Former NHS worker Teresa was forced to give up work due to poor health. Now she faces being forced out of her home too. But will she also be forced out of Havering? She spoke to Charles Thomson.
On Teresa’s kitchen wall hangs a calendar, each month featuring different photos of cats.
October is blank, apart from the 19th. On that day, in capital letters, Teresa has written: “D-DAY.”
October 19, per Teresa’s calculations, is the earliest possible day bailiffs could arrive to kick her out of the Collier Row flat she has called home for eight years.
“This is just horrendous,” she said. “I’ve got nowhere to go. I’m in a bit of a state.”
Her home is well-kept. In her living room and her garden, she has toys for her three grandchildren.
But within weeks, she fears, she could be living in a B&B.
In June, her landlord’s agent served her with a Section 21 “no fault” eviction notice - the landlord wants to sell the flat.
“I’ve spent a lot of money on this place,” she sighs.
When her landlord put off landscaping the garden so her grandkids could safely play in it, she saved and paid for it herself.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to get all this done and then you kick me out’,” she alleges. “He said, ‘Don’t worry about that. You will be here forever’.”
That, she says, was just two years ago.
“If they put me in a B&B, where are all my belongings going? This is not a bedsit. I’ve got a whole home. Everything here is mine.”
Benefits
Teresa used to work for the NHS in Harold Wood, at a facility producing artificial limbs for amputees.
But more recently she has transitioned from staffer to patient.
Diagnosed with anxiety, claustrophobia and agoraphobia, Teresa said she has been deemed too mentally unwell to work.
Havering Council now pays her rent directly to her landlord, and Teresa called Havering as soon as she received the Section 21 notice.
It said the law required both the council and Teresa to spend the next 56 days searching for alternative accommodation.
She says she has enquired with numerous estate agents, but keeps hitting the same obstacle.
“The moment you say you receive benefits, they don’t want to know,” she said.
“I think landlords assume that people on benefits are scumbags, are going to wreck the place and are a drain on society.”
She gestures around her spotless living room.
“You can see, I’m not a scumbag,” she said. “I’m not dirty. I’m not a down-and-out. I’ve privately rented for 23 years. I’ve never wrecked a property.
“There’s this stigma that people on benefits are just scum... I’ve worked and paid into the country.”
Fear
After calling the council, Teresa claims nobody ever proactively called her back.
The 56 days have long since been and gone. She says she has to keep chasing the local authority and her own search for a new flat has proved unsuccessful.
“It’s just ridiculous,” she said.
Councillor Paul McGeary, Labour cabinet member for housing, told the Recorder the local authority has been in touch with Teresa "several times" and advised her of support available.
Last week Teresa received a letter saying her landlord was seeking “accelerated possession”. She believes she could be kicked out any time after October 19.
“They are calling me ‘the defendant’,” she says, sounding bemused, as she looks over the paperwork. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Her biggest fear, she says, is being moved into a B&B miles away from Havering. She has read in the Recorder about a mother-of-three who was placed in a Brentwood hotel.
Her mother, sister and daughters all live near her current Collier Row home.
“I need that support network,” she said.
Teresa added: “I was born and bred here. I’ve lived here all my life."
But if neither she nor Havering can find her a new flat before the bailiffs arrive, she has no idea where she will end up.
Council
Councillor McGeary said Havering “always works with those at risk of becoming homeless to help them find alternate accommodation in the private rental sector”.
He said the council would also “provide financial support”.
“We have been in touch several times with Teresa throughout this process and her case worker has advised her of the support available in securing a private property,” he added.
*Teresa's name has been changed to maintain her anonymity.
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