Elderly residents desperate for a home are shunning council accommodation - despite properties being made available for them, it emerged today.
In the last three months Castle Point Council received 52 applications for housing from homeless people, or those soon to be homeless.
Despite this the council has not been able to fill three sheltered accommodation vacancies in Gowan Court, Gowan Close, Benfleet even though there is a waiting list for accommodation in the area.
It has had the bedsit vacancies for about a month now because nobody on the housing waiting list, either inside or outside the borough, wants to live there.
The bedsits have their own bedroom and lounge area as well as a kitchen, but elderly residents would have to share bathroom facilities.
Director of health and housing Alan Longford today said: "We have a number of shelter schemes for OAPs and a number of bedsit flats which were built a long time ago. In the future we want to improve them but at the moment we are loosing income by not filling them."
The council recently put in a bid for £54,000 to the Government to help implement changes and improvements to the housing system.
Published Monday October 21, 2002
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