Q: Should councils be allowed to drive homeless families to breakdown?

A: No. Councils should be allowed to drive homeless families to breakdown. Councils have a duty to house homeless families as safely and securely as they can. They certainly do not have a duty to make life as hard as they can for people in need. In my latest podcast, we return to Hackney council – and the council’s ongoing attempts to evict a disabled and autistic 8 year old boy and his family from their council home. As regular listeners will know, the council wants to evict the family and put them into temporary housing – even though the boy’s medical supporters and teachers say the move will have a terrible effect on him. The council does not have to evict the family at all. The relentless pressure from the council is pushing the boy’s mother too far. Should councils run odd tests on disabled children? I was at a meeting about 10 days ago with the boy’s teachers and a paediatric doctor. A council social worker at the meeting suggested that the move to temporary housing could be a…