Croydon dad's housing hell left him living in car for months

Dennis James will be 39-years-old next month, but for him, the past year has not been a cause for celebration.

It is a year which has seen him become unexpectedly homeless, temporarily jobless and struggling to manage fatherhood to his seven and eight-year-old children.

Dennis’s struggles with Croydon’s housing system after asking for help when his relationship broke down ultimately forced him to live in his car for months in the Whitgift car park.

He now fears he will have to return to the car for Christmas if nothing changes as he’s been forced to take out an unaffordable loan to rent an expensive studio flat near East Croydon Station to avoid losing his new job.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “All I want is just for them to find me a place that’s affordable.

"Right now I’m in debt because of the fact that I had to take out a loan and accept anywhere so I could keep my job.

“I would stay here for six months if it helped. Apparently, you need to stay somewhere for at least six months to be offered a more permanent place with the council, so all of this moving around doesn’t help me.”

At the start of the year, Dennis was living with his then-partner and two children at a property on Croydon’s famous Purley Way.

He had been living there for eight years, during which time he says he spent a lot of his own money ‘doing it up’ and building a life in the area.

However, when his relationship broke down, Dennis found that his name was not on the tenancy agreement, which removed any right he had to stay there.

For the first time since moving to Croydon over 13 years ago, Dennis was now left on his own without accommodation or any support network to rely on.

Support is important for Dennis as he is autistic and struggles with anxiety.

The sudden threat of homelessness was compounded by the fact Dennis was made redundant from his well-paying job as a TV scheduler in April.

Without housing and facing a drastic cut in income, Dennis was forced to engage with Croydon Council’s emergency accommodation team.

While the council’s housing obligations do not include providing a council house to people who are homeless, they do include providing support to individuals in finding a new home.

However, a seemingly endless cycle of correspondence with the council has left him having to double up his anti-anxiety medication and without a suitable place to stay.

He told the LDRS: “I was so frustrated when I found out my name wasn’t on the tenancy. I spent all my savings doing that place up.

“Even when I showed them I was there from 2018, nothing. I’ve been living in Croydon longer than that, but what was the point if they were never going to help me.”

Dennis told the LDRS Croydon Council asked him to send and then resend personal information and evidence to different council officers to get him temporary accommodation that suits his needs as a father.

He claims documents were misplaced so he had to repeatedly send them, recounting his distressing situation seven times to different people.

He said: “After the breakup, I was told [the council] would try to sort out some sort of emergency housing after they do a personal housing assessment. I told them I had already done that three times.”

A lack of interaction, a case officer not calling him when they said they would and being left waiting for two weeks because someone was on holiday left him in limbo for months.

All the while he was living in his car, unable to secure any accommodation due to his lack of income.

He said: “I wasn’t able to bathe or do anything. Half the time I had to leave the car on just to get some heat, so the car was dead half the time and I’m still paying off getting the car’s batteries replaced.

"I was in the Whitgift car park most of the time, which I got so many tickets for. There was a time when I was parked up and got a clamp on my car.

“I just needed somewhere secluded, because I didn’t feel safe in my car. It wasn’t easy. I was approached by people multiple times and made reports about it but nothing happened.

"During this time I had to double up with anti-depressants and beta blockers. It got to a point where I didn’t leave my car half the time. Everything was too much.”

But Dennis did have to leave his car for the numerous housing meetings that required him to attend in person at Croydon Council’s Bernard Weatherill House.

These meetings, he says, brought him no further to stable accommodation and took him away from time he could be spending looking after his children.

He said: “They’d ask me to come in and I’d sit there for four hours for a five-minute meeting. I asked them why we couldn’t do this on the phone if it was only five minutes, and they said they had to do it in person.

"They were never on time, they just said ‘we have a lot of people coming through’. I’d waste my whole day waiting there whilst I was supposed to be picking the kids up.”

Dennis’s two children both have special educational needs and require him to drop them off and pick them up from school.

He retains equal access to the children following his breakup. Dennis also sees a therapist in the area twice a week, as a way of dealing with his anxiety. For these reasons, he says he needs any accommodation offered to him to be in the area.

After six months Dennis has been offered one property in Streatham. Dennis, along with his local Waddon Labour councillor Rowenna Davis, who had begun to help him with his case, went to visit the Streatham property earlier this year and were not impressed by what they found.

He said: “They tried to give me a place that had mould in the ceilings in Streatham.

"They sent me to this place, I was there for one day. I have really bad asthma, and they had someone to come and check the place to say it isn’t suitable for me. I gave the keys back and they said they are going to inform the council that they need to find another place ASAP.

“I didn’t hear anything from them for another two weeks. I kept calling them and they said we had logged it and would call me back but no one ever did. The fact that they now still think I have a tenancy at the other place in Streatham is annoying. Me and Rowenna sent them an email saying I stayed there for one day and gave the keys back because it was unsuitable.”

Ms Davis told the LDRS of her frustration with the current housing system, which she believes is failing Dennis and others in similar situations. She said: “I’ve lost track of the number of calls, emails and meetings we’ve had trying to get the council to meet their basic duties to Dennis.

“He is doing everything he can to help himself – even going to job interviews whilst sleeping in his car. Whilst he’s doing everything he can, the council seems to be making things worse.

“He’s repeatedly had to tell his harrowing story, only to be promised help and then ignored over and over again in a revolving door of expensive and ineffective bureaucracy. This Tory Mayor, Jason Perry, promised he wanted to focus on homeless prevention. Unfortunately for Dennis, he seems to be doing exactly the opposite here.”

After months in his car, during which time he lost another job due to not having a place to stay, Dennis decided to take matters into his own hands and move into a flat in East Croydon – but it’s not something he can afford long-term and has been asked to move out by November 22.

This flat, which is where the LDRS met Dennis, is within one of the stylish new tower blocks that circle East Croydon Station. Dennis also found a new job as a scheduler, which allowed him to do his work from home within this block.

But he needs to repay a loan he took out to get the tenancy on top of all the fines and arrears he accrued during his time as a homeless parent, the total cost of which he says is in the thousands.

Dennis is left with under £100 of disposable income per month so there’s no chance to save any money. Now he fears he’ll be spending Christmas back in his car.

He added: “I got a phone call just this morning (October 7) for yet another personal housing assessment that I have to do on Thursday.

"I’m more or less being told that I’m going to have to look for private anyway so it makes me think, what was the point of all of it.”

Speaking directly to the council, he said: “I hope you’re happy, because I feel broken. It’s not a broken I can hold together.”

A Croydon Council spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear about Mr James’ experiences.

"There is a London-wide demand for housing, which means that often residents are offered temporary accommodation until a longer-term solution can be found. The council offered Mr James temporary housing, which he declined, but we continued to support him, advising him on his options and offering guidance.

“The council takes its data management responsibilities and customer experience very seriously. We can confirm that Mr James’ documents are securely saved on our housing management system and no documents were misplaced.

"We will continue to work with Mr James to further discuss his housing needs and alternative options.”