‘Sell-offs hit health and family life’

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Karen Averies lives in a two-bedroom home with her partner and four children. Here she tells Petra Dando how this affects them and how she feels that  Camden Council’s  homes and land sell-offs are ‘disgusting’

Published: 4 March 2010

HOW much space do four kids need? How about a six-foot teenager and an asthmatic seven-year-old? 

Karen Averies and her partner Freddy are in two bedrooms with their four children, and Karen is angry.
The three girls, aged 14, 12 and 7 share one bedroom; Karen and Freddy have their three-year-old son in with them. 

They are resisting pressure to turn the living room into a bedroom – it is the only space for normal family life or visitors.

The kitchen and bathroom are tiny, so the kids squabble for quiet to sleep, for space to do homework, for breathing space. 

Seven-year-old Natasha is badly asthmatic and regularly hospitalised. 

Karen says the squabbling, stress and lack of sleep make things worse. Seven flights of stairs up to the third-floor flat are tough with a wheezing child and a buggy.

“I feel sorry for my kids, as they can’t make sense of the bigger picture.
“They make me feel like I’m to blame, because we can’t lead a normal family life,” she says.
The selling off of council homes and land is, she says, “disgusting”. 

Several of the four-bedroom council homes Karen desperately needs have been sold at auction in the past three years. 

A total of 18 homes of four beds or more, used as secure, short-life or temporary housing, have been sold off. 

This condemns Karen and her family, like thousands of others, to more decades of desperation.
Any council house that would raise £500,000 at auction is now targeted for selling off once it becomes empty. 

In effect this means bigger homes will be sold off, making already chronic overcrowding even worse.

“I desperately need space for the kids.
“They are arguing, they don’t sleep enough, it’s affecting their behaviour and results at school. They’ve got no space – but I’ve tried everything and we’re still stuck here,” says Karen.

It is ridiculous, she says, to sell off council housing.
“They should not sell off housing or land – the council should help build affordable housing that people desperately need.”

The family have even looked at moving out of London, though Karen’s parents are in Camden and the girls are settled in school. 

But nothing big enough was on offer.  They were even encouraged to consider private renting, until Karen found out at the law centre that she would lose her security.  “In the private sector a long let is 12 months. Many are three to six months only.

“It’s no good with children. When we went to view one of the properties, it was tiny and also badly in need of repairs.”

This is the human cost of selling off much-needed council homes. Health, schooling and family life all suffer, with a knock-on cost to health, education and other services.

Karen is angry that nobody seems to care and accuses Camden Council of not being “close” enough to the situation.

She goes on: “I know there are many families in Camden who will sympathise with our situation.
“It’s desperate, difficult to put into words, but we have no choice but to get on with our lives, no matter what the consequences.”

• Petra Dando chairs Camden Association of Street Properties