Homeless pensioner, 74, says council support ‘appalling’<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n In September, Ms Brown told the Weston Mercury she felt her treatment by the council\u2019s homelessness prevention team had been \u201cappalling\u201d, claiming she was left in unsafe conditions and offered only hostel accommodation, which she said she did not believe was suitable for a woman of her age.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Several weeks on, her situation remains unchanged, and she now believes her criticism of the council has made matters worse.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The authority said they don’t discuss specific cases publically but added that all housing options are discussed in these situations and that its ‘ultimately down to the individual’.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think something should be done. They shouldn\u2019t be discriminating against me,\u201d she said. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe story went in the paper, but all they are offering me is the hostel again, so I\u2019m still living out of my car.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe there is nothing available that I can\u2019t have. I think it\u2019s a load of lies again. They are very hostile to me. They don\u2019t ring me back. They don\u2019t cooperate.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Ms Brown said she recently lost out on a privately rented home because the council failed to process the deposit payment in time.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI had a house a few weeks ago, through a private landlord, and because of their incompetence the council lost it,\u201d she said. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI was waiting for the council to pay the deposit, but they kept messing me about, so I lost the house in the end.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t speak to the council anymore. They\u2019ve never done anything to help since that article went in. They\u2019re not used to dealing with people like me. They are used to dealing with more down-and-out homeless people.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n She added that she cannot accept the hostel accommodation repeatedly offered to her: \u201cI\u2019m nearly 75. If they think I can live in a hostel they have got to be joking. I couldn\u2019t do it. Not at my age.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n In the earlier stages of her homelessness, Ms Brown said she had felt unsafe sleeping in car parks at night, recounting one incident in which three men surrounded her vehicle at 2am, prompting her to drive away in fear.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The council previously stated that Ms Brown had withdrawn and reinstated her application for housing \u201cseveral times\u201d and that she had refused emergency accommodation without viewing it \u2013 something she disputes, saying she was never told the address of the hostel concerned.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Responding to her latest claims, a spokesperson for North Somerset Council said: \u201cDue to the need for us to maintain confidentiality between ourselves and our clients, we will not discuss details of individual cases publicly. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat we can say though is that all housing options are discussed with our clients, but it is ultimately their decision whether they wish to pursue them or not to resolve their homelessness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheilah Brown, who is from Backwell and has been living out of her car in North Somerset, became…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-592757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115610242553045335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}