Letter: Homeless in Wem

Letter: I have been homeless for 19 months and noticed if you don't work you get more. If they are a 16 to 25-year-old unmarried mother, they get a house straight away, even though they are living with their family who have the room.

There is a house in Wem that is empty most of the time because the person stays with his girlfriend. The system is all wrong.

If you are 40 to 60, they don't want to know you if a relationship breaks down, and the ones that do work with young children, can't live in Wem.

One young person who was born and bred in Wem had to go and live six miles out of Wem because she can drive.

Where I work in Wem there are young women there with children and they aren't workshy.

Also in Wem, one family with three children (two boys and a girl) both work and the daughter has to sleep in their room. How can that be right?

Then you get people from other counties who should be on the transfer list and not allocated local houses.

I know one lady who is coming up to 70. She puts these youngsters to shame and works all the hours. She has just started to take weekends off.

This system needs sorting fast, and if you talk to a councillor they pass the buck. All they seem interested in is a town square which nobody wants, instead of looking at the housing issues.

And if you go for private housing, you are robbed blind with all the fees which landlords are cashing in on – also, some estate agents (not all). Then they won't allow pets, especially dogs. No wonder all these poor animals are in homes, and we are meant to be animal lovers. What a joke.

Susan Scriven

Wem