How To Get A Council House Recommissioned

How To Get A Council House is to return to Channel 4 later this year and will look at the truth behind the latest housing headlines as the number of families waiting for council homes reaches almost two million.

As one of the most densely populated areas of the UK, Portsmouth has experienced challenges over housing services and stock, having lost 50% of their housing in the last 30 years. In the last year, the number of people making homeless applications to Portsmouth Council has risen by a third.

With access over three months to their homeless persons' unit and lettings teams, How To Get A Council House follows the day-to-day lives of the workers and the choices they make in deciding who should get a home.

Being homeless in Britain doesn't automatically mean that you should be given help. While councils have a legal duty to find housing for people, this is only if they fall into a priority group, and it is a team of over-stretched housing officers who decide who is – and isn't – telling the truth about their position; who deserves to be given help and who should be turned away.

In Portsmouth, the cases vary from a 61-year-old rough sleeper, to a mother of four being evicted from her home, and a Romanian immigrant with nowhere to go.

With 2.5 million people in Britain on benefits and unable to work for health reasons, Portsmouth City Council also has to deal with a growing number of people seeking social housing on medical grounds.

In addition, half of Portsmouth's council housing stock is over 50 years old and not designed for people with complex medical needs. This new series will see housing officers urgently needing to find a home for a family whose six-year old daughter has a serious kidney condition and a terminally ill grandfather who is sleeping on a sofa in his son's house.

Executive Producer for the series is Ros Ponder, with Jon Crisp as Series Producer. It has ben filmed, produced and directed by John Deol, Charlie Slade and Andrea Eisenhart.

www.channel4.com

(JP)