GOVERNMENT plans to prevent single mothers and homeless people jumping
the housing queue were unveiled yesterday by English Housing Minister
Sir George Young.
However, his proposals drew fierce fire from housing and lone-parent
groups who denounced the Government for seeking ''scapegoats'' for the
lack of affordable housing.
Under the plans, councils will only be obliged to provide temporary
accommodation to those in urgent need.
Under the present rules, anyone who becomes homeless or is in
''priority need'' of accommodation, for example single mothers, goes to
the top of the housing queue.
However, Sir George told a news conference at Westminster: ''It isn't
fair that those who wait patiently should see others, whose housing
needs may be no greater, take precedence over them.
''What we intend to do is to create a system that is fair to
everyone,'' he said.
The new regulations will not apply in Scotland, where a review on the
operation of Government guidance to councils will be published soon.
A code of guidance to local authorities, based on the 1987 Housing
Scotland Act, was published in 1991 and councils have a statutory duty
to have regard to that guidance.
Housing charity Shelter condemned the Government's plans as a return
to the era of Cathy Come Home. The disturbing BBC television play from
1966 told of a couple whose children are put into care after they are
evicted from their home.* Sir George Young once told how he would never
forget watching Cathy Come Home.
''Carol White's vivid portrayal of despair struck home to my wife and
me. We were the same age as 'Cathy' and also starting a family, but the
contrast in our positions could not have been more dramatic.''
In an ironic twist, Sir George -- who was writing in The Times three
years ago on the 25th anniversary of the founding of Shelter's campaign
for better housing -- recalled: ''It was at this time that my interest
in housing issues began.''
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