My daughters boyfriend is going through a really tough time.  To start, his mum walked out on him and his brother when he was 4.  He lived with Dad but of course over the years Dad has found a new lady and they now have a new baby, so Jordan was asked to move out.  He went to stay with his brother and girlfriend away from all his friends but at least somewhere to stay.  Now brother and girlfriend have a baby on the way and need the room so Jordan has to move out by 1st December.  He has no where to go and no job.  I feel desperately sorry for him, he just needs a break.  He can come to us but only short term.  Does anyone know the procedure to get somewhere to live through the council? and what does he do until then? Any help would be appreciated.

If he's still in the Leicester area
http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/housing/homelessness/

If not search the local councils to your daughter's boyfriend or contact the local Citizen's Advice Bureau.

If you take him in he will be considered as adequately housed and not eligible for housing help.
If he's 16-18 you will need to contact local Social Services as benefits don't normally kick in
til the young reach 18 years old. They will have to help with accomodation and finances prior to him reaching 18yo.

http://www.communitylegaladvice.org.uk/media/808/FB/advicenow_homeless_yp.pdf
Is a useful link for those that are under 18 yo.

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/homelessness/help_from_the_council/what_the_council_will_check/priority_need Is another useful link from England Shelter organisation.

Hi
He needs to be registered as a homeless person with the council in order to be offered a property. He also needs to supply the council with a letter from his relative that states he has been given notice to leave. I'm afraid it could take a few months to get him re housed.

Kind Regards

> He can come to us but only short term.

This is great but he still needs to register homeless as your home is a temporary one. You may find that they want to put him in a hostel for a while, but hopefully the council will see sense and that he is able to sofa surf.

How old is he? I'm taking a wild guess at over 18? In which case he needs to get his back side either into education again or work(any kind, something to stop him sitting about doing nothing, apologies if he is actually trying to find work)

I understand you feel sorry for him, but he needs to make his own stand now in heading through life and you've had some great advice and links from others. He doesn't need anyone's pity, he needs guidance and support in making the right choices..(Not saying you are, but seen plenty of cases where people do and it does that OP no good at all)

How old is he Wendy?

i would have thought getting a job and renting somewhere was the best policy?

He is 21, nearly 22.

If only it was that easy to get a job and rent somewhere on your own.  Have you tried it lately!

Unfortunately, whilst the Local Authority housing dept. may accept that he's homeless; as a young, (presumably) fit, single person, his chances of being allocated social housing is very slim as he will be at the bottom pf the pile in terms of priority for housing.

He should still apply to the LA as they may be able to advise on other options available in the private rented sector in your area.  Also, the links posted above by Boxacrazy may be useful for similar reasons. 

Renting costs more than I pay for my mortgage and as we all know jobs are getting harder and harder now to find and keep and it's going to be even worse in the next few months.

Poor guy, I know some people will say he's old enough to have a place of his own but I didn't leave home until I was 30 as there was no way I could afford anything before then.

Renting requires a lot of capital... It varies from place to place but if the average price rent for a one-bedroom flat is £500 per month, that means you would need £500 up front as rent in advance, then usually £500 for deposit and most letting agents charge a fee of anything between £100-£150 on top. More if you have a cat or a dog.

It's horrible if you find yourself homeless with no money as backup to get anywhere else. You have no choice but to move in with relatives or friends and save up (if you have a job). Or it could mean moving away and being unemployed, in which case it would take years to save for that deposit.

Many homeless people end up in grotty bedsits where the landlords don't care, the facilities are sub-legal, fire & safety regs are ignored and your housemates might be junkies or alcoholics. It is not a nice way to live and I've known many people over the years who end up like that in filthy damp mouldy squalid rooms. Some have become depressed (some were to start with) and have ended up becoming worse or even taking their own lives.

as we all know jobs are getting harder and harder now to find and keep and it's going to be even worse in the next few months.
A perfect opportunity to go to college and learn how to run your own business and there is a lot of help for that. 
That's what happened to me.  I couldn't find a job that offered what I considered suitable hours to allow me to be there for my daughter.  I wasn't prepared to work full time and park her with a child minder. :(  So I started my own business - it was the best thing that I have ever done! :)
Having nothing is the best time to take a risk - you have nothing to lose! :)

can he not find a rented flat that accepts dss? i think they will pay your deposit if you are unemployed and then obv they pay your rent
a good site for benifits is- http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx
its worth a look

> can he not find a rented flat that accepts dss? i think they will pay your deposit if you are unemployed

Unfortunately, no they don't. If you are unemployed then you obviously aren't going to be able to find a deposit +month in advance very easily, this is the Catch-22 which keeps a lot of people on the streets.

There may be a scheme in the area that loans money to homeless people for deposits, but if it is like the one in my old area, the maximum amount they loan is not even half an average deposit.

If he's not working and receiving certain benefits, he could apply for a budgeting load which may help pay a deposit for a flat.  Contact your local Jobcentre for information.

no WW I dont need to, having worked hard in my own busniness and live in my own place.....however that all started at the same age as him when I too had no job or home and so I decided to get off my butt, get a job, and rent a caravan until I could afford to buy something.

sam, i think ww is saying its harder now than ever before. jobs are a rarity and obv we are in another recession

With Christmas coming up there are bound to be many pubs/restaurants and supermarkets wanting extra staff for the busy period. He could do evening classes as well. Some of these are available free to people on limited means.

Could the lad get a card printed up with his details and experience to advertise himself? Give them out, post through offices/shops/whatever.  We've just had a person do some work who did exactly that.

Judging by the amount of Eastern Europeans who are working everywhere I still think there are jobs to be had (here in the South anyway). My niece came back from a year in Australia where she worked and travelled all over the place and got a job back here within 2 weeks at an employment agency, and turned 2 other, different jobs down.

The other thing Sam which I have noticed that people aren't willing to travel to find a job, when you think that you could find something within an hour of travelling, either by car or bus..
Job Centre's will pay for your travel for an interview too these days, so you won't be out of pocket.

Lots of jobs down here for Xmas(South East), yes there maybe competition, but you do have to be in it to win it, so to speak. Even if its not your career choice, any job is better than no job and living off benefits if you're able to work.

> any job is better than no job and living off benefits if you're able to work.

Maybe some people earn more on benefits than some people do at work.

> Maybe some people earn more on benefits than some people do at work.

In some circumstances they do which then gives them no incentive to work, it on the news recently about Merthyr. About how it has the highest percentage not working per ratio or something like that? Generations of families not working, because they can get away with it by claiming for benefits. There was a clear message that there are lots of jobs in Cardiff, which is a bus ride less than an hr away, but will they do it?

I'm waiting to see what major reform on the benefits the government plans to go with and actually how it works. There are far too many people living on them when they are perfectly fine to work. Benefits should be there to help people in times of hardship, which will include newly unemployed, the sick(genuine reasons) etc etc

Does no one else here think that it is absolutely ridiculous that this lad's father asked him to move out because he and his partner have a new baby? The brother I can understand but he wouldn't have had to stay with his brother if his father hadn't asked him to move out! So much for caring for your kids! Even if he is in his early twenties it's almost impossible to even rent nowadays without some parental support as it costs so much (especially in the city). It not like when we were younger Sam - well paying jobs are thin on the ground and will be even harder to find when this government chucks another half a million out of work and increases the pension age! The difference between wages and rent are ridiculous - Christmas work will at best pay minimum wage so you need to work a lot of hours before you can even cover your rent far less your deposit etc.

I have little patience for people claiming benefits when they could be working but for many it's catch 22, the wages are so poor that they simply don't cover their living costs if they come off benefits and if the job is temporary then its not worth the bother of coming off benefits to go back on them a month later! The government needs to sort this out before they start making more people unemployed - no one should be better off on benefits than they are working! JMHO

well i know that our farm here cannot get anyone to do farm work, its crazy, ......theres plenty of work if people get off their asses and do the jobs that are out there.....seems the sad fact that most prefer to scrounge off the rest of us tax payers :((

We're just having a similar discussion on my local Somerset forum Sam.  Men are travelling from Europe and finding work within a few weeks but the locals have been claiming unemployment for years!  Something's wrong somewhere.
I've just related my experience of a 20 year old plumber who I came across last year.  He'd never win Mastermind but he's taken himself to college and got his plumbing qualification and a job with a local plumber.  When he did some work for me his girlfriend was pregnant and HE WAS BUYING A HOUSE for both of them!  I thought it was blooming brilliant!

I'm fed up with hearing how much harder it is these days. :(  My fiance and I sat on my parents' sofa for 2 years playing cards.  We didn't buy clothes.  We didn't go out anywhere.  We didn't have a holiday either and we managed to buy a very basic house with no central heating by both of our parents standing guarantor (neither had any money to help!) for more mortgage than the 2 and 1/2 times his annual salary (they wouldn't take my income into consideration as they said I was 'pregnant age and might have to give up work!) would have given us.  We moved in with absolutely nothing.  No furniture, no carpets, not even any curtains - we had a blanket up at the bedroom window.  But we had a house and we were both 21 years old!  Nobody is prepared to do that these days.

It is a sad fact that jobs that pay the basic wage do not provide enough to rent a home. and there is always the problem that you are unemployable if you do not have an address at which you have lived for at least a few months. Catch 22, no home no job - no job no home.

It is a sad fact that jobs that pay the basic wage do not provide enough to rent a home
Jackie, there are plenty of working people down here earning the minimum wage, living in caravans because they cannot afford house rents.  Unemployed people live in houses! :(

Suppose that is one option if there are sites for residential caravans there a loads of areas where there are not.

Some councils seem to be more lenient or have more income to spend on getting people into homes. In a local area a single mother (living with her parents) I know of was given a flat (all necessities provided of course) when her child was 9 months old.

Today when we took some dogs into town a rather scary looking but pleasant enough lad, didn't look more than 20, stopped to talk and fuss the dogs. He said his 2nd child was 2 days old and he would be moving from his flat into a house in January. Then came the bad news: he was about to breed his irish blue staffs and when he had a garden he would get a St Bernard [groan]. Then off he went to the pub to watch the footie without a care in the world.

Wendy its going to be a while before he moves in with you and your family, is there no way that he can get on with job hunting now? It means he has a home address to start with, even if he does move in with you for a bit eventually.
The job centre often put people through courses to get them trained and skilled in certain areas, i'd suggest he go and speak to them about doing that, either part or full time.

Get him to type up a CV and then get that posted with many online agencies and do searches through those too.

We all want him to get on in life and he does need to help himself. Even if it ends up being Xmas work only, often this can lead to more permanent work anyway, especially with the school, college and uni students going back in Jan..

exactly!

case in point: 2 weeks ago my czech friend and her boyfriend came over to UK.
Within 5 days of looking in job centre she had a job at the local pound shop 6 days a week, (she speaks just small amount of english) and today her boyfriemd, (they are both 21) got a job on the local chicken farm, he speaks no english......on  a decent more than minimum wage!! They are looking at a flat tonight with the view to moving in next week.. its not a great job, its smelly and bloody at times.....but they are not scroungers, they dont rely on anyone else to support them, and they want to experience life in a different country for a few years. Pity a few more can be so "get up and go"

Is there anything he is really good at and has he though about doing work experience? I got a permanent full time position recently after volunteering for work experience.  

One thing I want to comment on.... non-nationals taking jobs here are probably not paying tax and NI as they don't have to. Students don't either. So it makes it easier for employers to take them on, and if you don't pay tax or NI you get a lot more money for your work.  Brilliant for the employers - it's all Casual Labour for them and it's the grottiest jobs. I bet if you or I, taxpayers, applied for a job gutting chickens we'd get passed over in favour of immigrants cos there's less paperwork.

No..... I am not being funny or racist (god forbid) but an employer who wants cheap hassle free labour will choose any that don't need NI/Tax paid. I worked in a job like that about 15 yrs ago and when I filled in the tax forms later they denied I ever worked there. That was a year's tax credit and NI I lost even though it had been deducted from my wages.

It is tough being at the bottom.... There are a lot of people on minimum wage who have to claim housing benefits to top them up to pay the rent especially if they are single and have no partner or kids. I've been there and it's not nice, it does interfere with your ability to do a low-paid job well as you are tied to an outside authority who can cut your wages at source if they don't think you've done it right, plus you lose free prescriptions and NHS dental treatment - and that's if you can actually FIND an NHS dentist these days.

> non-nationals taking jobs here are probably not paying tax and NI as they don't have to.

All the Eastern Europeans I know pay UK tax and NI.

exactly! My friends are most certainly paying theirs.....(but they wont get a pension from it or scrounge the system on it.)

> Students don't either

Of course they pay tax and NI - but only if they are earning over the tax/NI threshold. There are NO exemptions apart from the level of earnings :)

> Brilliant for the employers - it's all Casual Labour for them and it's the grottiest jobs. I bet if you or I, taxpayers, applied for a job gutting chickens we'd get passed over in favour of immigrants cos there's less paperwork.

Codswallop :) :) Only unscrupulous employers who don't disclose they are employng people, therefore not paying over tax/NI to Revenue and Customs. They are also taking advantage of immigrants who don't know our tax/employment law.

Some British people just don't want to do jobs like gutting chickens and earn money - they would rather sit at home on benefit doing nothing. In my experience, a lot of immigrants are highly educated people who are prepared to do quite menial jobs because it is better paid than the work they would get in their home country.

Daisy

Interesting the misconceptions!  No wonder we all have different view points. :)

> Within 5 days of looking in job centre she had a job at the local pound shop 6 days a week

> got a job on the local chicken farm,

Well done to them...:-)

The problem with some people is that they won't go for just anything, they want something they will enjoy or that will be permanent, but if you need a job some people need to stop being so fussy take what they can and continue to look as they are actually earning a wage.

I have just picked out a few cities around England and there are lots of jobs to be had, even if you're not skilled or have experience.

I really think its time that it was made clear that foreign nationals working here pay the same contributions as we do, the only reason that they get work whilst local's don't is that they are willing to take any job- unlike most of the local people - although I do think that some of this is caused by the way our welfare system works. Has anyone been watching 'A life without work' on BBC2? It looks at Rowntree's work in York on unemployment in Victorian times - on last night's programme they were comparing with modern day York and the one person who was working was the one who claimed no benefits - he was living in a tent and taking on casual jobs. Those who were on benefits could not take on casual work of course as it would affect those benefits and make them worse off. I would hate to think that as a society we would go back to seeing people living in the straitened circumstances they were in if they had no work in pre-welfare state Britain but we need to re-visit how and when benefits are paid and withdrawn to make sure that people are always better off in work than out of it - working brings so much more than just an income to people.

> but we need to re-visit how and when benefits are paid and withdrawn to make sure that people are always better off in work than out of it

Definitely :) I also think that a lot more benefits should be paid in non-cash methods ie direct to energy companies, food parcels (OK - this might not work :) ) - but little in the way of cash. A lot of people on benefits seem to spend their money on luxuries (cigarettes, alcohol, expensive items for the children) rather than on the necessities :( When I went to antenatal classes it was those on benefits who seemed to have everything new for the baby and those of us who worked had the second-hand items from friends and family :) :)

Daisy

I also think that a lot more benefits should be paid in non-cash methods ie direct to energy companies, food parcels (OK - this might not work :-) ) - but little in the way of cash. A lot of people on benefits seem to spend their money on luxuries (cigarettes, alcohol, expensive items for the children) rather than on the necessities :-( When I went to antenatal classes it was those on benefits who seemed to have everything new for the baby and those of us who worked had the second-hand items from friends and family
Completely agree Daisy.  I manage on my pension and what I've saved during my life.  I lead a happy but relatively frugal existance, still saving for treats and holidays.  Those around me on benefits are always in the pubs and restaurants in the town.  I go on special occasions!
Nobody would vote for me but I would only give 'necessary for life' things, including a basic food box.  If those not working want any more, then they'd have to get off their backsides. :(

> those on benefits who seemed to have everything new for the baby and those of us who worked had the second-hand items from friends and family

See this is where it has gone wrong and those people in real hardship will be grateful for bills to be paid or vouchers for food only.
Aside from genuine medical reasons those others on benefits who have been on them all their lives and not worked legitimately, I honestly can't see how the government has ever been justified to allow them to do such a thing. So a reform on who and how benefits are paid out are a long time coming, it will need tweaking as it goes but I feel its a step in the right direction.

In some countries they can only claim unemployment for two years.

Maybe they should do something similar here.  might make some of the lazy ones get moving.  I do feel sorry for people who try for job after job and don't get anywhere.

immigrants i know pay NI/tax on jobs.  One job nearly all immigrants as no one would take jobs there.