A FAMILY are facing homelessness after spending more than a year on the waiting list for a house.

Stephen Lewis and his young family have been living in temporary accommodation in Cornwall Close, Weymouth, for more than a year.

Mr Lewis and his partner Yasmin Bailey have two sons, five-year-old Harry and 19-month-old Austin, who will be facing life on the streets if Weymouth and Portland Borough Council cannot find them a home.

He said: “We were in a flat on Chickerell Road and fell behind with rent because I was out of work.

“Our landlord told us we were evicted so I went to the council for help.

“They said we had made ourselves intentionally homeless – they treated us like rubbish from the very start.

“We’ve been in temporary accommodation for more than a year and now we’ve been told we have to be out by July 12 – we had to go to court to appeal for more time otherwise we would have been evicted already.”

Mr Lewis, 23, said he is disgusted that there are so many empty houses in the area and that there are even two on his street.

He said: “We are in such dire need and there are two empty houses just down our road.

“They’re three-bedroom houses and they’ve been empty for six years – it’s disgusting.

“I’ve even thought about squatting in them – it’s just so frustrating to know they’re sitting empty and we might end up being homeless.

“It all comes down to the council – why don’t they just put us in one of these empty properties?”

He added: “All I’m trying to do is be the best father and the best partner but all this is getting ridiculous now.

“We’ve just had non-stop bad luck for years.

“Every week we bid for properties, we go for everything that comes up but we never get any.

“We’ve got nowhere else to go and they’ve said they can’t help us.

“All we want to do is get our life back, we’ve asked the council what we can do but they say there’s nothing.”

He said: “I’m a qualified head chef and of course I want to work.

“I want to provide for my family – I didn’t stay on at college for four years of training to end up on benefits, I hate it.

“I’ve got no family to borrow money from and it’s so expensive to get the deposit and fees for a new place. I just don’t know what to do.”

'Council here to help'

COUNCILLOR Ray Nowak, spokesman for housing at Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, said he could not comment on individual cases but that the council has a set criteria and process for applicants on the housing register.

He said: “The borough council is always here to help and advise those with housing issues.

“Available housing association properties are in short supply across the region.”

'Too much spent on benefit'

Figures published in a recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research show that the borough of Weymouth and Portland has one of the worst records in the country for building affordable homes.

The think tank claims that councils across the country are spending too much money on housing benefits rather than building affordable homes. In 2010/11 Weymouth and Portland Borough Council spent £265,965 on housing benefit but did not start construction on any new affordable housing.

Councillor Ray Nowak, spokesman for housing, pictured right, said: “The borough council has a good record of making sure new developments have the right percentage of affordable housing.

“We are looking to come up with some new ideas and anything we can do to bring about affordable housing for local people I’m very interested in.

“We are finding it difficult to add new housing due to cuts in government assistance.

“Housing is always going to be a volatile issue and the statistics of how many people are on the waiting list doesn’t necessarily represent the true situation, some people put their names down just in case something comes up and then find something else.

“We do know there’s a high demand for low-end housing, which we need to try and address.”

In the same year West Dorset District Council spent £254,000 on housing benefit and built 66 new affordable homes.