Homeless Turn Down Properties Run by Oakfield.
HOMELESS TURN DOWN OAKFIELD PROPERTIES
I recently met a homeless man via the Snowflake winter homeless shelter scheme. This is where churches open their spare halls to provide shelter, food and warmth for the homeless during the winter months.
He had got down on his luck due to relationship breakdown, losing job and ending up on the streets in a Catch 22 position. No home, no address, no possibility for a job. And also although quite qualified and skilled without means of looking after himself, looking good and going for days without food and much abused he was not the image for anyone to give him a job. This so often happens, and as a single male he is last on the list of people considered vulnerable to immediately house.
But he helps out and does odd jobs. He knows the property market and knows the reputation of local landlords and property management agents.
G told me that Oakfield P.M. Hastings has such a bad reputation that homeless people and desperate people turn down property offered to them when they hear it is managed by Oakfield. Their reputation for unsafe bad property and bad treatment of tenants and vulnerable is so bad that desperate homeless people turn them down.
It is very important at this time of austerity and removal of legal aid that the vulnerable are not ripped off even more.
The fact is that since the coalition government there are now more people on the streets and homeless than since before the second world war. Disabled, vulnerable, single mums, combat veterans and people who have lost their businesses, jobs and any income are being cut off from all original supporting benefits and are being made homeless.
Patients straight after an accident or assault or illness are being discharged on to the street because they have lost their home and all benefits and security while in hospital or being ill. A 3rd of people homeless on the street are ex soldiers coming back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with severe combat shock, injuries, internal unjuries, amputations. and once discharged from the army and going through hospitals and medical care are being denied benefits and end up on the streets. That is the fact.
The removal of any safeguards for private tenants means that it is open to exploitation. There is no pathway to complain about any disrepair any more, not matter how serious or dangerous, or even if it has caused you or your family an injury.
There are practices to obtain money or extortion without providing the necessary safe home.
I hear how prospective tenants and homeless get together the large deposit, one months rent and admin charges y saving what benefits they have, selling things and getting loans and donations from DWP, homeless charities and friend and family. They then pay this and are allowed to move in. The property is unfit and dangerous. The tenant complains and is immediately evicted, The whole point being to get the money and obtain the fees, deposit and months rent, then evict. It is a rip off. A late 40s woman I know has been through this system 4 times in the last few years. She has ended up on the streets, been abused and raped a couple of times and been housed in hostels with ex prisoners, alcoholics, drug addicts and sex offenders. And the targetting and use and abuse of the most vulnerable is vile and offensive.
I have put this is story in an example of make believe and ficticious slideshow of cartoons below.
I have to inform you that homeless person who told me this tried to take his own life a short time ago by taking an overdose. So people would rather stay homeless and take overdoses and attempt suicide rather than go into an Oakfield manager property. They feel they would be ripped off and abused and their situation made worse by being exploited.
The most important place is Home, and if you have not got one that is terrible, but it seems that some people would rather stay homeless and vulnerable rather than be homed and vulnerable under an Oakfield Property managed property.
Xxx Admin
