Two weeks is not enough.

In the last few days, the Tories have released plans on how to crackdown on anti-social behaviour. From banning nitrous oxide despite drug officials, Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), arguing against new measures. The ACMD state that while recreational use of the substance should be restricted, it is still used in health and social care settings and does not warrant criminalisation. Further, Rishi Sunak and home secretary Suella Braverman want to hand more power to police to ‘deal’ with ‘nuisance’ beggars and rough sleepers and plans could see fines of up to £1000 given to those on the streets. You know, the people who definitely have access to a grand.

 

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. One of the Tories’ retaliation to the war on anti-social behaviour was giving more power to landlords. Sunak wants to allow landlords to evict tenants with a two weeks’ notice on the basis of disrupting neighbours, damage or failure to pay rent. As someone whose family has recently faced the threat of homelessness, this struck a nerve. So, I’d like to share my experience and explain why two weeks is not enough.

 

In August of 2021, our landlord alerted us that as she was selling the property we lived in and we would have to move. At first this felt like a weight off our shoulders, finally we would be rid of the landlord from hell who refused to come and fix the mould and damp problems and we’d be out of Costa Del Greenacres. Eagerly scrolling through Rightmove, we were excited to find a better place to live. But after weeks of rejection and no replies, the dream slowly started to fade. Months went by with no hope and despair slowly sunk in. 12^th December. That was the date we had to be out of the house by. 11^th December – still no place to go. It was a living nightmare. The icing on the cake was at the end of November, the landlords negligence caught up with us and a giant leak caused the dining room ceiling to cascade with water, tripping the house’s electricity and ultimately meaning having to turn the water off.

 

No water, no electricity and no idea where to go, all dreams of living in a nice new home were crushed. In the end, we stayed with my grandparents until finally on the 19^th January 2022, after almost five long months of agony, not knowing if we would have a roof over our heads, we were able to move into our current home.

 

Fortunately, our ordeal had a happy ending, but that is absolutely not always the case. We had the privilege of family putting us up for weeks and help from a housing association. Not everyone will be so lucky. Two weeks is not enough. This new plan WILL see families on the streets. Those families will then be slapped with a giant fine for being on the streets through the utter carelessness and immorality of this government. How can we trust that those who need the most help in our society are protected, when this government is creating the problems they face?

 

The majority of regular people in this country do not have the resources to just uproot whenever they feel like it and find safe housing in less than a month. I imagine that for the man who upgraded the whole electrical grid in his area just to heat his swimming pool, it would be quite easy to just buy a new home. But we are not the 1%. Two weeks is not enough.