Johanne Smallman has had more than her fair share of problems in her 47 years she was born with cerebral palsy and has learning difficulties she now has cancer and serious mental health issues and she also lives in some of the poorest housing in the poorest pocket of Britain's most deprived area Jay wick if we need to leave you another winter if we don't like go out in the next couple of weeks we wouldn't survive love wind he would die Utley really hard for a skier Jay wick has been officially the most deprived area in the
UK for around a decade what that means is its home to disproportionately high numbers of people with myriad problems high numbers of people on benefits with few skills but also with mental and physical health issues the challenges are enormous marry that to a chronic shortage of housing and what you have in pockets of Jay wick are extremely vulnerable people living in appalling conditions some in houses simply not fit to live in and yet rent of around 500 pounds a month still going to the landlord's through housing benefits in the last few years Joanne's life has
been marked by dramatic decline in her health her ability to cope and in her home which she says have seen sewage come up through the sink and a rat infestation lasting nearly two years we filmed these pictures pest control confirmed they were rats I know it is in the disgusting state and that I used to be so helped out but like most days I don't even have this temp to get out of bed because my husband tries to do everything for me but now because because of the rat it is affecting and happened to the
car to me all by himself it is affecting his mental health so he's something to depression like me and I guess we both giving up on life we don't give a toss anymore whether we live or die Joanne has lived in this house for nearly four years the rent paid through housing benefits straight to her landlord is nearly 500 pounds a month we can't wash up we have to boil the kettle and then it's still risky when we wash up because we've got raw sewage coming up in the sink she says for lengthy periods they've
been without heat and hot water broken windows haven't been fixed and in May 2018 the then local MP stepped in to help after Joanne and her husband ended up sleeping on the beach because the rat infestation became so severe but it was another year before the council issued the landlord with this prohibition order in June declaring the house unfit to live in with several serious hazards identified including structural problems and fire risks caused by rats eating through wires we approached Joanne's landlord but he declined to comment he just a horrible situation it is embarrassing they
get called names Trent do you accept that part of the problem I suppose is that you two can't manage on your own you can't keep the place do you accept that that's part of the problem or not like most days I'm on top of it and then if I have a setback and I'm too weak and I can't get up and Daniel's in one of the beauty pretty lights then unfortunately it just gets left together like many of the families living in this part of J wig Joanne except she can be difficult to help it
doesn't stop a network of volunteers trying Andy white is a local resident who helps advocate to the authorities for people like Joanne and her husband if you have a council that creates an environment where there's not gonna be any enforcement of regulations you attract bad landlords if you want to make easy money you come to J week you buy a house for 60 grand you rent it out you'll get housing benefit every month and you don't have to do anything this house is not derelict it's someone's home talk to anyone in difficulty in J WIC
and they'll talk about Danny slaw get after spell in jail as a young man he's now determined to help people who live on the very margins there's lots of properties like this this is not the only one there's many properties that have been neglected for many many years he says the house hasn't had proper windows for nearly two years we're told the tenant is extremely vulnerable the rent around five hundred pounds a month paid mainly with Housing Benefit Danny what about those people who would look and say you know it's up to the people who
live in these properties they should do more to look after them people who are unsympathetic I think these people should put their selves in the shoes of the people that are in these houses these people are very vulnerable through domestic abuse or through mental abuse or through being hurt the children who don't have parents that support them we don't have jobs who don't have driving licenses who can never ever progress in life but if you look at people that assign these things they're people that are living in two up three down houses we've jobs in
a very comfortable life with mums and desert by an amount every time they get into trouble they come on it's two sides to look at everything we just need to basically make sure everyone's treated like a human being it's the 21st century and it is England so you lived here for how long then in this 21st century England we meet Adrienne Doherty known as ad a man who lived in a shed for two years it was it was tough at times too I mean baby coming home where did you sleep I'm still haven't mastered Diop
sleeping low and down you know still just beating up on good good there because you're sitting up for that time yes his new home is this Caravan around the corner donated to him by a local resident I call it my mansion and it to me yes I'm amazing you're not an obsessive horror fan ADEs life has been more nightmare than dream he struggled with drug addiction and when the only offer of accommodation was in a hostel miles away with other addicts staying in Jay wick seemed the safest option people would say well if he won't
move somewhere else yeah it's his own fault yeah walking on and and died I would entitled to that you know I've got mental health issues and so the last thing I want to do is increase my depression even more I'll finally found somewhere where I'm I'm happy and I just kind of like to keep it that way there's these new flats being built there was a sign up sign for Jay with residents hung these I do not know so yeah um can I have to speak to the council about their ad is not the only
local pinning his hopes on one of the new houses being built by the council the first in decades and only five out of the ten will be for social rents we're being left behind David booth arrived in Jay wick nine years ago homeless and on benefits through ill health it was us for many others a place of last resort there are some absolutely appalling houses that are still being lived in and rented at a stupidly high rent but its supply and demand and if the only place that people on benefits can reasonably attempt to keep
up with their rent is jaynewick that's why the landlords are getting away with it because there's always going to be someone desperate for housing it's a perfect storm isn't it I'm willing to put up with poor housing there are decent landlords in Jay wick David's for one he says now he wouldn't live anywhere else he's now trying to set up a Community Land Trust to enable residents to build and manage affordable homes I think the mood now is if those that are supposed to be doing this can't or won't let's do it ourselves we can
ourselves make Jay with a better place the council is proud of this new development but with no prosecutions of any landlords or any fines issued this year it acknowledges it has to do more for existing tenants the problem to the outside eye is what it looks like you've been left with in some small pockets of your area really vulnerable yes challenging people but people with a lot of problems are literally being left in appalling conditions the landlords are paid nothing is being done about it we do need to pursue those landlords so we are we
do we do work with them but we need to do more I accept more needs to be done and I think it'd be great if we can get some of the the people that are living in those conditions to flag up those properties as I said we can't go knocking on doors saying can we inspect your house give us a call give the council a call we can come along because you know that these tenants can be difficult to rehouse no I don't think that's the case at all I mean we have had cases where
tenants are difficult for whatever reason but we don't abandon them we do go back given that Jay work has been in the sights of central government for 10 years at the top of its deprivation list could there have been more help whichever government it is the action should have been taken years ago to prevent it happening in the first place when we say are these scales of deprivation any use well like I think we've just answered a question no they're not Jake is a beautiful place when we go back Joann is packed up and ready
to go reluctantly for now she's going to live with family for all the difficulties she's had here leaving Jay Rick behind she says is not easy well earlier I spoke to Helen Barnard from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation she said the problems in Jay worker located across the country I asked her what she thinks the next government should do about them we need to see a step change in the number of social rented homes we're building and crucially we need to relink Housing Benefit - rents so that for people on low incomes they are actually able
to rely on Housing Benefit is like an anchor when they're in out of work or in low paid jobs and trying to cover high rents so in practical terms that would be a really important move straightaway absolutely it's one of the first things we would like to see any new government do is to make sure that local housing allowance which is housing benefit in the private rented sector is linked back to about the bottom third of rents in an area and that would give people just a sense of security that they're going to get the
help that all of us should be able to rely on when times are tough and we're trying to cover the rent well in North London now is the conservative Bob Blackman who's been a member of the housing communities and Local Government Committee mr. Blackman every four years or so the government comes out with its index of multiple deprivation what is the point if the same communities are at the top of that deprivation index and nothing seems to be changing for the people living there well I'm clearly what we got to try and do is get
to a point where by people who are living in such dreadful conditions as your program has just highlighted are supported and helped and assisted and the landlords who keep people in those conditions should be prosecuted because the reality is they are breaking the law and it's up obviously up to the local authorities to enforce the law and the rules that operate to make sure those properties are built up to a decent standard I think the other issue that I think is important in this process is that we've clearly got to be building many more social
homes for rent and affordable rent for that and making sure as well that there are more properties available for people to buy on the market there are affordable can I just return to the point every four years in government sites are the same can we Unity's not just je work at the top but other communities there's very little movement in those top 20 areas of highest deprivation what is the government doing other than collecting these figures and pointing in those areas is most deprived yeah what often happens I remember very well when I was I
led bread council we had exactly this particular issue where we had areas of multiple deprivation we invested through the government millions of pounds we were very successful in assisting people into employment and assisting people to improve themselves and they moved out of the area to other areas and other people who are equally deprived moved in so you get this unfortunately this cycle of deprivation what we have to do is break the cycle of deprivation if Jay twig for example is at the top of that list three times in a row for a decade you as
government are not breaking that cycle of deprivation not just in jail in the many community when you were in government the many communities very highly I'm a backbencher within the Conservative Party I polished it through the homelessness reduction Act which is the biggest social reform in housing for 40 years in this country to make sure that people that are homeless or threatened with being homeless are actually assisted but to provide a home of their own and that's one of the things I did personally that took a year of my effort to get through Parliament just
that I think is equally true that we do need to invest we do need to invest in more social affordable housing right across this country and improve the lot of the people who are the poorest in society and you do that through through education you do that through job creation you do that through enabling them just to fulfill their proper potential very quickly in 2015 the conservative manifesto committed the party to building 200,000 new homes the National Audit Office said this week they found no is that any homes have been built well that's not true
because we built 225,000 new homes last year that's documented through the community local government to Department of ministry now and quite clearly work we've got an ambition to actually get 300,000 new homes a year being built in this country which is another step change that we have to make I'm sorry to keep sorry we don't have much time but while you're here I must ask the Muslim Council of Britain says there must be an investigation into Islamophobia in your party would you yourself cooperate with that investigation given that you were in cused accused of endorsing
Islamophobia on social media well that's absolutely untrue and a blatant lie as far as I'm concerned I was excuse me well you wouldn't go into details like that the fact is that I retweeted an article in The Hindustan Times that was about unfortunately a Hindu priest that had been murdered so yes i retweeted that I didn't check that who had tweeted it in the first place which was my fault but for which I've apologized and being quite clear but I wasn't aware because I was sitting in Delhi Airport at the time when I tweeted it
mr. Blackman thank you very much for talking to us thank you I'm joined now by John Healy who is Labour's shadow Secretary of State for housing communities you've seen the film what one thing is labour promising as we approach the election that would change the lives of those people I think from the film you get a sense of the scale of the challenge that in 21st century England people are living in such desperation what it says is that communities like Jay wick simply can't thrive without greater government investment and government action and has been talk
in the film and in your interviews about new social rented homes in the last four years only one new social rented home has been built in that council area and I was Labour's last housing minister in that last year we built over a and if the last 10 years had seen that rate kept up and everyone in your film and many of their neighbors would today be in decent and secure homes I promise again of boom house building a social house one big part of what's required to fix the housing crisis is a big council
house building program so that we build new social rented homes in this country just like we did after the Second World War in part to get rid of those slum private landlords that we thought lead in that for those people not just in Jarek and deprived communities across the country we you heard the Joseph Rowntree Foundation saying a very practical step would be on local housing allowance that basically people who don't get their rent paid by all of their benefit have to top up there you have to use food for for money that they have
earmarked for food or other basics would you change that we have to relink housing benefit for people in private rented homes to the cost of the homes that's what it's designed to do it was one of 13 separate cuts that the Conservatives and Lib Dems made and that's one step there's clearly other things we need to do on the benefit system so in the four-year benefits freeze and then the five-week wait on universal credit but in the in the end this is largely going to be led by housing and it needs new century just to
clarify are you saying you would reverse the changes to local housing allowance will look to relink it just as the argument goes and you'll see that num2 you've seen it you'll see the detail in our manifesto but the heart of this is housing and isn't just building new social rented homes and council housing at the heart of that but it's also dealing with these private landlords that we saw in that film and so people need stronger protection against evictions so they had the confidence to complain and get repairs fixed but also of course some controls
on rents new legal minimum standards and and much tougher much tougher sanctions and enforcement and we would be lifting the benefit we would be a government ready to step in and fix his failing housing market in the way the Conservatives haven't and yes we look we've looked at we look to lift the benefits very much
