Angela was turned out
of her hostel by social services on a Friday last autumn with her
baby of 6 months. The skies in Homerton opened and water fell like
bullets in Clapton Pond, and they were on the street.
No-one from the Council
would help because Angela doesn't have all the right immigration
documents. With a name like Angela, she might be Eastern European
(gasp).
Angela's baby is a
British citizen, but he doesn't know it yet- bless. He's a happy
fellow. He doesn't know he's homeless. He will soon.
My heart sank on Friday
evening when I realised we had to go to Court.
24 hours a day, 365
days a year there is a Judge available, if necessary at the end of a
phone, to deal with truly urgent cases. Cases like this where you
called night-time social services already and they refused to help.
Like a Valkyrie Counsel
swoops in, and we start a Judicial Review.
Near midnight a Court
Order arrived telling the Council to put a roof over the head of a
young mother and her homeless baby over the weekend.
It's the white horse
moment. We have a magic piece of paper and by one mother and child
are in an emergency hostel. The accommodation is extremely basic (no
bedding), but we saved a family from the street for 48 hours.
In 48 hours Angela can
talk to a social worker, visit her GP. Commons sense can prevail. By
Monday it has, and the Council agrees to review its decision.
After 4 months of
grumbling and wrangling the Council agrees that a destitute nursing
mother with a young child should be helped until she can get on her
feet again and get a job. Blindingly obvious really.
There is something that
feels like common sense about a legal system that will protect very
young children against the vagaries of Town Hall bureaucracy. Social
workers and housing officers aren't evil, mostly they're people doing
their best at a time when cuts mean that the safety nets are
stretched to tissue paper.
Today Angela's family
got the break it needed.
Tomorrow Legal Aid cuts
would stop the Judge from stepping in. Cuts to Judicial Review will
leave Town Hall unchallenged. The residency test won't protect those who have been in the UK for less than a year.
And then we will see the hard rain.
And then we will see the hard rain.
