One-parent families
Sir: Moyra Bremner appealing on behalf of one-parent families (another modest umbrella term like "homeless", covering a multitude of disparate states) cites evidence calculated to wring the heart. In the present climate of opinion it is daring to select the "deserving" and "undeserving" — that goes for homelessness too, May I offer my views as follows: I I do not believe any local authority would evict a deserted wife and children. Anyway under the current obligations for the homeless any family (single or double-parented) would be accommodated. Further many authorities have now moved towards joint tenancies,
2 Mrs Castle'; figures showing most lone' parents "as neither feckless or unmarried, but ordinary people who through death or desertion find themselves bringing up a family alone," may be right for the country as a whole. In Inner London the rising rate of single parent . families is due to "feckless" "unmarried" teenage girls who actually are "feckless", who are very well educated as to their rights to the range of welfare (including being housed as homeless so they can ignore the housing list, which selfishness of this kind has reduced to a mockery in Inner London). Incidentally "rent-a-baby" is a well known device amongst this teenage group for becoming housed and so is taking children, once abandoned and ignored, out of care.
3 Believe it or not, delinquency, retardation and mental illness are not caused by taking children into care. There has been enough evidence accumulated to show that children who are damaged in development are so damaged beforg they come into care and a glance at their family histories. might explain why:(I emphasise might). If we look at the teenage single-parent families we can see a mixture pattern well designed to turn out future problems. Nor do I know that we are able to cost-benefit taking the children into care as opposed to keeping them in their families. Such "families" tend to prove very expensive to the community in many ways. At any rate I can assure Moyra Bremner that child-care practitioners faint with horror at the thought of "splitting up families." The present era, which began with Cathy Come Home, is dominated by the commitment in housing to the "homeless family" as first priority. Nor, as I have already pointed out, would they be finally
evicted for any reason, let alone the heartrending one of desertion by the breadwinner. Ills not accidental, in my opinion, that there has been a steadY increase during this period in council housing rent arrears. S. P. Cohen Flat 5, 51 Sancroft St., London 5E11
Previous page
