#streethomeless

Case study from ‘Making Change Happen: The impact of national policies on our clients’ lives… A report by Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network (LRMN)’, published March 2018

‘Seraphine* is a 25 year old woman from Cameroon* who has a British child. Seraphine and her 17 months old baby were recently made homeless and ended up on the street. Seraphine, who had been living in Lewisham took a train to Deptford hoping to get help from LRMN, and ended up sleeping at Deptford station for a couple of nights. A local woman, seeing Seraphine and her baby sleeping at the train station offered to host her for a few nights at her place, and contacted LRMN for help. We made an emergency appointment for her, and after assessing her situation advised her to go to Lewisham’s NRPF team, who is required to support her under Section 17 of the Children Act. We advised Seraphine about the likelihood of the NRPF team turning her away and told her to request the name of the person refusing to help and a copy of the decision in writing. Seraphine informed us that Lewisham’s NRPF team did refuse supporting her, and that they also refused giving out their name and the written decision. As a result we adviced Seraphine to contact Croydon’s NRPF team, as she had previously been living in that borough. She encountered the same issue as the team refused to help her and in addition they referred her back to Lewisham’s NRPF team. As a result we informed a solicitor about her situation to look into this matter. This case perfectly exemplifies the issue many of our clients face on a daily basis with their local NRPF team, which often refuses to support clients who have children, even though under Section 17 of the Children Act they are required to do so. The practice known as “gate-keeping” refers to people from Local Authorities refusing to help and instead signpost people elsewhere. This results in clients being sent back and forth across different Local Authorities and eventually being refused help altogether. This can be very stressful for people in addition to being expensive, and can leave people in vulnerable situations.