Mary Fielding Guild care home 

• WE were shocked to see the story about elderly care home residents, some reported as being over 100 years old, facing eviction, (100-year-olds told to find somewhere else to live after historic care home is sold off, March 11).

Moving home can be a very disruptive and traumatic experience at the best of times and, as one of the residents said: “To be thrown out of it in our 80s, 90s, and in some cases even older, is devastating.”

For us this highlights the precarious living situation a lot of people are in, and who we tend to assume, incorrectly as it turns out, have some kind of security with regards to their living arrangements.

Most care home residents are what are called contractual licensees, which basically means they have in little in the way of security of tenure, as licences are much weaker even than assured shorthold tenancies, which is now the default tenancy in the private rented sector.

The same also applies to residents of alms­houses, which were established from the 10th century in Britain, and provide self-contained, low-cost, housing, mostly to older people on a low income. They are run by independent local charities, and according to The Almshouse Associa­tion are “available for occupation under a licence”.

A considerable number of our older members have what are called regulated tenancies, and live under a system of rent control administered by the government’s Rent Officer service.

Because they have both security of tenure and controlled rents, they have been able to remain in their home, and in Camden, despite it now being one of the most expensive places to live in the country.

We believe that having a home that is secure, affordable and safe is one of the fundamentals of life, along with good health. And these two things are inextricably linked.

That is why, along with a broad range of other groups and organisations, we recently joined the newly-formed Renters’ Reform Coalition, to make sure the government’s Renters’ Reform Bill not only gets rid of the private rented sector’s “no fault” section 21 evictions, but also replace the weak assured shorthold tenancy with a much stronger one.

Sadly, in the light of what we have described above, it would appear that this “strengthening rights” type of thinking needs to be applied to other types of housing provision as well.

It’s free to become a member of our growing organisation and to request an application form either call: 020 7383 0151, email: admin@cfpt.org.uk or go to www.cfpt.org.uk and join online.

ROBERT TAYLOR
Camden Federation of Private Tenants
Malden Road, NW5