A pregnant woman from Kingston was forced to sleep in her car after the council failed to properly act on her housing concerns. Kingston Council offered the mum £500 after a watchdog investigation found it at fault for the way it handled her homeless application.

The mum, named Ms X in the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman report, said the council's failings caused her anxiety and uncertainty while she was pregnant.

The watchdog said it was satisfied her housing officer had said she would not be a priority until she was six months pregnant, although the authority denied this.

Ms X approached the council for homelessness assistance in November 2024, the report said, but it took a month to respond to her. She was living in a one-bed flat with her ex-partner and his father and had just found out she was pregnant.

A housing officer told Ms X to look for private rented accommodation in December, according to the report, and repeated this when she contacted them again in January 2025.

The watchdog said the officer recorded on Ms X's file that she was not homeless but there was no evidence this was communicated to her, which meant she could not challenge the decision.

Ms X told the council in February her ex-partner's dad had told her to leave the flat by March 1.

She claimed her housing officer said she would not be considered a priority for accommodation until she was six months pregnant, which the council denied. The watchdog said it was satisfied on balance, however, that she was given this incorrect information by the authority.

advertisement

The ombudsman said Ms X thought she had to leave the flat as a result of the council failing to properly act on her concerns, which meant she spent three nights sleeping in her car.

The report said: "Had the council properly communicated with her at this point or contacted her landlord in advance of the eviction date, it may have been able to avoid Ms X spending time sleeping in her car."

Ms X's housing officer spoke to her ex-partner's dad and offered a financial incentive for her to stay in the flat until she was six months pregnant. The dad told her to leave the property by April 1, when the council placed her in emergency accommodation.

The council confirmed it owed Ms X the main housing duty, meaning it needed to find her suitable long-term accommodation, in June.

The ombudsman told the council to apologise to Ms X and offer her £250, on top of the £250 it had already offered, bringing the total to £500.

A Kingston Council spokesperson said: "We have sincerely apologised to Ms X and acknowledge the distress and difficulty our handling of her homeless application caused. We have also made a compensation payment of £250 to her as directed by the ombudsman.

"We have since conducted an investigation and while we accept there were failings in this case, this is not usual practice across the housing solutions team. We are taking on the learning from this case and have made meaningful improvements to the service, including further staff training."