Councils relieved of housing obligations

The government has insisted that most people evicted as a result of
antisocial behaviour would be considered to have made themselves
intentionally homeless. This would relieve councils of the burden
of finding them accommodation.

The clarification follows a court ruling that forced a council to
take responsibility for a single mother and her five children
evicted by a housing association on the grounds of one son’s
behaviour. The judge said the mother had tried to curb her son’s
behaviour and therefore had not made herself intentionally
homeless.

The ruling resulted in the council housing the family in a
Travelodge hotel at the cost of £700 a week.

But a spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said
this case was unusual. Although a local authority must place in
temporary accommodation an intentionally homeless family evicted
under antisocial behaviour laws, it would not normally owe a main
homelessness duty to these families.