A homeless mum has won £2,400 after being left trapped in an 'unsuitable' hostel for more than three and a half years. Kingston Council has apologised to the mum after a watchdog investigation found it should have moved her into suitable temporary accommodation sooner.
A Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman report said the mum, referred to as Ms X, spent longer than she should have in 'unsuitable accommodation'. The council accepted the ombudsman's ruling and told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) it is committed to doing all it can to provide 'quality housing for residents and ensure people in the borough have a safe and comfortable place to live'.
Ms X applied to the council as homeless in early 2020. The authority placed her and her child in a hostel where they had to share a room with each other, along with cooking and bathroom facilities with other residents. The council accepted it owed Ms X the main housing duty in April 2020.
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Between June 2020 and April 2022, Ms X emailed the council multiple times asking for updates on when she would be moved out of the hostel. The council told her she was on the list for longer-term temporary accommodation, but it could not say when she would be moved as it had a severe shortage of temporary accommodation.
Ms X complained to the council in March last year about the time she had spent in the hostel and asked to be moved to the same borough as her kid's school as it was too far away. She said her kid was also struggling to share the communal facilities and raised concerns about anti-social behaviour from other residents. The council said she was a priority to be moved, but it could not provide her with a timescale for this due to the shortage of temporary accommodation it was facing.
The ombudsman found the council at fault for failing to carry out a review of the suitability of Ms X's accommodation after she complained. The report said: "I have concluded that on balance the hostel accommodation she occupied was not suitable. In reaching this view, I have considered that the council placed Ms X on its temporary accommodation transfer list indicating that she needed to move to more suitable accommodation.
"Given the pressures the council has mentioned on the availability of temporary accommodation, it seems unlikely it would place applicants on this list unless they needed to move to suitable accommodation. I have also considered the fact that Ms X and her child had to share washing and bathing facilities with other households. As a result Ms X has spent a long time in accommodation, which was not suitable for her household."
The council offered Ms X longer-term temporary accommodation in November, which she moved into in December. It agreed to apologise and pay her £2,400 for the time she spent in unsuitable accommodation since she complained in March last year. It also agreed to look at what it can do to increase its supply of temporary accommodation following the watchdog's investigation.
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A Kingston Council spokesperson said: "The national housing crisis is a critical situation, with demand for properties increasingly outstripping supply. Across London, there has been a 40 per cent drop in landlords letting their properties to councils.
"We are actively and practically tackling the homelessness crisis and we are currently supporting close to 1,000 families with temporary accommodation. We are looking at how to increase the supply of temporary accommodation for families approaching us and will update the ombudsman on the actions we will take to provide homes for Kingston residents approaching our services as homeless. We have also provided retraining to the whole housing solutions team in April 2024 on handling a variety of resident cases, including cases like Ms X.
"We are currently undertaking a major regeneration in the borough to provide 2,170 new homes, with 871 new council homes on the Cambridge Road Estate. This includes an extra 104 council homes announced this year over and above the original plan and will deliver 254 council homes in the first phase of the project. We are also delivering a small sites programme which will have a further 101 new council homes. These are the first new council homes built in the borough in almost 40 years."
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