Mum from London moved 220 miles away to Hartlepool by council after living in Slough and is much happier

A London mother who was moved 220 miles away by the council after being housed in temporary accommodation in Slough said she is happy after settling into her new home. Dorcas Micaba, 26, and her two boys, aged five and three, were moved by Redbridge Council amid a “housing crisis” for affordable temporary accommodation in London.

After being housed in temporary accommodation in Slough – sharing a bedroom between the three of them – Dorcas and her children were moved 220 miles away from London to the seaside town of Hartlepool in County Durham. She said she was happy here and much better than other places she had been put by Redbridge Council, such as when she was put in a flat overlooking the cemetery where she laid her third son to rest.

Speaking about her new home in Hartlepool, Dorcas said: “I was worried at first because of the distance and I hadn’t even heard of this place (Hartlepool) before. But when I got here and looked at the place, I thought it’s not bad and so I’m happy.”

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She added: “It was up until now and I was thinking about how to cope and cope, but when I got here it’s not bad. It’s a place where I can live – there are not many people, it’s not crowded and it’s not noisy, I’m a peaceful person, I love quiet, so I got used to the place anyway.

With her family back in her home country of Angola, Dorcas came to the UK on her own in 2018. She was forced to go to Redbridge Council in 2021 after her relationship with her children’s fathers broke down and her third son died, sadly, Shortly after giving birth in December 2020. After being bounced around in various temporary accommodation, she ended up in a boarding house in Gants Hill, Ilford, overlooking the graveyard of her late son in 2023.

She said: “It was so depressing. Every time I had to go there I just thought about the past and it was really bad. It was awful”.

She was eventually moved from there to the Grand Heights tower block in Slough, where Redbridge and Tower Hamlets Council have sent hundreds of people from the capital to live in temporary accommodation while the council finds somewhere permanent to stay . This is often found hundreds of miles from London, as was the case with Dorcas who ended up in Hartlepool. Refusing this arrangement means she could face eviction from her temporary accommodation, as happened to 19-year-old single mum Olivia.

But Dorcas is not alone up there, meeting “hundreds” of other Londoners who had been moved there. She said: “They move people all the time. Lots of people come to Hartlepool, lots of them. They’re actually moving people from London here. One lady I met came from another part of London and told me she saw a lot of people from the hotel she was being moved to in Hartlepool. Even the agent, the person who received me when I came here, said that he’s been fixing up houses and moving a lot of people, hundreds of people, in the last three months or so.”

Despite being so far away from where her life began in the UK, Dorcas is happy in Hartlepool. The house is big enough for her family – everyone has their own room upstairs, kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room downstairs and even a garden. Her children’s school is just four minutes’ walk away, much better than the 25 minutes it takes to get there in Slough. Her GP is close by as well as the shops and of course you can’t neglect to mention the beach.

“The only thing I have to get back to is my studies,” said Dorcas, who is re-enrolling in college up there. She is also trying to do a customer service training course to enable her to work from home and support her family. When she thought about how far she had come from the capital, she joked: “I’m surprised I’m still in England.”

What did Redbridge Council say?

Redbridge Council has previously commented on Dorcas’ living situation. They said they are battling a housing shortage which has seen more and more people being housed outside London in temporary accommodation provided by the Council. Homelessness applications to Redbridge have risen by 49% from 2019/20 to 1,417 in 2022/23, according to their records. On average, the waiting list in Redbridge for a three-bedroom property is 16 years.

The lack of availability and affordability in the private rented housing market has increased considerably in 2022/2023 due to the increasing number of landlords leaving the private rented market entirely and the cost of living crisis, the Council said.

A spokesman for Redbridge Council said: “The cost of temporary accommodation in London is simply unaffordable, with many private landlords now charging very high rental prices. As a council we need to look further to give people better accommodation and the chance to maintain a tenancy without needing the Council’s help.

“Redbridge Council, like many other London boroughs, is purchasing affordable housing outside the borough to provide much-needed stability for families. These homes are often larger than those available for temporary accommodation and offer peace and security for families as they provide a long-term solution.”

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