Wednesday, January 07, 2015

St Mungo's Broadway: Updated complaint to the UN (revised paragraphs 29 and 30)

Part 1: St Mungo’s Broadway: Seeking to illegally break our contract with the Mayor of London's Greater London Authority (GLA) Housing First programme under threat of eviction

Updated complaint to the UN: Revised paragraphs 29 and 30

29. As a direct result of the accommodation blockade through surveillance that the Applicant and his wife experienced in London and in Brighton for the best part of a year previous (see paragraphs 25-28 above), they were forced back into sleeping rough on the streets of the City of London on 14 April 2013 having been evicted from a 'safe house' after months of serious harassment which included the removal of their flat door (see paragraph 24 above). They returned to the same sleeping pitch they had before coming off the streets in July 2009, which they continued to use until it was fenced off in December 2013. Within days of their street homelessness, the homeless charity St Mungo's Broadway, then called Broadway Homelessness and Support, denied them support to access the private rented sector (see paragraph 30 below). This notwithstanding that the Applicant: (a) had been provided with the deposit on a flat and one month's rent up front by a benefactor in America; (b) had a perfect Housing Benefit track record; (c) had an immaculate credit report from the credit reporting agency Experian; (d) had a wholly acceptable reference letter from his previous tenancy stating that the Applicant and his wife "kept the property in very good order, were quiet and paid the rent on time"; and (e) had two personal references of the highest quality, one of which had been written by a retired American physician then living in London (see Annex 22, St Mungo's Broadway: Personal references, pp. 59-60).

30. In March 2013, St Mungo's Broadway CEO Howard Sinclair wrote in The Guardian that there are occasions when the charity accommodates rough sleepers straight from the streets. According to Mr Sinclair in the same article, in addition to the Mayor of London having provided Broadway with £5 million under his No Second Night Out project, the charity had received £10 million from London and Quadrant Housing Trust, alongside the support of three other trusts, to accommodate people in London for whom there had been no other option. Nonetheless, on 29 August 2013 the Applicant was forced to file a claim in the High Court for judicial review against Commissioner of Police for the City of London Adrian Leppard and Home Secretary Theresa May following the decision of the former not to ask Broadway to engage with him and his wife in relation to their welfare and access to the charity's service for supporting clients to find accommodation in the private rented sector (see Annex 24, City of London Police: Reply from Commissioner Adrian Leppard (2013), p. 63). The Applicant argued in court papers that it was unreasonable for the City of London Police to refuse to ask Broadway to help them find private sector accommodation whilst at the same time threatening them with hosings by street cleaners (see Annex 25, City of London Police: Application for Judicial Review, pp. 64-69). On 6 February 2014, Deputy High Court Judge Bidder ruled: "The refusal of the First Defendant to ask the charity 'Broadway' to engage or help the Claimant and his wife with their welfare or accommodation is not arguably unreasonable. It is not its job to intervene in any disagreement between a charity and those seeking that charity's help" (see Annex 26, City of London Police: Order by Deputy High Court Judge Bidding, p. 70). Remarkably, despite this history, St Mungo's Broadway is currently seeking to illegally break the Applicant and his wife's housing contract with the Mayor of London's Greater London Authority (GLA) Housing First programme under threat of eviction (see paragraph 35 below). [emphasis added]


Our flat door is removed by the live-in landlady's builder

This is the court order quoted above that Declan will be using against Howard Sinclair should St Mungo's Broadway attempt to carry out their threat to have us evicted:

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It seems incredible to us that of all the homeless organisations in London it should be Mr Sinclair's St Mungo's Broadway that we are battling at this point in time. But then again perhaps we shouldn't be surprised... it definitely qualifies as 'radical':

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Church and State website

Church and State Press

Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out -- Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty