,
11:03look, we'll guarantee you a set rent for, say, two years,
11:06and we'll make sure that your property is looked after.
11:09And then they say to the tenant,
11:11you don't have to worry about fees or a deposit,
11:14we'll take care of that, you've just got to cover the rent.
11:19For some tenants, it's almost like social housing.
11:22The council acts as the landlord.
11:24They even take care of the viewings.
11:32This is Marie.
11:33She's on benefits and she's been homeless,
11:36but if she likes this private flat, it's hers.
11:42OK, if you'd like to come through, Marie.
11:46It smells really fresh.
11:48Yeah, old, newly done.
11:50New carpets, I can see.
11:52I've been sofa surfing, so with friends and family.
11:56But, yeah, effectively, I was homeless, I didn't have anywhere to go.
12:00I'm not working currently,
12:02so I can't prove that I've got an income coming in.
12:06I didn't have the means for a deposit,
12:09and so it would have been really, really hard for me.
12:13This place comes with a five-year tenancy,
12:16virtually unheard of from a private landlord.
12:21But if you could sign there, if you're happy with that...
12:23That's just a list of the keys.
12:25That is, and that's your key receipt.
12:29Thank you, Marie. Thank you very much.
12:31That's your key. Thank you.
12:33From speaking with Marie,
12:35she couldn't afford to go into the private sector.
12:37Obviously, the boundaries there were deposits and different things.
12:40It would have been very difficult for her,
12:42and she's been going from place to place.
12:44So, yeah, hopefully this has made a real difference for Marie.
12:47I'm over the moon. I'm over the moon.
12:50And I feel like I've now got a bit of a positive start
12:54to kind of turn things around.
12:58The scheme is self-sufficient.
13:00It doesn't touch the council tax funding,
13:02and in the past seven years,
13:04it's helped 2,500 people in this borough.
13:09But it can only help a fraction of those 2,500 people
13:13and a fraction of those trapped outside the private system.
13:17If you live in an area where rents are a lot higher than benefits,
13:21it's much harder for councils to help.
13:26All right, come with me.
13:28Quick, then, chop-chop. Yeah!
13:31Kareena is facing a crisis.
13:35Right, that's ten to eight, boys. Get a move on.
13:39Do you remember this jumper?
13:41She's a single mum with three boys living in South London.
13:44Do you remember it?
13:48This flat has been their home for five years.
13:51Come with me. Come with me, please.
13:54But now the family is facing eviction.
13:58Right. So, Zane, what I'm doing...
14:01The court has ordered for me to be out of here.
14:03The landlady, she wants our property back.
14:06And I can't really fight that.
14:08If she wants it back to sell, then I can't do much, can I?
14:14Kareena has no idea where she'll be living next.
14:18Where are your glasses? You need to find them.
14:21Kareena's on benefits, but changes to the welfare system
14:25mean she's now entitled to less money.
14:28Her housing benefit has been cut by more than £400 a month.
14:34She says that means she can no longer afford to rent around here.
14:39I'm probably looked at as a mum with three children on benefits.
14:44Right, we need to get her off benefits.
14:47If she can't afford to live in London, she can move out of London.
14:50Got everything?
14:52I've got kids that are in year three at school.
14:56My four or five friends that kind of support me are all round here.
15:01It's just uprooting.
15:04At times, I don't even want to think about it.
15:06I know I have to, because that could be a reality.
15:09But at times, I don't even want to kind of contemplate it in my head.
15:16The government says it's put aside almost a billion pounds
15:20to help people like Kareena,
15:22and that, overall, homelessness figures are down by a third.
15:26It also says it's putting money into major new house-building projects.
15:33We've just come out of the deepest recessions for over 100 years,
15:37and we've put huge amounts of resource in there to make sure
15:40that the most vulnerable in society have got protection there.
15:44You've said all these things that you're doing individually as a minister,
15:48and you've said that you're not going to do it alone.
15:52You've said all these things that you're doing individually as a minister,
15:55and your government is trying to do.
15:57Don't they all get moved away when you just look at the welfare reforms
16:00and that the welfare cap is one of the primary reasons
16:02that people are being made homeless?
16:04That might be on a Labour Party press release somewhere,
16:06but there's absolutely no evidence that that's the case.
16:14But for Kareena, things look very different.
16:17In three weeks, she'll be homeless.
16:22She may be forced to leave London,
16:25and if she does, her boys will have to leave their school.
16:46The local council has told Kareena it will provide her
16:49with temporary accommodation, but she doesn't know where it will be
16:53or how she'll find somewhere permanent.
16:56OK. Let's go.
17:00Is that fun?
17:03OK, jump down.
17:05If I allow myself to go and just keep feeling whatever it is inside
17:09that I want to feel and let out, I'll probably have a breakdown,
17:14and that's not going to be good for the kids
17:18or for the whole situation.
17:20It might be good for me, for about five, ten minutes,
17:23to get all the anger and frustration out,
17:27but it won't get me anywhere, will it?
17:33Even if the council decides to help Kareena,
17:36she may end up back with a private landlord.
17:40Of course, most properties in the private rented sector are fine.
17:45The problem is homeless families tend to end up
17:48at the bottom of the market.
17:50One of the things we have found is that if you are at the bottom end
17:54of the market, the quality of the housing you go into is poor.
17:58People will report poor conditions in terms of damp,
18:02in terms of vermin infestation,
18:04huge difficulties of actually getting a landlord to do anything.
18:07The situation is, frankly, pretty dire.
18:14Natalie Wood knows what that can be like.
18:17She lives here in Chipping Norton.
18:19It's in David Cameron's constituency and a wealthy area,
18:23but her rented home is in a poor state.
18:27You can see if you put anything against the wall,
18:31this sort of lovely black mould appears.
18:34Because that's because that's been on there?
18:36Yeah, because there's no air gap there.
18:39That's disgusting, isn't it? Yeah.
18:42Natalie has lived here with her two boys for a year.
18:45She rents privately.
18:48Now, an expert has told her the house is so damp she should move out.
18:54This is the playroom.
18:56We can't put any clothes in any of the wardrobes.
18:59I mean, obviously, they're not usable.
19:01They stink, they've got mould in them,
19:03so the kids' clothes have had to go on rails.
19:07Absolutely every room has got mould or damp.
19:12The landlord has failed to sort the damp out.
19:15Natalie wants to move but says she doesn't have the money.
19:19To make things worse, she's nearly eight months pregnant.
19:25What's that stress like,
19:27of knowing that there's mould creeping over your children,
19:30over your possessions?
19:31It's absolutely awful for the kids more than anything.
19:34I mean, particularly their clothes and stuff.
19:37I mean, I can't send them to school stinking.
19:39I can't send them to school smelling of mould
19:42or looking like the smelly kids.
19:44Oh, sorry.
19:51They won't do that? Is that what it's like?
19:53Yeah, yeah.
20:02We're not a dirty family
20:04and I don't want them to be tired with that.
20:07Natalie says she's been asking the council for social housing
20:10for three months but they haven't offered anything.
20:15So you're trapped between an unhealthy house and homelessness?
20:19Yeah.
20:20What does that feel like?
20:22Absolutely rubbish.
20:25And you've got a baby on the way? Yeah.
20:31For those at the bottom end of the private rental market,
20:35experiences like Natalie's are all too common.
20:38One in three private rental properties
20:41fail to meet the government's decent home standard
20:44and many think the problem is a lack of regulation.
20:50You have to pass more rules and regulations,
20:52go over more hurdles if you want to set up a whelk stall
20:56than if you want to rent a property to an individual.
20:59And that property is somebody else's home that you're trying to do.
21:02It is ludicrous.
21:05The controls matter because the law in England has been changed
21:10and private landlords are now at the heart of emergency housing policy.
21:15There's been a major change in the government's approach to homelessness.
21:19So in the past, a family that was accepted as homeless
21:23could insist on social housing.
21:26But now a council can effectively force a family
21:30to take a property in the private sector.
21:34So far, the new power hasn't been widely used,
21:37but one of Britain's top QCs on housing law
21:40says we should be concerned.
21:43There is no problem, provided that there is in the private rented sector
21:47reasonable, decent quality accommodation
21:49at rents that can be afforded by these homeless people.
21:52The sad reality is that there is not.
21:55This is at the moment a totally unregulated industry.
21:58Anyone can let a property of any standard
22:01for which they can find a tenant.
22:04Of course, private landlords have an important role,
22:07and most do it well.
22:09But even some in the industry accept there is a problem
22:12at the bottom end of the market.
22:14Some landlords are better than others
22:16and we know there are people out there who exploit the vulnerable.
22:19What checks do most local authorities do then with private landlords?
22:23I think it's very variable around the country.
22:25And certainly some of the stories we hear
22:27of people being put into properties that simply aren't up to standard,
22:31I would question whether many of them in some cases do anything at all.
22:36One of Britain's top QCs has told us there's effectively no regulation.
22:39The National Landlords Association says there's virtually no enforcement.
22:43Do you say that they're wrong?
22:45Well, I know it is.
22:46There is a requirement on local authorities
22:48to make sure if they're using public money to house somebody,
22:51that those houses...
22:53And is it happening, do you think, Minister?
22:55I think, actually, the vast majority of the times it is.
22:57I believe that local authorities do take their role extremely seriously.
23:01They want to make sure the place where their citizens in their community
23:06are living are right and decent and appropriate.
23:09And I've written to local authorities
23:11and reminded them about their responsibility to live
23:14to make sure those houses are appropriate and decent.
23:17The government says the number of people on benefits
23:20in the private sector has been rising.
23:24But there are some families who just can't find a home.
23:31Meet the Millers.
23:34They look like a happy family on holiday, but they're not.
23:41Two years ago, this family owned a five-bedroom detached house in Surrey.
23:46Now they live in a camper van.
23:50For a shower.
23:52For a family to go through this for so long
23:56without any certainty at all is very, very difficult to take.
24:02The options are very, very limited now,
24:04so will we stay here for one week, two weeks, three weeks?
24:08It's a complete unknown, as it's been all along.
24:13After the family home was repossessed, they were forced to rent privately,
24:18but they couldn't afford it and ended up in the camper van.
24:24They're using the local church as a campsite.
24:29We've got electric, thank goodness,
24:31so we make a cup of tea, got a little fire to keep us warm,
24:34so, yeah, that's pretty much where we are.
24:41The council has offered two properties,
24:44but the Millers were worried about drug dealing in the area
24:47and decided they were better off in the van.
24:50It's difficult for us, but for the children,
24:53to have gone through what they have had for the last two months,
24:57you know, waking up in the middle of the night,
25:00and this is primitive stuff,
25:02this is what people did in the Victorian times.
25:07The children having to go and toilet in front of each other,
25:10leaning over buckets, it shouldn't happen in this country.
25:18What's this? Light soy sauce, that needs to go in there.
25:23Some tea bags.
25:25So what about a private landlord?
25:27That's what the council suggested.
25:29But Dean and Debbie are on benefits
25:31and they say most landlords have refused to take them.
25:36The agents' fees vary.
25:38You could be talking £5,000 before you even walk through the door.
25:43In this area, it's almost impossible to get a private rental
25:48if you're receiving housing benefit.
25:57It's hard. It's hard to explain to the children when they keep asking
26:01where we're going to live, when are we going to get a house,
26:04where is it going to be?
26:07It's very hard.
26:09What do you say?
26:13Hopefully soon we'll have somewhere nice, we can all be a family again.
26:23After three months in the van,
26:25the Millers finally found a private rented house
26:28but had to borrow from family and friends
26:31to cover the £3,000 needed for the deposit and fees.
26:38Vicky, who was evicted for being on housing benefit,
26:41is still in her new property
26:43but has less than six weeks left on the tenancy.
26:48Paul and Carla, after months of saying no to private rented,
26:52finally got a place in social housing.
26:57After more than a year in a damp home,
27:00Natalie was also given social housing.
27:03But before she was able to move in, she suffered a personal tragedy.
27:08Natalie lost her baby at nine months.
27:14It was horrible. The worst time of my life.
27:19I don't want to put the blame on anyone or whatever.
27:22What happened just happened. There was nothing anyone could do about it.
27:28Obviously, stress doesn't help and, you know,
27:32pregnancy is meant to be a fun time, a happy time, and it wasn't.
27:37Karina was evicted and moved into temporary accommodation.
27:41Her children haven't had to move schools
27:43and the council has agreed to give her social housing.
27:47But the family has been living in this one-bedroom flat for months
27:51and they're still waiting.
27:53It's everything that I kind of really asked for, to be honest.
27:57But I don't think it's over yet.
27:59I don't think this is it and I can just sit back and relax
28:02and through my past experiences,
28:05there's always something that kind of hiccups.
28:13Britain is running out of places to live.
28:16There simply isn't the social housing for everyone who wants it.
28:22But is the poorly regulated private sector
28:25the right place for our most vulnerable families?
28:33EastEnders coming up next.
28:35It's an hour long tonight and Ronnie's in reflective mood.
28:39Then at nine, Sheila Hancock guest stars in New Tricks.