This episode is a wee rant on the reasons why people upload their personal, medical and financial information into AI - people who are desperate for answers to serious housing and money problems.

Three reasons people do this: 

1) Councils and the DWP - the organisations that are meant to help people in need with housing and money - simply do not help. 

They turn homeless people away and deny people benefit money. You might as well talk to a bot. 

2) People have given up hope that their private data will be kept secure. So - might as well load it into AI. 

Councils and the DWP lose people's personal, medical and financial information all the time. Data security is a luxury that you're not getting anyway.

3) AI is polite and even enthusiastic to and about you. 

Chatgpt and google AI might steal your info, say you can get a council house when you absolutely can't and sell your data on to sociopathic private companies, but they will be incredibly friendly to you while they're at it. 

Makes a refreshing change from being treated like shite by your council and jobcentre.

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So much for disability adaptations.

In this episode, I talk with Mr T, who has been in a wheelchair since a serious traffic accident. 

East Devon is his council. His council home had very bad leaks, mould and flooding. The floorboards were so rotten that his wheelchair went through them. Great stuff from the council there.  

Anyway, the council put him in a non-adapted temporary flat where he can't turn his wheelchair around. 

Upshot is that Mr T has to drag himself down the hall to the loo which he sometimes misses. He also sleeps on the floor, because getting into his wheelchair at night for a trip to the bathroom is too hard. 

I can't tell you how pleased I am that Labour has decided to blow the rest of the year on various meaningless leadership contests, rather than sort out serious council issues like this. 

Hope they rot etc.

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In this episode, I talk to renowned benefits journalist Chaminda Jayanetti. 

We talk about this Labour government's attempt to make cuts to the personal independence payment disability support benefit last year.

In particular, we talk about the fact that the government didn't realise who the cuts would hit. 

Government happily imagined that the people affected would be people with mental health and autism conditions - you know, the so-called snowflakes that politics loves to hate. 

Actually, it was people with conditions like inflammatory arthritis and serious heart compromise who were in the firing line. 

On the back of that circus, minister for social security and disability Stephen Timms is conducting a nationwide consultation on the future of PIP as we speak. Wonder if he'll come up with anything sensible. 

We also talk about the mediafying and gentrification of mental health. Media luvvie-chat about mental health doesn't really reflect the reality of the sort of mental health problems you need to claim PIP. 

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Today, we hear from Homerton Hospital paediatric doctor Hannah Caller.

Hannah goes through the reasons why she made a safeguarding referral about the threat that Hackney council poses to an 8 year old disabled and autistic boy who Hackney council is trying to evict from his council home with his family.

And what was the first thing that the council's social services team did when they received the referral? 

They closed it down. 

Safeguarding referrals are important. Doctors and other professionals make them when they feel that a child is at serious risk. 

In this case, the boy is at serious risk of harm from the housing department at his own council. The council's social services department has a legal duty to investigate these referrals. Can't imagine why.

I've been covering the boy's story in the last few episodes. 

More soon.  

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We return to Hackney council and our ongoing story about the council's attempts to evict a disabled and autistic boy and his family from their council home.

The council tried again on Friday just gone, but fortunately, a court saw sense and suspended the bailiff's eviction warrant for 8 weeks because of the risk to the boy's health. 

In the meantime, the council has come up with a gross idea to test the boy's behaviour on public transport.

The council's proposal is to stick this boy and his family in temporary housing 10k away from the school where he is settled. He'll have to get public transport to this school. His school is just across the road from his present council home. 

The boy's teachers and medical supporters all say that the boy can't cope with public transport and has bad meltdowns on it. 

The council doesn't seem to believe them. It is proposing that an assessor of some sort takes the boy on public transport to get "direct observational evidence" of what happens. 

In other words, the council wants to put the boy in an environment that he can't cope with to record him not coping with it. 

Is this actual abuse?  

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Oh yes. 

Labour's very own Hackney council will evict a disabled and autistic 8 year old boy and his family from their council home this Friday, March 6 at 10am. Bailiffs will evict the family.

The council does not have to evict this family. It is just a tenancy issue and the council could choose to grant the family a secure tenancy. The council simply refuses to. 

Instead, it is sending the bailiffs to evict the family on Friday, at which point the boy and his family will be chucked into temporary housing miles from the boy's school where he is settled with 1-2-1 support. 

The boy won't be able to cope with the stress and he can't cope with public transport. The council has been sent pages of medical and school evidence which makes this very clear. 

This, my friends, is a classic example of reasons why so-called progressives cannot bear the Labour party. Let us note that the Hackney Greens have supported the family, while Labour wants to crush the family. 

I am not a supporter of political parties of any stripe, but even I can see that. Here's hoping voters in the upcoming local elections in Hackney put a very big boot in.  

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In this episode, we hear about the ways that councils can drive people in housing need to the brink.

This episode is the 4th about a family with a disabled and autistic 8 year old boy. Hackney council is trying to evict this family - with bailiffs - from their council home of 18 years. 

The boy's paediatric doctor is so concerned about the threat this eviction poses to the little boy's health that she's making a safeguarding referral - ie she feels that the boy needs protecting from the council.

Meanwhile Kyla, the boy's mother, says she is feeling suicidal because the council won't stop calling and emailing to tell her to get out of her home of 18 years and to move her family into temporary housing. 

Her daughter talks about her mother's deteriorating mental health in this episode. 

Harassment by bureaucracy, innit. Councils and the DWP are masters of it. 

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We return to our Hackney eviction story - where Hackney council tried last week to evict an 8 year old autistic and disabled boy and his family from their council home.

Bailiffs turned up to evict the family on Tuesday. Fortunately, the London Renters' Union, other supporters and neighbours saw the bailiffs off. Was a good day in that sense, but the council says it'll be back. 

In this episode, we hear from the boy's 18 year old sister. She lives with her mother, Kyla, and her disabled brother. 

She's a student and a carer for her brother. She dresses him, makes his food, and takes him out for walks and to the park. 

She talks about her brother, her mother and the council's pursuit of them. 

Councils should not be making disabled children homeless. 

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What a title that was to write. 

This episode tells you exactly what it is like to try and stop a family from being evicted by bailiffs. 

This is a family that is being evicted by their own council - so, that's a council actively making a family homeless and threatening them with dreadful temporary housing.

The eviction is tomorrow, unless the council and/or the courts agree to call off the bailiffs. What a world we're in.

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In this episode, we speak with Kyla who will be evicted from her Hackney council home by bailiffs next week.

Kyla has an 8-year-old autistic and disabled son. She's lived in the council place for about 18 years. 

As you'll hear in this episode, Kyla hasn't "done" anything terrible or even anything terribly wrong... but it's a cold world we're in. She will be evicted unless the bailiff's warrant is suspended. 

At best, Kyla and her family will end up in a dreadful temp housing hovel somewhere. It'll break her son's much-needed routine and probably his mind as that is how it usually goes with autistic kids. He's always lived in this place and gone to the same school where he has 1-2-1 support. Kids with autism do not cope at all well with change.

The council really could let them stay. It really could.

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