For a brief moment earlier this year, Harlie Swann thought her 15-year wait for a permanent home was finally over. A text from Croydon Council told the 30-year-old single mum-of-two she had been shortlisted for a property, and she began picturing a stable future for her children.
But the dream was short-lived. The housing officer she'd been told would update her when they returned from annual leave did indeed update her, to say she was no longer on the shortlist. The cruel tease was just the latest twist in a saga that's been going on for the whole of Harlie's adult life, having gone into temporary accommodation at the age of 16.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): "It made me really upset and angry. The whole thing just seems like a luck of the draw."
Harlie had gone to look around the neighbourhood, speak to neighbours and get a feel for the place. "I strongly believed it was going to be ours," Harlie said.
In the 15 years since first moving into temporary accommodation Harlie says she has faced countless challenges. Yet her recent setback has pushed her to demand a complete overhaul of the bidding system that has dominated nearly half her life.
"I think the whole bidding system for social housing needs to be scrapped and overhauled," she said. "There are people that have not been on it for very long and then are housed, and then you have people like me who have been waiting 15 years and still haven't been housed.
"It seems like there is no sense of priority. I have a child with additional needs and my own mental health issues, and there is no way to be moved up the list when you have these issues. So many people within the council have told me it doesn't work, and that it is the luck of the draw."
Croydon Council allocates social housing through a system called Croydon Choice. On this platform eligible residents can view available homes online and place bids on the ones they're interested in.
Applicants are assessed and placed into one of three priority bands, with Band 1 reserved for those in the most urgent housing need. The bands are determined by factors like overcrowding, medical needs, or risk of homelessness.
However, being in temporary accommodation does not improve your chances of success so people like Harlie can go years without a stable home. Her children have never known a permanent home, moving from property to property at the whim of landlords and the council.
When the LDRS previously spoke to Harlie last year, she spoke of how life in temporary accommodation had impacted the lives of her two young children, Frankie, 9 and Finnlie, 3. Frankie is undergoing regular therapy for ADHD and currently attends a SEND school in Vauxhall, Finnlie is due to start school next year.
"It has a huge impact on my nine-year-old son Frankie, who has additional needs," she said. "He gets really upset that we aren't allowed to decorate and make it a permanent home."
She added: "He has a big understanding of the housing situation, which is beyond his years."
Since giving birth to Frankie at 21, she has been moved repeatedly between temporary homes across Croydon, Sutton and Lambeth. Her current home is in Norwood on the Lambeth side of the border.
Harlie has lived with housing insecurity since she was a teenager, experiencing homelessness at 16 and spending time in hostels, B&Bs and even a police cell for the night when she had nowhere else to go. "I saw things that no 16-year-old should have seen," she told the LDRS last year.
Some properties she has lived in have been unsafe, including one with fire hazards and another where raw sewage regularly flooded the sink. While she has since moved on from this property, she said her current temporary accommodation still has its own issues.
"I moved into this property, it is a lot better but we still have a lot of issues with the mould. There are also issues with the boiler, which is being held together by tape."
"All of this affects my mental health as well," she told the LDRS while trying to entertain Finnlie. "I'm constantly going to the doctors and can't sleep at night. I feel like my whole life is consumed with trying to get us moved to a permanent property."
Harlie has now launched a petition calling for Croydon's housing bidding system to be completely overhauled. She believes the process is unfair and leaves families like hers trapped in temporary accommodation for years without any clear path to stability.
In the petition, she states: "In Croydon, we need an organized, transparent, and efficient social housing bidding system that prioritizes applicants based on circumstances and needs, rather than chance. The current system fails to make housing accessible and equitable for those who depend on it the most."
It adds: "This randomness is fundamentally unfair to those of us who have been waiting patiently for years, if not decades. A reformed system should encompass clear criteria that consider length of wait time, family size, economic need, and health conditions. Ensuring transparency through regular updates and a publicly accessible priority list will nurture trust between the council and the community, alleviating this pervasive uncertainty."
A spokesperson for Croydon Council said: "We are committed to preventing homelessness and supporting people who need housing. But like many London boroughs, Croydon faces a severe shortage of affordable homes.
"More than 3,600 households are in temporary accommodation and over 8,600 households are on the housing waiting list. We also receive around 400 new homelessness applications every month, but only a small number of council homes become available. This means residents can sometimes remain in temporary accommodation for longer than we would like.
"We do our best to support our residents within the options available, including helping them explore other suitable housing, such as private rented accommodation. We remain focused on supporting our resident and will continue to work with her to find the best outcome within the options available."