More than 200 families shared by the council’s housing department – Inside Croydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: As it struggles to find suitable accommodation for homeless families in the borough, official figures show the council has shared a family placed in temporary accommodation for 12 years.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Notorious: Croydon Council, under Conservative and Labor leadership, continued to use hostels such as Gilroy Court for temporary accommodation

Official council figures, obtained by Inside Croydonshows that more than 200 families hosted by Croydon Council have been split up to find them places to live.

In one case, a family had been in Croydon Council temporary accommodation, but had split up, since 2012.

The Labor opposition in Croydon described it as “a completely unacceptable situation”.

Council sources suggest that the figures provided by the housing department at Fisher’s Folly should come with some caution about accuracy. A Katharine Street source suggested that for a family to have been in temporary accommodation and split into separate rooms in a B&B or similar for 12 years is long enough to have seen any older child reach at maturity so far.

All local authorities in England and Wales have a legal obligation to provide temporary emergency accommodation. Under housing legislation, people can stay in temporary accommodation for a maximum of six weeks before the local authority has a duty to find more permanent accommodation.

Croydon Council currently has around 3,500 families in temporary accommodation.

Convert: the Windsor House office block now offers nearly 200 temporary homes

This accommodation includes ‘hostel’-style flats in places such as Concord House and Windsor House, former office blocks on London Road which have been converted by the council to provide more temporary accommodation for homeless people in the borough.

Most of Croydon’s homeless get rooms in hostels and hotels, such as Gilroy Court in Thornton Heath, made famous when it appeared on the BBC Newsnight since October 2012. Croydon Council has continued to use Gilroy Court and similar hostels since then.

In 2022, Inside Croydon reported how the Local Ombudsman ordered a review of the council’s temporary accommodation practices after a mother, who was undergoing treatment for cancer, and her cubs were put up in a hotel room for eight years.

Inside Croydon has previously published accounts of young mothers being held in inadequate temporary accommodation.

Housing Directory: Susmita Sen

The policy of splitting families up to secure accommodation is only now coming to light as the council under Tory Mayor Jason Perry congratulated itself for cutting its housing costs by £13.5m a year and halving wait times for homeless assessment. over half under new(ish) housing director Susmita Sen.

It’s an informative piece from Sen that reveals the number of families the council is dividing. From five or six in 2019 to 2021, the numbers have risen from 2022, with 74 families in temporary accommodation and separated in 2024.

Council officials already have monthly meetings with the housing department, where Croydon’s performance under the Homelessness (Adequacy of Housing) (England) Order 2003 – which is supposed to limit stays in temporary accommodation to six weeks or less.

There have been calls for a council policy to ban the splitting up of families in temporary accommodation. But in a briefing from Sen, seen by Inside Croydonshe said: “The council is experiencing a high demand for accommodation and this demand has increased in recent years.

Official figures: chart from council briefing paper showing 206 ‘split’ families in temporary accommodation, with one family accommodated in this way since 2012. From 2022, the number has risen sharply

“A blanket ban (on family splitting) would hamper the council’s ability to meet its statutory duty to provide accommodation when needed. However, we agree with the aspiration to end the household split,” Sen wrote.

“Instead of a ban, the wording suggested by officers to be included could be ‘in recognition of accommodation shortages and to comply with the statutory homelessness obligation, in exceptional circumstances the council may split households into two or more accommodation units , taking into account any welfare concerns and for a reasonably short period of time’.

At last week’s City Hall council meeting, the matter was raised by Labor group leader Stuart King, who said there was a clear need for urgent action.

In his speech, King said: “This very evening there are over 200 homeless families in Croydon, forced to sleep apart, denied the right to live together as a single family household, all under one roof …

“… This means parents are being separated from some of their children and their partner, in what I would hope all of us in this room will find completely unacceptable.

“We were told by officers that such decisions are not taken lightly and should be ‘rare and short’…

“… And yet figures provided by the council show that 185 families have been split in the last two years… The case for action is clear. The case for action is urgent.”

Jason Perry is Mayor of Croydon from 2022.

Read more: ‘My family’s hell on earth’: 18 months in a boarding house in Croydon
Read more: Croydon’s B&B nightmare: ‘an indictment of modern Britain’
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