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Panorama 2020 E04
Transcript
00:00Tonight on Panorama. With homelessness on the rise, growing numbers of people are being housed in converted office blocks.
00:19Owned by private companies, rooms are rented out, not just by councils.
00:24You'd have ex-offenders, charities, housing tenants there, just come out of prison.
00:29We go undercover to investigate the reality of life in one office block conversion.
00:49And meet vulnerable residents, pushed to breaking point.
00:53I was under the impression I'd be with mums and kids, and then I'm with drug addicts.
00:57There's people that have literally had fights outside the front door, so I'm like, how am I meant to feel safe?
01:18People knocking on your door at three in the morning, bang, bang, bang.
01:22We had a violent drug dealer living next door to us.
01:26Children found knives.
01:28Used needles.
01:30I'm here with a child, people smoking drugs in front of us.
01:35This is human warehousing.
01:39These are the voices of people who've lived in temporary accommodation.
01:44When I first moved in, I thought it feels a little bit like a hotel, but then it felt like a prison, yeah.
01:49All they needed to do was put a bit of gym equipment out there, and it felt like you were in a prison yard.
01:54You know, you see on the films, people working out, you know.
01:59Basically, it turned into...
02:01Hell.
02:02Hell.
02:03Living hell.
02:04Living hell, yeah.
02:06Matt and Tanya are from Harlow in Essex.
02:09Matt was made redundant in 2014.
02:13I had my own four-bedroom house and a nice car, and I lost my job.
02:17It just tumbled out of control, mate, at the end of the day.
02:22They were quickly overwhelmed by debt and lost their home.
02:26For me personally, it destroyed me, mate.
02:29Destroyed me.
02:31It was a world that I've never been used to.
02:35We felt embarrassed, didn't we?
02:37Yeah, we felt embarrassed, we felt failure, as a parent, as a father.
02:47It's wrapped up inside.
02:50In this country, just over a quarter of a million people are homeless.
02:54That includes 130,000 children.
02:59With their young daughter, they were moved into temporary accommodation.
03:03It was not for wanting to try, and we tried our best, but it didn't work out,
03:07so we had to approach the local authority for help.
03:12And that's when our journey began.
03:15We're in the middle of a housing crisis,
03:18with growing numbers of people now homeless.
03:23We have got hundreds of thousands of people in this country
03:26who are one paycheck away from being made homeless.
03:31We've got soaring house prices, soaring costs of rent,
03:34we've got people on low incomes, housing benefit is not meeting that gap.
03:39And we're talking about people in work, we're talking about families with children.
03:43Anyone can find themselves homeless.
03:47Local authorities have a legal duty to help house their homeless.
03:52That housing has to be safe and in a reasonable condition,
03:55but there aren't enough council-owned properties for everyone who needs them.
04:00And that can be expensive.
04:02Last year, councils in England spent £1.1 billion on private, temporary accommodation.
04:09In the past, hotels and bedsits have been used.
04:13Until permanent homes could be found.
04:15But they've been criticised.
04:19So councils are increasingly reliant on other private landlords.
04:27Anyone who's rich enough can buy and convert an office block.
04:32There are no rules on the size rooms should be,
04:35and they don't even have to have windows.
04:37This is thanks to permitted development rights,
04:40introduced in 2013 to address the lack of housing.
04:44Developers don't need planning permission.
04:47Hailed as a bold new business model,
04:4954,000 offices have already been converted across the country.
04:54In Harlow, they have the highest proportion of office block to housing conversions
04:59than anywhere else in England.
05:03In all, 12 former office blocks have been converted in Harlow,
05:07creating nearly 1,100 rooms.
05:11The housing charity Shelter has campaigned against them.
05:15The permitted development rights basically means
05:18that people can get around planning permission rules
05:21and convert, for example, office blocks into temporary accommodation
05:27for large amounts of people, putting them in tiny little units.
05:31It's totally inappropriate, and it's allowing even more public money
05:35to be poured into the pockets of individuals
05:38who are making profit off the back of people's suffering.
05:44These buildings look unremarkable.
05:47In the past, they were used by insurance companies
05:50and the National Crime Agency.
05:52But four years ago, they were bought by the private property developer,
05:56Carradine, and converted into large-scale temporary housing.
06:01The company's founder, Mario Carrozzo, explains their business model.
06:07Why don't many developers do what we do?
06:09Very simple, because it's not cost-effective.
06:11It's very, very challenging.
06:13Most developers want to buy, build and sell.
06:15That's not what we're about.
06:16Our ethos is about creating quality homes.
06:21Carradine are one of a number of private companies
06:23operating in this growing market.
06:26They say they are a successful and multi-award-winning business
06:30who've helped house thousands of people
06:32who'd have otherwise struggled to secure accommodation.
06:38In the last four years, they've received at least £11 million
06:41from local authorities to help house people
06:44from across the south of England.
06:48It's very sustainable, what we do, too.
06:50So we're not digging up ground, because these are existing buildings.
06:53And Carradine is growing.
06:55By the end of this year,
06:57they say they hope to have 5,000 homes available.
07:10This one is Templefields House.
07:15Carradine paid more than £6 million for this former office building
07:19on an industrial estate.
07:21Now it's home to up to 400 people,
07:24some of them sent here by councillors across south-east England.
07:29There are no transport links nearby
07:31and it's a 40-minute walk to Harlow Town Centre.
07:37I wanted to know more about what it's like to live in a place like this
07:41and one resident invited me to see his room.
07:45Come in, by all means.
07:48It's not much.
07:50It's not much, but here we go.
07:52Nick lives here with his wife, Lynn.
07:55Where's your wife?
07:57She's at hospital.
07:58She's got internal renal failure.
08:00She's at dialysis this evening.
08:02All right.
08:03So she stays in here with you?
08:05Yes, yes.
08:06This is her space.
08:08That's my space.
08:10One makes the best of whatever,
08:12but this is a shelter, it's not a home.
08:16The reduced function of her liver and kidneys
08:18leave her vulnerable to a septic infection.
08:22Kitchen and toilet and shower is in the same places.
08:26Inconvenient for my other half.
08:30She's terminally ill?
08:32Yes, and she's on dialysis,
08:34so she's got two holes in her currently,
08:37in the stomach and directly into her heart,
08:41and infection is the major killer for her.
08:44Infection is the major killer for things like this, so...
08:47I just find it incredible you're living here
08:49with your partner who's dying.
08:51Yes.
08:53And you've been here for almost three years.
08:55Yes.
08:56What's temporary about being here for three years?
08:58Nothing.
09:00Carradine say their aim is to provide a stepping stone
09:03to permanent accommodation.
09:06They're providing a simple service.
09:08They're not social workers.
09:10They go, he has a house, do you want it?
09:12Yes or no.
09:13But Nick says the stress of life here
09:15is sometimes difficult to bear,
09:17and it's especially hard for his wife.
09:20Is it dangerous for some people to live here?
09:23There's a million different stories here.
09:27But a lot of them can just snap at the smallest thing.
09:31Some guy tried to pick a physical fight with her two months ago.
09:36She was standing in the lobby on the stairs
09:39trying to answer a phone to get a taxi.
09:42And she was in some chap's way, and he snaps at her
09:46and launches a verbal and physical attack.
09:50She's not happy to go outside by herself.
09:54Matt and Tanya are amongst the first families to move in.
09:58It was nice.
10:00At first, I think there was about five people moved in,
10:03and then the next week, five or ten would move in,
10:06and so on and so on.
10:08Residents of Harlow,
10:09they were placed in temple fields by the local council.
10:12Their neighbours were from all backgrounds.
10:15Some were difficult and dangerous.
10:18Our neighbours were from Harlow Council,
10:21from various other councils,
10:25London councils, other Essex councils.
10:29The building was used by various organisations,
10:33so you'd have sort of ex-offenders, charities, housing.
10:37You know, tenants there just come out of prison.
10:40Probation service, social services.
10:43So then once it was completely full, it was horrific, wasn't it?
10:47Yeah, it was, yeah. It was horrific, incredibly hard.
10:51It was awful.
10:54Carradine had security on site,
10:56and when Matt discovered they needed a new guard at temple fields,
11:00he put himself forward.
11:02It was far too much for the small amount of staff team
11:07that were there to cope with.
11:09I struggled.
11:10Why was it hard for staff to cope?
11:12You'd get faced with someone who'd lost their child,
11:14you'd get people drunk, you'd get people that were aggressive,
11:17you'd get violent people.
11:21Anything you can think of, you'd get faced.
11:24Matt took his complaints to Carradine's head office.
11:27Did you ever go to Carradine?
11:29I used to make complaints about it, but nothing was ever got back.
11:34And he wasn't the only one to complain.
11:38Panorama has been told that crime and drugs
11:41are out of control at temple fields.
11:45Since this place opened three years ago,
11:47the police have been called out nearly 600 times.
11:52CCTV cameras monitor 24 hours a day.
11:56The police would be there daily.
11:58Sometimes it'd be once a day, two times, three times,
12:01various days over the week.
12:04Eventually, Matt had enough and handed in his notice.
12:11Panorama decided to send in an undercover reporter to investigate,
12:15and like Matt, he got a job as a security guard.
12:19Oh, right, OK, so both today.
12:23HE COUGHS
12:25On his first day, he's given a briefing on the residents.
12:36Yeah.
12:37He's told how to keep himself safe.
12:48And he's directed to patrol the corridors
12:50and guard the perimeter of the property.
13:00Back inside, he's told to record any incidents.
13:11And he's shown an old CCTV clip with an intruder to watch out for.
13:21OK.
13:23Yeah.
13:27Oh.
13:40Our reporter is out on patrol.
13:45Yeah.
13:47Yeah.
13:49The corridors are narrow and claustrophobic,
13:52and the smell of cannabis is overwhelming.
14:08A resident complains of a banging noise outside their room.
14:15Someone is breaking the fire door.
14:19You're constantly on edge.
14:22There was people that were quite angry.
14:24There's people that have literally had fights outside the front door.
14:28You hear them screaming, kicking and all of this.
14:33That place just has so many issues.
14:35You couldn't just pick one. There's so many issues.
14:39Last year, Casey and her three-year-old daughter
14:42were housed in Templefields for eight months.
14:45When she moved in, she thought it would be a safe place for families.
14:50I was under the impression I'd be with mums and kids,
14:52and then I'm with drug addicts, and I'm in flats with burglars,
14:57people that smoke crack, people that smoke weed, all under one roof.
15:01So I'm like, how am I meant to feel safe?
15:03I'm coming home, and I don't want to come home.
15:05It really affected my parenting, my relationships with family,
15:10my relationships with a lot of people.
15:12I struggled with alcohol while I was there.
15:15I started taking antidepressants,
15:17and then I was taking tablets to make me go to sleep.
15:20From when I was living there, everyone I spoke to couldn't wait to get out.
15:27It's just after 8pm, and our undercover reporter
15:30spots young children playing in the car park.
15:35How old are you, darling? She's three years old.
15:38Three years old?
15:40Come on, then, cos there are cars here as well.
15:42We don't want you getting run over.
15:45Not long after...
15:49Are you all right there, mate?
15:52..he hears a car revving its engine near the front gate.
15:56Take your foot off.
15:58You've got to take your foot off the accelerator.
16:01The driver's foot is flat on the accelerator, but not in gear.
16:05What are you doing there, then?
16:07What are you doing here?
16:10He's unresponsive.
16:12Have you been drinking, have you?
16:14And now, slurring his words.
16:17Hello, there. How are you?
16:19The security manager comes out to assess the situation.
16:24How you doing? You all right?
16:26Are you going to go back to your flat?
16:28I've set this for you. I'll let you know if you need anything.
16:32I've set this for you. I'll let you...
16:34Are you all right?
16:36He lives here, yeah.
16:39But he doesn't call the police.
16:41The problem we have is, from about here, is that...
16:45..the old bill might cost you,
16:47cos he's not actually on the property, so to speak.
16:50They won't even touch him, so they won't even say to us...
16:53Carradine say all incidents are logged where necessary.
16:56And when he got the job,
16:58an undercover reporter was told to record any incidents
17:01on the security log to notify management.
17:05Do we put anything in the log?
17:07No, cos it's the thing you can't control.
17:10It's his licence, at the end of the day.
17:12All the ones who want to take his licence away.
17:15You know, he can come back, stay where he's at.
17:18He's not causing any...
17:20The only thing he can do, if he does cause any trouble,
17:23but he very rarely ever does, to be frank,
17:25never in one instance.
17:27But he's... he's...
17:30When Matt and Tanya were living here,
17:32their daughter was just four.
17:34The things that she'd heard in there, the arguments,
17:37and that's something she's not used to, and...
17:40Yeah, there'd be self-harming openly within the building
17:43and outside the building.
17:45Residents. Residents self-harming in the open.
17:47Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Big time.
17:49She was frightened in there.
17:52She was always frightened.
17:55And it's not just your daughter.
17:58And it's not just children who were frightened.
18:01Panorama has discovered
18:03that amongst the many vulnerable people who've been placed here
18:06are at least ten victims of domestic violence.
18:11I'm on my way to meet one of them.
18:17Before she went to Templefields,
18:19she was a victim of a particularly bad attack.
18:23And when she arrived, she was shocked by what she saw.
18:26A girl and a fella have a big punch-up.
18:29That was on the day I was moving in, outside the doors.
18:33And he kept coming back to start, coming back to start,
18:37overnight, all through the night, different times.
18:40And I suffered really bad of anxiety.
18:42It was through the roof.
18:44What were you anxious about?
18:46That maybe I'd be injured again by someone
18:49and I might have another stroke.
18:52I just thought that I'd been through the worst
18:55of my domestic violence,
18:57and I've gone right back in where it's all chaos.
19:00I'd ring my friends or family and just say,
19:04like, I've had enough, can't do this.
19:06If this carries on, I'm going to kill myself.
19:10Carradine say they have a commitment to their tenants' well-being
19:13that sets them apart from other providers of temporary accommodation.
19:18Do they offer you any support? No.
19:21No.
19:23I'm not asking for a mansion, but desperate people want a bed.
19:27I'm just asking for a safe home.
19:30And I wasn't put in a safe home.
19:35Carradine have told Panorama
19:37they take a zero-tolerance approach
19:39to all criminal and anti-social activity.
19:42But the security staff told our undercover reporter
19:45that the drugs trade here is out of control.
19:48And a lot of them are dealing female, same as the other block.
19:52Yeah. You can't, you know, control 172 flats.
19:58And many residents we've spoken to
20:00say drugs are one of the biggest problems here.
20:04I went to his house, I think I went to Boris and Bleach,
20:07and he was like, oh, just step in. I actually saw him cooking it.
20:10They're things that you see on the telly,
20:12you'd never think you'd see that in front of me,
20:15you're cooking these drugs.
20:18There was people passed out on benches.
20:21Yeah.
20:23You'd see drug deals going on in the car parks and in the building.
20:27What drugs are we talking about?
20:29All sorts of drugs. Class A.
20:31Yeah, we used to see needles on the floor.
20:33There was needles on the floor.
20:34There was needles on the floor.
20:35Chucked around. Chucked in bushes. Yeah.
20:40A number of times, our undercover reporter
20:42saw suspicious people walking onto the property,
20:45sometimes following residents through the front gates
20:48or using the fire doors to get in.
20:55Outside, a concerned resident wants help.
21:08During the investigation, there are a number of drug raids.
21:12One resident was arrested for dealing cannabis.
21:16Another for dealing crack cocaine and heroin.
21:25On his first day in the job, our undercover reporter was told
21:28that he might sometimes need to access residents' rooms
21:31in case of an emergency.
21:35Carradine say their staff only use master keys
21:38to enter rooms without permission if they're asked to by the authorities
21:42or if there's a report of danger to life.
22:03Carradine calls these welfare checks,
22:05but they say staff have to respect the privacy of the occupant.
22:10One evening, in the office,
22:12the staff tell our undercover reporter about a welfare check
22:15they say they were asked to do by a police officer.
22:20Because she weren't in there, they made us take pictures,
22:22have a look round, see what we could see.
22:24When I... Honestly, our fingerprints will be all over their rooms.
22:27Yeah, but...
22:29Oh, yeah! It'll be our prints.
22:32Yeah, I forgot about that.
22:34During the visit, a diary was found and photographs were taken of it.
22:39Now, a staff member has the photos
22:42and they're discussing the personal and private details in the diary,
22:46which they say they shared with a police officer.
22:49There's loads of papers, but we got the copper to read it out.
22:52But we said to him, you've got to put our checks in.
22:56Panorama approached the two members of staff involved
22:59to ask them about the breach of the residents' privacy.
23:02They didn't respond.
23:05Carradine say, as a result of the specific allegations made by Panorama,
23:09they've started disciplinary procedures
23:11and are investigating alleged security and privacy breaches.
23:17The resident they were talking about had been put in Templefields
23:20by an offender rehousing charity who have a contract with Carradine.
23:25So when they come across with new ones,
23:27will we know what they've come out after?
23:30No.
23:31You won't know anything?
23:32No, because this was all agreed by people in head office
23:35who didn't think it through.
23:37And we said we still want a referral to decide
23:40whether we'll have them people in here.
23:42Yeah.
23:43The operations manager says she lobbied head office
23:46not to take people straight from prison.
23:49This was my argument from the very beginning.
23:52Do not do this, do not take probationers, do not do it,
23:57but it's ten flats of money to them.
24:00Yeah.
24:01Ten flats at 7.50 a pot.
24:03Is it?
24:04A month.
24:05Essex police say they have no knowledge of any diary.
24:09What bugs me the most is they offer no support to their tenants.
24:14They have not one clue what goes on in their buildings.
24:18They've jumped on the housing crisis.
24:22Carradine say they're proud to provide a solution
24:25to help with the housing crisis
24:27and they only make just over 2% profit from their permitted developments.
24:32But they're not the only ones profiting out of the temporary housing market.
24:37The amount of public money being spent on temporary accommodation
24:41has gone up 78% in the last five years.
24:46Shelter have been looking at who some of that money has gone to.
24:50Polly, what are we looking at here?
24:52So these are some of the highest figures
24:55in terms of the public money basically that is being
25:01paid to private organisations.
25:04So if you look here, we've got a figure of nearly 32 million.
25:08This is being paid to one private landlord for temporary accommodation.
25:12We've got another one here, well over 16 million.
25:16So this is the kind of money that private companies are making
25:21out of our housing emergency, out of people's misery basically.
25:28Back in Templefields, Nick is desperate to find a permanent
25:32and more suitable home for him and his wife.
25:35She's waiting for a kidney transplant.
25:39We'd love to move out and there's significant factors
25:42that stop us from leaving here.
25:44You can save up and you can do things, you can get work,
25:49but if you're not here because you're a hale and hearty person
25:53in the first place, something has brought you to this particular point.
25:57Who's to blame?
25:59I blame a lack of clarity as to who needs to do what.
26:03Without a Carradine, who would be providing this?
26:08So Carradine are almost, they're your saviour?
26:11Yes, not a very palatable one, not a very nice one,
26:14but yes, there was no-one else around.
26:18They're not doing us out of the kindness of their hearts.
26:21They saw a gap and they took it.
26:23Carradine's doing their job.
26:25They're making a shelter for people.
26:28The council is leasing it out and saying we've got available places
26:31to put people if we need to.
26:33Everyone on the face of it is doing their job,
26:36but no-one's looking at the big picture.
26:38Every little part of the system is optimised,
26:41except the end-to-end experience isn't.
26:43The end-to-end experience is shit and it traps people here.
26:48Harlow Council have told Panorama that they no longer think
26:52properties like Templefields are suitable places
26:55to house families and children,
26:57and they plan to remove all their residents
27:00within the next two years.
27:02Harlow Council have been sending their residents
27:06to Templefields House,
27:08knowing that Carradine properties have been deemed unsuitable.
27:11Why has that happened?
27:13It takes time in order to deliver alternative temporary accommodation.
27:19It's appalling.
27:21In the fifth richest country in the world,
27:24we should be able to house people
27:27and meet decent standards of housing.
27:29These office block conversions are housing on the cheap.
27:35In Harlow, the council have now given themselves the power
27:38to block a number of office-to-residential conversions.
27:42Other councils are doing the same.
27:45What we really should be doing is investing in social housing,
27:49which actually is the only answer
27:51to the national housing emergency that we're in.
27:56I just hope and wish that the people that are in those buildings,
28:01you know, it's the shortest stay possible for them,
28:04and they can move out and carry on with their lives in a more positive way.
28:12The government have announced they're launching a review
28:15into the quality of homes converted under permitted development rights.
28:19But they say they're committed to delivering the homes this country needs,
28:23and office conversions are playing an important part
28:26in making this a reality.
28:29So tens of thousands of people are likely to be living
28:32in converted buildings like this for years to come.
28:42A new series on BBC Two follows those affected
28:45by the biggest change to the benefits system in a generation,
28:49and we'll take a look at Universal Credit in just a moment.
28:52Drama next, and does the army have anything to hide?
28:55Another new case, Silent Witness, follows next.