Priority need of housing and minor immigrants
The case originated in an application (no. 56328/07) against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Sierra Leonean national, Ms Husenatu Bah (“the applicant”), on 23 November 2007.
The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom in 2000 as an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone. Although her asylum claim was refused, she was granted exceptional leave to remain and then, in 2005, indefinite leave to remain. After she obtained indefinite leave to remain, she applied to have her son Mohamed Saliou Jalloh, a Sierra Leonean national born in 1994, join her in the United Kingdom. Her landlord was unwilling to accommodate her son as well, and informed the applicant shortly after her son’s arrival that they would have to move out by 31 March 2007. The applicant applied to the London Borough of Southwark Council for assistance on 9 February 2007, on the basis that she had become unintentionally homeless. An unintentionally homeless person with a minor child would ordinarily qualify as being in priority need pursuant to section 189 of the Housing Act 1996, and would thus be provided with suitable housing, usually within the locality. Those in priority need are considered to be a class of persons to whom reasonable preference must be given in the allocation of social housing. As there is a significant shortage of social housing in London, those in priority need would generally be placed in temporary accommodation until appropriate social housing became available. In the case of the applicant, however, as her son was subject to immigration control, he was disregarded by the Council in the determination of whether the applicant was in priority need, in accordance with section 185(4) of the Housing Act 1996. On 14 March 2007 the Council decided that the applicant was not therefore in priority need and not entitled to housing.
