Please Sign To Stop Disabled Girl’s Eviction!

Readers, can I please ask you to join me in signing this:

Hi my name is Charlotte I’m 16 years old, my family and I (my mum, my disabled dad who was injured whilst serving in the armed forces, my two sisters, my brother and myself who is severely disabled) are going to be evicted onto the streets by a very well-known corporate landlord under section 21 of the housing act which means for no reason what so ever. There is a loop in the law that allows landlords to evict vulnerable families onto the streets without even getting anywhere near a court to defend themselves. It’s merely paper work and then bailiffs are sent in to evict you onto the streets. When we asked why we were being evicted the landlord said it was ‘because I am disabled’ we have been threatened with social services coming in and putting me into a hospital or care home permanentlyand my brother and sisters into care, while my parents will be on the streets when we are evicted.

 The Council are refusing to house us as we refused a house which our occupational therapist and doctors all agreed was completely unsuitable. It was where friends of mine and my sisters were burnt alive in. The house was still burnt out and couldn’t be adapted for my disability. And private landlords won’t take us as they won’t allow disabled adaptations.

 The council also told my parents to put me in care or a hospital and they will then house the rest of my family, but with me they will not house us as I’m physically disabled. We have had threats, been emotionally blackmailed and been discriminated against at every turn. We have been in this house for 18 years, the eviction only came when we applied for a disability facilities grant. They tried to cover their backs by saying we were over crowded however this was proven wrong by their own documentation and was left purely to me being disabled. The village is where we have lived for 18 years and where we all went to school and my younger sister still does, the village is where my parents and family have support from neighbors and friends who help out when I’m in admitted hospital, it’s where my older sister works and attends college and where my younger brother attends a nearby secondary school, It’s even where my granddad is buried. If we moved out of Otterton we wouldn’t have this support and as many people who care for someone who is ill or disabled will know, it’s near impossible to make that support network it’s only because we’ve been here so long and the loving locals of our village that we have managed it.

 I’ve lost everything because of my disability. We have just managed to get special education in my home in Otterton where tutors come and teach me it’s taken years for this to put in place and my doctors have just arranged for specialist treatment in UCLH part of Great Ormond Street Hospital, with a team of people ready to take over down here but that can’t happen till I have a secure home in the local area and the longer this goes on the worse I’m getting. There recently has been a house come up in the village but the council are refusing for us to even go and see it as they have decided not to help us anymore because our refusal of an unsuitable house. This house could be our only chance to stay in Otterton and keep our family together, as not many houses come up in Otterton and the local area so once it’s gone we will be on the streets. Please sign my petition to help us stay in Otterton, so we can have the property that has become available in the only place we have help.

 Thank you.