Lobby Warwick District Council, 30th November at 6pm, Leamington Town Hall

Below is the notice sent out to socially concerned people in my area to come along to support a motion before Warwick District Council on November 30th.

I would like to get a group of people together to lobby the full council meeting at Leamington Town Hall on Wednesday 30th November at 6pm. The purpose of this is to support a motion, which will be presented on changing the eligibility criteria to allow people in financial hardship to be accepted on the housing waiting list or the Home Choice Based Letting system as it is now.

The motion is as follows: I call upon this council to support changing the eligibility criteria to enable people to be accepted on the housing waiting list and be given a reasonable points score, on the basis of financial hardship or debt related problems.

Why do this? Well Warwick District has a housing crisis, not for commuters or students, nor those people who have their parents to help them, but for those of us who cannot afford to buy or rent due to financial problems, the unaffordable cost of private letting or where credit has been denied due to debt problems.

For a large chunk of people a roof over their head is a constant worry, one where the rattle of the letterbox can mean that their home is about to be taken away from them, because the owner has decided to sell or feels like new tenants.

Can you imagine being told you would not have a home to live in at Christmas, leaving you desperately trying to find somewhere to live? Well it happens in Warwick District and to many people there is no hope because the council says they are not eligible to be added to the housing waiting list.

Furthermore, if you have debt problems most estate agents will turn you down for renting, so many are forced to some unscrupulous landlords whose only motivation is to make money at the expense of others. In fact, a visit to the housing office on Wednesday of this week showed the state of the crisis, when a young man renting a flat from a private landlord had his housing benefit cut and then found himself harassed by a landlord banging on his door everyday demanding the shortfall from his tenants pocket, a pocket that was already empty.

The council do not recognise the many people in this position. Many argue that there is not enough housing, so this will make the problem worse. I disagree, as the supply of homes will unfortunately remain the same, but policy makers will see the desperate need for social rented homes by having the true numbers staring at them.

Obviously, party politics should not play a part in this event, though some people may disagree. We need to get as many people as possible to come along to show these elected representatives the strength of feeling.