News

PRESS RELEASE

Cambridge CAB,  10 October 2005 

Housing Problems on the increase

At Cambridge CAB housing problems continue to be a matter for constant advice, but it was interesting to note that in a recent survey carried out by Cambridge City Council that satisfaction with their housing service has dropped from 34% to 21% in the last year.
 

“At Cambridge CAB we deal with all sorts of housing problems which come from all quarters – private landlords, housing associations and local authorities” says Ian Tyes, Social Policy Co-ordinator.  “We are interested to know if the declining satisfaction that the City Council has barely published is mirrored elsewhere and as a consequence our Social Policy issue this month will be Housing.”
 

“We are interested to hear what problems people experience and are keen to see if there are any particular trends.  We welcome feedback from clients so please get in touch.”
 

Examples of recent housing problems:

1. The 'case' there was a problem with the payment of her housing benefit which left the landlord out of pocket.
    
2. The father who has a 50-50 shared residency agreement for care of his child, but was only given a one bedroom flat as the landlord considers that only one parent (normally the mother) is entitled to a separate bedroom for their child after separation and not both parents.
    
3. The tenant in a shared housing scheme who was required to pay a compulsory charge of £19.50 per week for an emergency telephone monitoring service that she did not want.
    
4. The father who was told he had to leave the 2-bedroom property that he had been renting for many years when his ex-partner and joint tenant unilaterally cancelled the joint tenancy on separating from him.  He was told he had to move into a one-bedroom property immediately (as in (2) above) or lose any right to be housed.
    
5. The tenant suffering from depression who failed to complete the necessary application for housing and council tax benefit on separating from her partner and ended up with three months worth of overdue rent and council tax when she clearly would have qualified for the benefit if she had been capable of applying in time.
    
6. The tenant who originally applied with her son to purchase her home under the Rent to Mortgage (RTM) scheme which was scrapped in the summer and was told that her later application to remove her son’s name had resulted in the removal of her application from the scheme, meaning that she was treated as being too late for RTM and had to apply to purchase her home outright, which she could not afford to do.