:00:14. > :00:16.crisis. This is primitive stuff. The children are having to go to the
:00:17. > :00:20.toilet in front of each other. It shouldn't happen in this country. We
:00:21. > :00:25.meet the homeless families with nowhere to go. If the children
:00:26. > :00:33.weren't there, I would have given up a long time ago. It's difficult at
:00:34. > :00:33.the minute. If I allow myself to go, I will
:00:34. > :00:39.the minute. If I allow myself to go, I probably have a breakdown. That
:00:40. > :00:43.won't be good for the kids. Or for the whole situation. A generation
:00:44. > :00:50.that can never be sure how long they will have a home. More and more
:00:51. > :00:58.families are struggling to keep a roof over their head. We have over
:00:59. > :01:02.800,000 children waking up in temporary accommodation. The number
:01:03. > :01:06.made homeless by private landlords is on the rise. We are in the
:01:07. > :01:10.business to make money. With a chronic shortage of housing, where
:01:11. > :01:14.are Britain's vulnerable families going to live? You are trapped
:01:15. > :01:17.between an unhealthy house and homelessness? Yes. What does that
:01:18. > :01:41.feel like? Rubbish. Vicky is packing up and clearing
:01:42. > :01:47.out. She's lived here in Ashford with her two-year-old daughter for
:01:48. > :01:52.eight months. Is that the last thing then? She's never been behind with
:01:53. > :01:57.the rent and never had a complaint against her. But her landlord has
:01:58. > :02:04.decided to evict 200 tenants because they are on housing benefit. I was
:02:05. > :02:08.shocked. I kind of thought that if you just, you know, if you treated
:02:09. > :02:12.the property well and you paid your rent, I couldn't see what the
:02:13. > :02:17.problem would be. I think I deserve better. I'm a good tenant. I think
:02:18. > :02:22.this could have been avoided. Like most in the private sector, Vicky
:02:23. > :02:28.has no security beyond the end of her short-term tenancy. Last year,
:02:29. > :02:33.in England, 53,000 households were accepted as homeless. Many were
:02:34. > :02:36.kicked out by private landlords. If you are the ones that are labelled
:02:37. > :02:40.as the ones that might not pay their rent, people aren't really going to
:02:41. > :02:48.want to rent houses to you and where do you go? It's all a bit of a
:02:49. > :02:54.shame, to be honest. Then the eviction notice on 23rd December,
:02:55. > :02:59.two days before Christmas. The landlord sees things differently. He
:03:00. > :03:04.says evicting 200 tenants on benefits is just economics. We are
:03:05. > :03:13.in business to make money. We are not a charity. If we went to the
:03:14. > :03:17.other extreme of having 100% of people on benefits we would go pop
:03:18. > :03:22.because of the default break. This is a man with nearly 1,000
:03:23. > :03:26.properties in his empire. He says rents are rising faster than welfare
:03:27. > :03:30.payments and there is now too much risk with tenants on benefits. Do
:03:31. > :03:35.you think you have a moral responsibility to these people, or
:03:36. > :03:39.is it only profit that matters? We have had a moral responsibility for
:03:40. > :03:44.a number of years, but it's just reached such a point that we cannot
:03:45. > :03:51.continue. Is it acceptable, do you think, to evict people because they
:03:52. > :03:57.are on benefits? In principle, if they have done something wrong...
:03:58. > :04:01.No, their tenancy ends, you are a landlord and you don't want benefits
:04:02. > :04:03.in your property? An individual private business will make
:04:04. > :04:09.commercial decisions and if they decide they don't want to have
:04:10. > :04:16.somebody on housing benefit, that is a perfect legitimate thing for them
:04:17. > :04:26.to do. So Vicky and her daughter are out. You move into a place and if
:04:27. > :04:29.you are not expecting to move every few months, you start to put down
:04:30. > :04:33.roots and you start thinking about the school your child will go to. It
:04:34. > :04:39.feels so unfair that in this day and age, the rug can be pulled out from
:04:40. > :04:42.under your feet in terms of where you live. Vicky has managed to find
:04:43. > :04:49.another place to live but many don't. In the past five years, the
:04:50. > :04:55.number of households made homeless after leaving private accommodation
:04:56. > :04:59.has trebled. Private tenancies being ended is the single biggest cause of
:05:00. > :05:03.accepted homelessness cases in England. Most will have been forced
:05:04. > :05:07.out by private landlords. England. Most will have been forced
:05:08. > :05:13.sign of how the housing market has changed. For the first time since
:05:14. > :05:17.the 1960s, there are now more people renting privately than in social
:05:18. > :05:22.housing. This is the age of the private landlord. The private rented
:05:23. > :05:25.sector has picked up the slack, as people haven't been able to buy,
:05:26. > :05:28.people can't get into social housing, so they still need to be
:05:29. > :05:31.housed somewhere and the private rented sector has filled the gap
:05:32. > :05:40.over the past ten years. It's doubled in size. What that means is
:05:41. > :05:48.people who used to go into social housing and can't afford to pay to
:05:49. > :05:54.rent have nowhere to go. Many have ended up in temporary accommodation.
:05:55. > :05:59.This is Milton Keynes. We are here to meet a family who absolutely
:06:00. > :06:04.capture the problem that hundreds of families face. There's a shortage of
:06:05. > :06:08.social housing. This family found themselves homeless. They were
:06:09. > :06:17.placed in temporary accommodation and months later, they are still
:06:18. > :06:21.there. The family used to rent privately, but when their six-month
:06:22. > :06:32.tenancy came to an end, they were homeless. Hi, it is Richard Bilton
:06:33. > :06:44.from Panorama. Come up. Thanks. The council placed them in this block
:06:45. > :06:49.near the centre of town. Hi, Paul, Richard. Come in. This is home?
:06:50. > :06:56.Unfortunately for now. It is not a big place, is it? Certainly not.
:06:57. > :07:02.This is it? Yeah. A family of four live, eat and sleep in this one
:07:03. > :07:07.room. It was supposed to be temporary, but they have lived like
:07:08. > :07:10.this for eight months. It is a very big embarrassment when you have
:07:11. > :07:15.friends and family come over here and you see effectively my failure
:07:16. > :07:21.as a dad to my family. That is how you see it? 100%. Paul and Carla are
:07:22. > :07:25.both working. The council says the couple can afford private rented and
:07:26. > :07:29.offered to help them find a place and the deposit. But Paul and Carla
:07:30. > :07:34.say renting privately is just too expensive and too insecure and what
:07:35. > :07:39.they really fear is being made homeless all over again. You have
:07:40. > :07:46.got nowhere else to go. This is it. It is here or nothing. So we have to
:07:47. > :07:51.take it day-by-day, looking any further than that is very daunting.
:07:52. > :07:57.They are holding out for the security that comes with social
:07:58. > :08:02.housing. It seems like in a way there is no way out. Just seems like
:08:03. > :08:15.we are going to be stuck here forever. Living like this is
:08:16. > :08:22.affecting their health. See you later. The couple are both taking
:08:23. > :08:27.antidepressants. I have been diagnosed with stress and
:08:28. > :08:31.depression. Which is getting to me quite a lot at the minute. The only
:08:32. > :08:39.thing that is keeping me going at the minute is the children. There's
:08:40. > :08:45.not, you know, if the children weren't there, I would have probably
:08:46. > :08:57.given up a long time ago. So they are my key to keeping me going and
:08:58. > :09:09.keeping my family together. You know, there's... It is difficult at
:09:10. > :09:14.the minute. In England, there are 44,000 families like Paul and Carla
:09:15. > :09:20.living in temporary accommodation. The numbers have been rising. What
:09:21. > :09:24.we are seeing is more and more families are struggling to keep a
:09:25. > :09:27.roof over their head, we have over 80,000 children waking up every
:09:28. > :09:31.morning in temporary accommodation. You will be a single room, maybe
:09:32. > :09:34.four or five of you, sharing beds, you might be eating food off the
:09:35. > :09:40.floor because there is nowhere communal to eat. These are terrible
:09:41. > :09:44.circumstances for families. In the past, the obvious answer for many of
:09:45. > :09:49.these families would have been social housing, with the security of
:09:50. > :09:55.a long-term tenancy. But that model doesn't work like it used to. There
:09:56. > :10:00.is not enough social housing to go around. There are 1.8 million
:10:01. > :10:08.households in England waiting for social housing and many will be
:10:09. > :10:12.waiting forever. The reason is council houses have been sold off
:10:13. > :10:16.and successive governments have failed to build enough new homes.
:10:17. > :10:23.One of the problems we have got, when we came to Government in 2010,
:10:24. > :10:28.is that there was 420,000 less social houses than there was in the
:10:29. > :10:31.period 1997, when the Labour Government came to power. Now, we
:10:32. > :10:35.have got to address that base. We have to find ways in which we can
:10:36. > :10:39.get decent housing for people and one of the solutions actually is
:10:40. > :10:44.using the private rental sector. The shortage in some areas is so extreme
:10:45. > :10:51.that councils are looking at radical ways of finding homes. This is
:10:52. > :10:54.Romford on the outskirts of London. There isn't enough social housing
:10:55. > :11:03.here, so the local council has done a deal with the private sector. The
:11:04. > :11:08.council here operates like a property agent. They say to the
:11:09. > :11:11.landlord we will guarantee you a set rent for two years and we will make
:11:12. > :11:15.sure your property is looked after. Then they say to the tenant, you
:11:16. > :11:22.don't have to worry about fees or a deposit, we will take care of that.
:11:23. > :11:26.You have to cover the rent. For some tenants, it is almost like social
:11:27. > :11:37.housing. The council acts as the landlord. They even take care of the
:11:38. > :11:40.viewings. This is Marie. She is on benefits and she's been homeless.
:11:41. > :11:51.But if she likes this private flat, it is hers. OK, if you would like to
:11:52. > :11:58.come through, Marie. Thanks. This feels really swish. Newly-painted
:11:59. > :12:02.and new carpets I can see. I have been sofa-surfing with friends and
:12:03. > :12:06.family. Effectively, I was homeless, I didn't have anywhere to go. I'm
:12:07. > :12:11.not working currently. So I can't prove that I have got an income
:12:12. > :12:17.coming in. I didn't have the means for a deposit. And so it would have
:12:18. > :12:21.been really hard for me. This place comes with a five-year tenancy,
:12:22. > :12:30.virtually unheard of from a private landlord. If you could sign there if
:12:31. > :12:37.you are happy with that? That is for the keys? It is. That is your key
:12:38. > :12:41.receipt. Thank you, Marie. Thank you for your help. She couldn't afford
:12:42. > :12:45.to go into the private sector, the boundaries there were deposits and
:12:46. > :12:48.different things. It would have been very difficult for her and she's
:12:49. > :12:52.been going from place to place. Hopefully, this has made a real
:12:53. > :12:57.difference for Marie. I am over the moon. Over the moon. I feel like I
:12:58. > :13:03.have now got a bit of a positive start to turn things around. The
:13:04. > :13:08.scheme is self-sufficient, it doesn't touch the council tax
:13:09. > :13:14.funding. In the past seven years, it's helped 2,500 people in this
:13:15. > :13:18.borough. It can only help a fraction of those trapped outside the private
:13:19. > :13:22.system. If you live in an area where rents are a lot higher than
:13:23. > :13:33.benefits, it is much harder for councils to help. Come with me.
:13:34. > :13:44.Quick then. Krina is facing a crisis. It's 7.50, boys, get a move
:13:45. > :13:48.on! Do you remember this jumper? She is a single mum with three boys
:13:49. > :13:54.living in South London. Do you remember it? This flat has been
:13:55. > :14:05.their home for five years. Come with me. Come with me, please. Now, the
:14:06. > :14:09.family is facing eviction. Right. The court has ordered me to be out
:14:10. > :14:14.of here. The landlady wants her property back. I can't fight that.
:14:15. > :14:19.It's hers. If she wants it back to sell, I can't do much, can I? Krina
:14:20. > :14:27.has no idea where she will be living next. Where are your glasses? She is
:14:28. > :14:31.on benefits but changes to the welfare system means she's now
:14:32. > :14:37.entitled to less money. Her housing benefit has been cut by more than
:14:38. > :14:45.?400 a month. She says that means she can no longer afford to rent
:14:46. > :14:49.around here. I'm probably looked at as a mum with three children, on
:14:50. > :14:53.benefits, right we need to get her off benefits, if she can't afford to
:14:54. > :15:00.live in London, she can move out of London. Got everything? I have got
:15:01. > :15:12.kids that are in Year 3 at school. My five friends that support me are
:15:13. > :15:17.all around here. It is just uprooting. At times, I don't want to
:15:18. > :15:25.think about it. At times, I don't want to contemplate it in my head.
:15:26. > :15:30.The Government says it's put aside almost ?1 billion to help people
:15:31. > :15:31.like Krina and that overall, homelessness figures have started to
:15:32. > :15:48.fall. into major new housing projects. We
:15:49. > :15:52.have just come out of the deepest recession for over 100 years and we
:15:53. > :15:57.put huge amounts of resources in there to make sure the most
:15:58. > :16:01.vulnerable in society have the protection there. You have said
:16:02. > :16:05.everything the government is trying to do, don't they get moved away
:16:06. > :16:09.when you look at the welfare reforms and the welfare cap is one of the
:16:10. > :16:21.primary reasons people are being made homeless. There is no evidence
:16:22. > :16:27.that is the case. But for Krina things look very different, she will
:16:28. > :16:34.be homeless in three weeks. She may be forced to leave London, and if
:16:35. > :16:47.she does her boys will have to leave their school. Do you like your
:16:48. > :16:55.friends in your class? Yes. How much? 50%! The local council has
:16:56. > :16:58.told Krina it will provide her with temporary accommodation but she
:16:59. > :17:10.doesn't know where it will be or how she will find somewhere permanent.
:17:11. > :17:14.Is that fun? Jump down. If I allow myself to go and just
:17:15. > :17:19.keep feeling whatever it is inside that I want to feel and let out, I
:17:20. > :17:24.will probably have a break down and that is not going to be good for the
:17:25. > :17:30.kids or for the whole situation. It might be good for me for about five
:17:31. > :17:38.or ten minutes to get all of the anger and frustration out, but it
:17:39. > :17:41.won't get me anywhere, will it? Even if the council
:17:42. > :17:44.won't get me anywhere, will it? Even Krina, she may end up with a private
:17:45. > :17:50.landlord. Most properties in the private rented sector are fine, the
:17:51. > :17:55.problem is homeless families tend to end up at the bottom of the market.
:17:56. > :17:59.One of the things we have found is that if you are at the bottom end of
:18:00. > :18:09.the market, the quality of the housing you go into is poor. People
:18:10. > :18:13.report damp, vermin infestation and huge difficulties in terms of
:18:14. > :18:15.getting a landlord to do anything. The situation is pretty dire,
:18:16. > :18:23.frankly. Natalie Wood knows The situation is pretty dire,
:18:24. > :18:26.that can be like. She lives in Chipping Norton, David Cameron's
:18:27. > :18:33.constituency wealthy area, her rented
:18:34. > :18:39.can see, if you put anything against can see, if you put anything against
:18:40. > :18:42.this wall, black mould appears. That is because that has been on there?
:18:43. > :18:48.Yes, because there is no air gap. is because that has been on there?
:18:49. > :18:52.Natalie has lived here with her two boys for one year,
:18:53. > :18:56.Natalie has lived here with her two privately. An expert has told her
:18:57. > :19:04.that the house is so damp she should move out. We cannot put any of the
:19:05. > :19:09.clothes in the wardrobes. They are not usable, they stink, they have
:19:10. > :19:16.got mould in them so the clothes have got to go on rails. Absolutely
:19:17. > :19:22.everywhere has got mauled or damp. The landlord has failed to sort the
:19:23. > :19:27.damp out. Natalie says she wants to move but hasn't got the money. To
:19:28. > :19:32.make things worse, she is nearly eight months pregnant. What is the
:19:33. > :19:37.stress like, knowing there is mould creeping over your children and your
:19:38. > :19:41.possessions? It is awful, for the kids more than anything,
:19:42. > :19:47.particularly their clothes. I don't want to send them to school smelling
:19:48. > :20:06.of mould, or looking like smelly kids. Sorry. They won't do that, but
:20:07. > :20:12.is that what it is like? Yes. We are not a dirty family and I don't want
:20:13. > :20:15.them to be tarred with that. Natalie says she has been asking the Council
:20:16. > :20:22.for social housing for three months but they haven't offered anything.
:20:23. > :20:28.So you are trapped between an unhealthy house and homelessness?
:20:29. > :20:35.Yes. What does that feel like? Absolutely rubbish. And you have got
:20:36. > :20:42.a baby on the way. Yes. For those at the bottom end of the private rental
:20:43. > :20:46.market, experiences like Natalie's are all too common. One in three
:20:47. > :20:51.private rental properties fail to meet the government's decent homes
:20:52. > :20:57.standard and many think the problem is a lack of regulation. You have to
:20:58. > :21:04.pass more rules and regulations if you want to setup a whelk stall than
:21:05. > :21:08.if you want to rent a property to an individual and that property is
:21:09. > :21:13.somebody's home that you are trying to do. It is ludicrous. The controls
:21:14. > :21:18.matter because the law in England has been changed and private
:21:19. > :21:22.landlords and now at the heart of emergency housing policy. There has
:21:23. > :21:26.been a major change in the approach to homelessness from the Government.
:21:27. > :21:32.In the past a family that was accepted as homeless could insist on
:21:33. > :21:41.social housing, but now the council can effectively forced the family to
:21:42. > :21:43.take a property in the private sector. So far, the new power hasn't
:21:44. > :21:47.been widely used but one of Britain's top QCs on housing law
:21:48. > :21:52.says we should be concerned. There is no problem provided that there
:21:53. > :21:56.is, in the private rented sector, reasonable quality accommodation at
:21:57. > :22:02.rents that can be afforded by homeless people. The sad reality is
:22:03. > :22:06.that there is not. This is at the moment are totally unregulated
:22:07. > :22:11.industry. Anybody can let a property of any standard for which they can
:22:12. > :22:15.find a tenant. Private landlords have an important role and most do
:22:16. > :22:21.it well but even some in the industry accept there is a problem
:22:22. > :22:23.at the bottom end of the market. Some landlords are better than
:22:24. > :22:28.others and we know there are people out there who exploit the
:22:29. > :22:32.vulnerable. What checks do most authorities do with landlords? I
:22:33. > :22:38.think it is variable around the country. Some stories we have
:22:39. > :22:45.heard, I would question whether many of them do anything at all. The
:22:46. > :22:51.National landlords Association says there is virtually no enforcement,
:22:52. > :22:55.do you say they are wrong? There is a requirement on local authorities
:22:56. > :23:26.to make sure, if they are using public money to house somebody, they
:23:27. > :23:36.use our houses. There are some families who just cannot find a
:23:37. > :23:44.home. Meet the Millers. They look like a happy family on holiday but
:23:45. > :23:49.they are not. Two years ago, this family owned a five bedroom detached
:23:50. > :24:00.house in Surrey. Now they live in a camper van. Fora family to go
:24:01. > :24:08.through this for so long without any certainty at all is very difficult
:24:09. > :24:14.to take. The options are very limited now so whether we stay here
:24:15. > :24:19.for one week, three weeks, it is a complete unknown as it has been all
:24:20. > :24:22.along. After the family home was repossessed they were forced to rent
:24:23. > :24:29.privately but they couldn't afford it and ended up in a camper van.
:24:30. > :24:36.They are using the local church as a campsite. We have got electric,
:24:37. > :24:46.thank goodness, to make a cup of tea and a fire to keep us warm. That is
:24:47. > :24:49.pretty much where we are. The council has offered two properties
:24:50. > :24:54.but the Millers were worried about drug dealing in the area and decided
:24:55. > :24:58.they were better off in the camper van. It is difficult for us but for
:24:59. > :25:04.the children to go through what they have in the last few months, you No,
:25:05. > :25:09.waking up in the middle of the night and this is primitive stuff. This is
:25:10. > :25:14.what people did in the Victorian times. The children having to go to
:25:15. > :25:29.the toilet in front of each other, leaning over a bucket. It shouldn't
:25:30. > :25:33.happen in this country. What about a private landlord? That is what the
:25:34. > :25:39.council suggested but Dean and debris are on benefits and say most
:25:40. > :25:46.landlords have refused to take them. The agents' fees vary. You could be
:25:47. > :25:50.talking ?5,000 before you even walk through the door and in this area it
:25:51. > :26:01.is almost impossible to get a private rental if you are receiving
:26:02. > :26:07.housing benefit. It is hard to explain to the children when they
:26:08. > :26:13.keep asking. Where are we going to live? When are we going to get a
:26:14. > :26:20.house? It is very hard. What do you say? Hopefully soon we will have
:26:21. > :26:30.somewhere nice, we can all be a family again. After three months in
:26:31. > :26:36.the camper van, the Millers finally found a private rented house but had
:26:37. > :26:42.to borrow from family and friends to cover the ?3000 needed for the
:26:43. > :26:46.deposit and fees. Vicki, who was evicted for being on housing
:26:47. > :26:53.benefit, is still in her new property but has less than six weeks
:26:54. > :26:57.left on the tenancy. Paul and Carla, after months of saying no to private
:26:58. > :27:04.rented, finally got a place in social housing. After more than a
:27:05. > :27:09.year in a damp home, Natalie was also given social housing. But
:27:10. > :27:19.before she was able to move in, she suffered a personal tragedy. Natalie
:27:20. > :27:26.lost her baby at nine months. It was horrible, the worst time of my life.
:27:27. > :27:30.I don't want to put the blame on anyone. Whatever happened just
:27:31. > :27:38.happened, there was nothing anyone could do about it. Obviously stress
:27:39. > :27:45.doesn't help. Pregnancy is meant to be a happy time and it wasn't. Krina
:27:46. > :27:52.was evicted and moved into temporary accommodation. Her children haven't
:27:53. > :27:56.had to move schools, but the family has been living in this one-bedroom
:27:57. > :28:02.flat for months and they are still waiting. It is everything I asked
:28:03. > :28:08.for, to be honest, but I don't think it is over yet. We cannot sit back
:28:09. > :28:15.and relax because through my past experiences, there is always
:28:16. > :28:19.something that's kind of hiccups. Britain is running out of places to
:28:20. > :28:21.something that's kind of hiccups. live. There simply isn't the social
:28:22. > :28:27.housing for everyone who wants it. live. There simply isn't the social
:28:28. > :28:29.But is the poorly regulated private sector the right place for our most
:28:30. > :28:59.vulnerable families? Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with
:29:00. > :29:01.your 90 Second update. The BBC's learned that
:29:02. > :29:03.a third British man in a holy war recruitment video grew
:29:04. > :29:06.up in Aberdeen. It's believed to be linked to
:29:07. > :29:09.the militant Islamist group, Isis. Two other men shown are
:29:10. > :29:13.from Cardiff.