Homes fit for families?

Published: 17 June, 2011

• THE city council’s housing department wrote to me in reply to an inquiry about rehousing a husband and wife and their four sons currently living in a two-bed flat in Paddington.

Under the council rules this family should be in a three-bed flat, but such is the lack of three-bed council properties that there are 230 families ahead of them in the queue and the council only expects to rehouse 28 families in 3 bed flats this year.

So what advice did the council offer this family in real housing need who face an eight-year wait for a three-bed flat? 

“Space-saving furniture” so the family can “maximise the amount of space in their flat”. Is this another way of saying that the family should install a stacking system for their beds?

If anyone ever doubted that we need more family-sized council flats for rent, this “space-saving” story speaks volumes.

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group