‘Scandalous’ MoD trying to evict us from our homes
Pensioners and families are told to move out
FAMILIES and elderly tenants fear being left homeless after they were given notices to quit their Ministry of Defence homes.
Properties which used to house service personnel in Bordon, Hampshire, were leased by the MoD’s property arm on contracts with just two months’ notice.
The Defence Infrastructure Organisation, which manages 50,000 homes around the country, is understood to have written to tenants telling them to vacate.
Royal author and historian Coryne Hall and her husband Colin are being evicted from their fourbed home. Mr Hall, 78, said 10 houses in their part of the road had been given notice with other properties in the village affected.
Callous
He said: “We are all up in arms. What the hell are we are going to do? We have been ringing estate agents and there’s nothing available.
“How is it helping people, kicking us out with the housing situation? They don’t say what they are going to dispose the housing to. It’s scandalous.”
Mrs Hall added: “I think it’s callous. There are families up the road with young children who go to school round here – what are they going to do?”
Single mother Mel Oakley, 42, fears she could end up living in bed and breakfast accommodation with her three children because she can’t find a home to rent. Her search is made harder with hospital treatment for abdominal health issues. She said: “It’s going to massively impact us. I’m having an operation so I’m potentially out of action for eight weeks.
“I’m a single mum, I work, my youngest is at school. Same with the boys who are hoping to return to college in September. Everything is on standby because we don’t know where we are going to be because there is nothing here in Bordon, there is nothing rent-wise.”
Ms Oakley, who has lived in her home for two and a half years, claimed the Pinnacle Group, which provides housing management for the DIO, had not given support.
She said: “With Pinnacle it is very much... ‘What do you want us to do? There is nothing we can do, you have got to find somewhere else’.”
An MoD spokeswoman said: “Civilian tenants who rent homes that are temporarily not required for service personnel sign-up to two months’ notice to vacate.
“Sub-lets are always offered on short-term basis only and cannot be considered as an alternate source of social housing.”
She added the MoD had issued Notice to Quit statements to eight properties while a total of 48 in Bordon are planned for disposal.
She stressed that it was not in a position to offer help finding alternative accommodation.