The family of a woman who can hardly walk unaided claims she has been abandoned by Basildon Council.
Emma Avis, 37, has lived in a first floor flat in Landermere, Basildon, Essex for the past 20 years. She suffers from heart disease, lung disease, arthritis and systemic sclerosis, meaning she can barely walk unaided and suffers unrelenting fatigue.
Despite this, she still has to climb the stairs to her flat each day, resulting in her family having to take time off work to care for her and help her move around, and her sister, Marie Avis, said that despite being on Basildon Council’s letter scheme to get her into a new home, she’s been continually let down and abandoned.
Her sister’s condition means she can barely take a few steps before nearly collapsing, and she’s been in the same flat for 20 years and her health has really declined over the past six years, and she’s so desperate to be moved into a new home but the council simply don’t want to know.
And every time they contact the council, they simply brush them off, and there is never anywhere suitable for her when they put places on offer, and it’s a total disgrace, and when Emma goes into hospital, the family never know for sure if she’s going to make it, and the council have done nothing to support them whatsoever.
A Basildon Council spokesperson said: “Ms Avis has been assessed by our medical officer and awarded extra priority to find a suitable property to meet her needs.
“We operate a choice-based lettings scheme to give our residents the opportunity to choose which properties they are interested in.
“Ms Avis has an active housing application which means she is able to bid on advertised properties that would meet her needs each week.
“A further option available is a mutual exchange where our tenancy and resettlement team can offer help and advice and free membership at homeswapper.co.uk or houseexchange.org.uk.”
Sadly the reality is that with the majority of council properties now sold off, there are precious few properties still in council ownership, and those people with differing levels of need just have to wait.
Of course, it’s not fair if people buy council properties and new ones aren’t built, and because of this, availability is going to be seriously limited, and what was good for one set of people has left future generations needing social housing, and that has made things a lot worse off.
Of course, the answer is that council houses should have never been sold off, and more homes need to be built and to never let them be sold off again, but unfortunately councillors are more interested in vainglorious pie in the sky projects, selling off as much green space as they can to their best buddies Redrow and Bellway, and too preoccupied with calling each other names on social media, and backstabbing and trying to undermine whichever party have control of the council at any one time to actually get off their backsides and do something beneficial for people like this poor woman.
