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determine. In Havering, families with children are given temporary
shelter when it is found they have nowhere else they can possibly
go.
During 1967, as Table 37 shows, 21 families were given
shelter by the department. 7 families who had been evicted by
the local authority for large and long-standing rent arrears were
helped by social workers in the department, but only 2 had to be
admitted to the department's temporary accommodation. 63 families
in all were helped because they had become, or were about to
become, homeless, but only a third of them, 21, had actually to
be admitted to Suttons Hostel or to the new hostel.
Suttons Hostel in Hornchurch took Havering families until
June 1967, when the new hostel was opened. This new hostel, a
large house in a busy part of Romford, was specially adapted to
give separate flats for 6 different families at any one time. Each
family has their own kitchen and sitting room (or kitchen-sitting
room) bathroom, and bedrooms, so nothing has to be shared with
other families except the entrance, corridors and staircases.
Furniture and bedding is provided by the department. There is a
large garden for the children to play in and huts to take the
families' own furniture and their prams. A small room is set
aside as an office for visiting social workers and others. There
is no residential or permanent staff on the premises. This is very
unusual for this kind of local authority accommodation, and some
people thought the absence of supervision would lead to endless
difficulties with neighbours and between the families themselves.
However, everything has gone remarkably well, considering the
large number of small children there have sometimes been in the
hostel. Neighbours have been extremely tolerant, although their
patience has often been tried by the children who have gloried
in the company of the children from some of the other families
in the hostel, and in the large playing spaces near the house, unfortunately
not always realising the bother they may be causing
to others living nearby. The parents have been co-operative in
limiting this problem and have appreciated that they are expected
to behave responsibly and to care for the building, possibly more
so than if a member of the department's staff had been permanently
available to keep them in order. By the end of 1967 11 families
had been in the new hostel.
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