West London council ‘made woman homeless then charged her £75 to pick up belongings’

A London council has been found guilty of making a woman with mental health problems homeless then charging her to pick up her belongings. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman ordered Kensington and Chelsea Council to pay the woman £100 in compensation and apologise for kicking her out of temporary accommodation without assessing her mental health needs.

The watchdog also slammed Kensington and Chelsea Council for failing to keep some records of their interaction with the woman, known only as Ms X, and for not properly communicating with her about her belongings. Ms X was left to sleep on the streets for several nights in May last year after being kicked out of her temporary accommodation in the borough, according to an Ombudsman report.

The woman said she told the hotel and her support worker she was going away for 10 days on a trip she takes every year. When she left, the Council cancelled her booking at the hotel which resulted in her losing her housing benefit. She emailed the council saying she hadn’t left her accommodation and her support worker allegedly told her she could stay there until a suitability review was carried out.

READ MORE: Woman paid £6,000 after West London council failed to find her a home after her child was ‘nearly abducted’

Instead, Kensington and Chelsea housing officers placed Ms X in five different hotels across the capital, which she refused for various reasons. In September, the council engaged in a homelessness duty for Ms X.

London boroughs are required by law to either provide accommodation to homeless households (the main homelessness duty), work to stop households becoming homeless (the homelessness prevention duty) or relieve homelessness when it does occur (the homelessness relief duty).

She said she was evicted without being given a 28-day eviction notice period and said her room passed the health and safety check. She also begged them not to move her from the support network she had built.

The council responded in June last year saying the hotel had raised health and safety concerns before she went away and provided them with photos of Ms X’s room. While she was away the Council sent Ms X a warning letter about the condition of her room and the impact it was having on other guests.

In August, the council told Ms X her housing benefits had stopped because her booking at the hotel had been cancelled. Since then she has been moved to three different locations and her housing benefit was reinstated. While Ms X was away, the hotel packed up her belongings and the council took them into storage. The council told Ms X she’d get them back as soon as she had settled accommodation.

She said she was upset that someone had cleared her room and said she couldn’t access her belongings and needed winter clothing and other personal items. She said she left all her belongings in her room so there was nothing to suggest she had abandoned the property.

Ms X has still not got her belongings back. She had to pay £17 to access them but the council had moved them to a different location and the cost went up to £75 plus VAT to get them. She also said the council put her in accommodation without properly assessing her needs. She said she has multiple health problems and the constant moving around had affected her mental wellbeing.

Kensington and Chelsea Council admitted it hadn’t asked Ms X about her medical and support needs and gave her a dedicated housing officer to deal with her case but took three months to give her one. The Ombudsman said on balance it was satisfied the council had “good reasons” to evict Ms X but slammed its record keeping.

They said: “The Council said the Hotel called to say they had not seen Ms X for over two weeks, they had not been told she was going away and her belongings were still in her room. An inventory was carried out and her possessions taken into storage.

“The Council say it discussed whether to evict Ms X over the telephone or on Teams. There is no contemporaneous evidence about the decision making which is fault. The Council say the Hotel had concerns over health and safety due to the condition of Ms X’s room. Ms X says her room passed the health and safety test but has not provided us with any evidence of this.”

The watchdog also criticised the way Kensington and Chelsea Council communicated with Ms X about her belongings saying it had not provided any evidence of communication with her about them. They added though the council did not initially charge Ms X for storage, it did not consider her circumstances before moving them to a new facility and increasing the fee for accessing them.

They also said the council accepted fault for delaying Ms X’s suitability assessment. The Ombudsman ordered Kensington and Chelsea Council to review charges for Ms X accessing her things and to train staff on the proper procedures for dealing with homelessness cases. It also said the council had to do more to keep a record of its communications and decision-making process, which was also noted in a previous complaint.

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