"Tonight on Panorama." "The Great Housing Benefit Scandal." "Actually four, four occupants of this tiny cubbyhole." "Two bunk beds." "Private landlords are taking billions of pounds from the taxpayer." "Oh, this looks as though this should be condemned." "The smell is really, truly awful." "But what are we getting for all that cash?" "Look, can you see the cause of the cockroaches?" "Can you see all the rubbish and food in the room?" "We find vulnerable tenants in miserable conditions." "They are absolutely, um, sitting ducks to be exploited And the rogue landlords making money at our expense." "Mr Mustafa, I'm from BBC Panorama." "I would like to ask you a few questions about your tenants." "Canvey Island on the Essex coast." "Lovely in summer." "Pretty bleak in winter." "But some parts of the local holiday industry are now open all year round." "This is Thorney Bay Park." "Over 800 caravans squeezed onto this site." "Fine for holiday-makers." "But now hundreds of people call it home." "Many of the families we've spoken to have been reluctant to go on camera." "Some are too embarrassed and others are afraid that they would be evicted if they said the wrong thing." "But one woman has agreed to meet me to show me what life on the caravan site is really like." "It's a brave decision." "Our cameras aren't welcome here." "This place has a reputation for crime, poverty, and poor accommodation." "Many of the residents are on housing benefit, so it's taxpayers like you and me who are paying the rent." "Hi." "Hello." "How are you?" "I'm OK, thank you." "Thanks for having me." "Come on in." "Oop, let me squish through." "Sarah Ellis has lived here for three years with her daughter, Staci." "It's not exactly the home they'd hoped for." "Right, this is the bedroom." "Um, it's a bit cluttered cos, um, I don't generally put too much in the cupboards because of the damp." "It's mouldy in the corners." "If I do pull things out of there I have to wash them cos they do end up smelling." "These are holiday caravans." "They weren't intended for year-round living." "This is the coldest room in the house." "If I haven't got anything on in here at night, then all the curtains will be stuck to the windows and frozen on the insides." "But I wear two dressing gowns every night anyway." "Two?" "And when it goes really, really cold, I have two or three quilts on the bed as well." "Well, when I wake up, I come out here, and it's like an igloo." "Why?" "It's frozen, because, my mum turns the heater on when I come in." "But when I come in sometimes the heat is not on." "And I freeze." "What do you want for lunch tomorrow, Stace?" "Some of the caravans we saw are in worse condition than Sarah's." "Tuna in your sandwich?" "But living here doesn't come cheap." "Rents are between ?" "600 and ?" "900 a month." "So it's big money for the site owners." "The King family enjoy the good life." "This is Jeff and Holly King." "Last year, the family received ?" "1.8 million in housing benefit." "The year before, they got two million." "Jeff has managed two local football clubs." "What are your plans for next Saturday?" "I'm going away." "Not watching any other teams in action?" "Dunno, might watch Real Madrid or someone." "I don't know where I am going yet, but I am going away." "The family lawyers told us the caravans are properly insulated and suitable for year-round living." "They say tenants wouldn't be evicted for complaining and that the vast majority are satisfied with the site." "They say they house 300 tenants who might otherwise be homeless." "Tenants are responsible for maintaining the living conditions." "But when problems are raised they quickly rectify the situation." "They also told us they are investing ?" "13 million to improve the site." "Hi, there, we're from BBC Panorama." "Well, you haven't got permission to be on here I'm afraid, darling." "But they didn't want us filming." "Can you leave, please?" "I suppose these were never made to be lived in year-round, were they?" "I wouldn't have thought so." "I wouldn't want to live in a caravan all year round, but needs must with some people." "What do you reckon?" "Do you think that's fair enough?" "What do I think?" "I think you can stop filming me now, young man." "So why is the local council handing over almost ?" "2 million a year in rent?" "It says it would prefer people weren't housed in caravans which can be susceptible to damp and cold." "But it doesn't have the power to withhold or refuse payment of housing benefit where a claimant is eligible." "It's surprising, but true." "Across the country, councils have little control about where housing benefit ends up." "If the tenant is entitled to housing benefit, the council has to pay." "No matter how bad the landlord, or how bad the property." "And there's a lot of public money at stake." "While many provide good homes, an estimated ?" "3 billion a year is handed over to private landlords for poor quality accommodation." "Landlords like the globe-trotting Smith family." "There's dad, Henry, and his daughters, Keara, Brogan, and Shauna." "Last year, the family business raked in ?" "850,000 in housing benefit." "Much of it for Ridley Villas." "A hostel tucked behind a market in North-East London." "Nobody in their right mind would say, "Oh, I really want to go and live in Ridley Villas."" "It's the last resort." "Grant Kingsnorth has lived in shelters and hostels in Hackney for ten years." "He says Ridley Villas is notorious." "If Joe Public, if you got Mrs So-And-So off the" "Number 67 bus and asked her to have a look at it, she would say, "I'm sorry, I wouldn't put my son here." "I wouldn't put my cat here!"" "You wouldn't think it from the outside, but there are 100 rooms in Ridley Villas." "We have rented one of them to find out what it's like." "When you go through this door, you'll see the steps." "OK, thank you very much, sir." "The room's small and grim." "And there are seven insect traps along the walls." "The bathrooms are shared." "And there's rodent poison in the corridors." "So what are the problems with it, do you think?" "Well, we had a lot of cockroaches." "Sometimes you see mice and things like that." "This resident's room is even smaller than ours." "This is where I live, you know?" "It's quite small, isn't it?" "There's not much room." "It is, indeed." "It's more like a cell than a bedroom." "Like most of the rooms, it's paid for by housing benefit." "I've been inside Ridley Villas for a few hours now and the first thing you get is the smell." "It is really overwhelming, actually." "It's kind of as though something's rancid or it doesn't feel clean." "I've been told there's cockroach problems and that there's mice problems, and that a lot of people just don't want to be living here." "Some rooms are larger and brighter." "But others are in a terrible state." "This is where Georgina lives." "Look at this." "It's quite a strong smell, isn't there?" "Now you believe me." "I hate it here." "It's the first time she has shown it to her friend and fellow resident," "Dave." "The smell is unbelievable." "Now you know, I spray everything." "Nothing works." "BLEEP me!" "I see what you are saying about the damp, man, the mould." "She's been too ashamed to bring visitors here." "Cos that's not right." "I will show you the window." "One minute, let me open the window." "In here, it's got worse." "Now you believe why I was upset." "Look, above your head." "There's mould here." "It's all over." "It's everywhere." "It's gone everywhere." "But I didn't realise it was this bad." "I told you." "Ian told you." "My room stinks." "That's why I don't invite anyone here." "The company that owns Ridley Villas has made ?" "370,000 profit over the last two years." "It says it has a good record of cleanliness and an ongoing maintenance programme to deal with damp and mould." "The allegations about cockroaches, mice and the smell are vigorously denied." "They say it provides much needed temporary accommodation and was designed for short to medium term occupation." "But there's a housing shortage, so people sometimes stay much longer than that." "We found one resident who has been living here for 15 years." "Normal rules simply don't seem to apply here." "The management even opens residents' mail." "It's part of the tenants' agreement." "Back home, say I'm from Canada, right, Toronto, there's no way that anybody is allowed to open your mail." "Yeah." "And when I found out that they were opening my mail here..." "These guys here, the management?" "Yeah, yeah, the management opens your mail." "Same thing happened to me as well, yeah." "They opened your mail?" "Yeah." "Ridley Villas say they only open letters relating to benefits and with the consent of residents." "The management can also restrict residents from visiting each other." "After we filmed in Ridley Villas, Dave was banned from going to Georgina's room." "He thinks it's a punishment for speaking to us." "They made me sign a contract saying that Georgina and Ian is not allowed to come visit me no more." "I said, "Well, can I go over there and visit them?"" "and they said, "No, you are not allowed to go over there"." "Ridley Villas says it sometimes stops people seeing each other at night to prevent rowdy behaviour." "I can't live here." "My family wants me out of here." "I need to move out." "I don't belong in this hostel." "I had a good thinking last night." "I don't belong here." "Hackney council is still sending people to Ridley Villas." "It says there simply isn't enough housing, and that the hostel is secure and meets minimum health and safety standards." "Some councils are trying to stop landlords from exploiting the system." "Good morning, sir." "Lewisham Council, Environmental Health." "I have a warrant to enter the property." "The Lewisham rogue landlords team believe this house is overcrowded." "Do we know who's in today?" "I've got the list of the residents." "They find three people in one room." "You are receiving housing benefit, is that correct?" "Yeah." "And it goes straight to your landlord?" "Yeah." "There's nine tenants in the house." "The landlord thinks this is OK, but the council disagrees." "?" "360 per month?" "And do you pay that or do you get housing benefit?" "Housing benefit." "Housing benefit." "The raid is being led by Roz Spencer." "I think, I think the reason to be really concerned about it is that it's that people who rely on housing benefit have got very, very limited, ah, options, and so they are absolutely," "um, sitting ducks to be exploited." "The landlord is well known to Roz and her team." "He's a former cage fighter." "ANNOUNCER:" "Please put your hands together, for Mustafa Kemal Mustafa." "Mr Mustafa manages several properties in Lewisham." "The council says he targeted desperate people and exploited them for housing benefit." "He was taking them in, um, not providing support, overcrowding, um, and really just taking housing benefit on their account straight into his pocket." "This was where Mr Mustafa housed some of those tenants - until the council closed it down." "Watch where you're stepping, things to trip on all over the place." "How many people were living here, when you locked it up?" "23." "23?" "Yeah." "That wasn't the most it had ever been, there were 40 at one point." "40 people in this house." "Yeah." "Mr Mustafa had been told he could have a maximum of 12." "The wiring was so dangerous that the energy company cut the power, but somebody illegally reconnected it." "You can see, I mean there are wires hanging out of the ceiling, everywhere you go." "Yes." "It was desperately dangerous because the place was hotwired, so if you were to touch a bare wire there's no fuse to protect you and you just fry." "It looks like a tinderbox." "Mr Mustafa says someone else tampered with wires and fuses." "This is exactly how the house looked when people were living here." "The Council says it was dangerously overcrowded." "Actually four, four occupants of this tiny cubbyhole, two bunk beds." "There's four adults living in here?" "Yeah." "So they would be paying to sleep in an apartment here, in a shared room." "Yeah." "That's remarkable." "Mr Mustafa had been getting up to ?" "12,000 a month for this one property." "But he says he didn't make a profit because he spent the cash on repairs." "And he took care of vulnerable residents and didn't exploit them." "He denied abusing the system or that the building was overcrowded, inadequate or unsafe." "But we don't think that's true." "Mr Mustapha." "I am from BBC Panorama." "I would like to ask you a few questions about your tenants in Canonbie Road." "The property was overcrowded, wasn't it, Mr Mustapha?" "You had 23 people in it when you should have had 12?" "Mr Mustapha, would you accept that the house was dangerous and overcrowded?" "This is a man who told us he had made no money from a business venture." "Mr Mustapha, do you agree that the property was overcrowded?" "There were 23 people in it the night the council closed it down." "You had up to 40." "Do you agree that it was overcrowded, Mr Mustapha?" "This is a man who told us he made no money out of Canonbie Road and that it was safe and not overcrowded." "He can't admit that's not the case and he clearly doesn't want to talk to us." "It might seem that the easiest way to stop landlords like Mr Mustafa would be to cut off housing benefit." "But that could leave tenants out on the street." "What many of those on the front line really want is bigger fines for bad landlords." "We've got lots of powers but none of them have penalties attached to them that are strong enough." "A fine of say ?" "5,000 would be typical." "And if you consider these landlords who are raking in ?" "800,000 a year well, you know, if they pay the fine, it's just a little kind of annoying business cost." "Sometimes it's hard to believe what our housing benefit is spent on." "This is the Happyvale Hotel in Camden." "It's been labelled "the worst hotel in Britain"." "Morning." "Hi, morning, Steve, how are you?" "How are you?" "Yeah, pretty well." "Not too bad, thank you, lead the way." "Steve Gethin ran this place for 25 years." "He was getting up to ?" "10,000 a month in housing benefit." "OK, here we are." "So this is the worst hotel in Britain, is it?" "It's been hailed the worst hotel in Britain, yes." "What do you think?" "Um, I don't think I'm worthy of that title, really." "No?" "Do you want to show me around?" "It's a good title to have." "Why don't, yeah, this is the kitchen." "OK, so how many people are living here?" "Uh, 12 at the moment." "12." "So this is where they cook their breakfast and dinner and?" "That's correct." "The hotel is in bad shape." "But it has been even worse in the past." "So there would be raw sewage, um, just underneath windows and were people living in the rooms?" "At the time they were, yes." "And how long was it left like that?" "Before the council came in it was like that for about a couple of months." "Wow, Steve." "I used to buy, er, a two kilo packet of caustic soda and put that down there." "But that wouldn't have been a professional job." "That would clear it for a while." "It would clear it for a day or two but then it would come back again." "That's quite disgusting." "Steve blames the problems on cuts in housing benefit." "He says he wasn't getting enough cash to keep up with repairs." "But footage filmed last year shows just how bad things were." "This is an example of cockroaches appearing from coming in from next door." "God, look at the amount of them." "Look, it's there one by your head, one by your head, one by your head." "I've got one of them." "One by your head." "Oh, wow." "And this is basically dead cockroaches you can't really see if the camera picks it up." "Lots of bodies..." "The reason them dead bodies are in there because the pest control man said that, ah, when you've put the poison down, don't sweep up the bodies, leave them there because they're cannibalistic, the other" "ones will come and eat the dead ones and it'll kill them too." "I'm sorry, am I shocking you?" "Yeah, a wee bit." "Well the man next door's room is miles worse than that, if you can imagine." "Look, can you see the cause of the cockroaches, can you see all the rubbish and food in the room?" "It's like a dump, it's like an actual dump." "Looks like a rubbish tip, yeah, all the empty milk cartons, um," "It's absolutely filthy and there's creatures crawling all over the place." "That's right, yeah." "Steve says he couldn't sort the problem out because the resident wouldn't let him clean the room." "Steve, you were being paid at the height over ?" "10,000 a month to run accommodation for people..." "That's right, yeah, for about... ..to keep it clean and to keep it safe." "But it's your responsibility to make sure that the place is habitable." "I mean, I wouldn't put an animal in there." "Yes, this is - but this is sort of his choice, not mine." "Camden Council says it's used every power it has against Steve." "It's prosecuted him and taken over the management." "But repairs have been delayed by legal disputes." "This is raw sewage - still." "Absolutely pure chit." "This footage was shot after the Council took over." "They've now fixed the outdoor sewage problem, but the smell remains." "Just moving down into the basement where the smell's immediately really, really bad." "Oh, that smells really, really strongly of sewage." "Oh wow, that's disgusting." "Through here there is what looks to be an open sewer just down there." "This looks as though it should be condemned." "And the smell is really, truly awful and just across the, the corridor there, um, two people are living and sleeping." "It's really extraordinarily bad." "Oh, wow, it smells so bad." "The Council says this is not in fact an open sewer." "But the door should be locked and steel doors will be fitted to prevent further access." "It's trying to get full control of the building so it can make improvements." "It wants housing benefit rules changed to prevent abuse and says it will continue to fight on behalf of residents." "But that's little comfort for those stuck here." "Hello, Betty?" "Hi." "Hi, Betty, how are you?" "Fine." "Do you mind if we come in?" "Yeah." "OK?" "Thank you." "This is what ?" "150 a week of housing benefit buys you." "Betty Fekadu has been living here for ten years." "The room is quite small." "Yeah, the room is - small." "It's quite small and you can touch the walls with both your hands." "Yeah." "Do you think it's too small or are you happy?" "It's too small but we have no choice." "You've no choice." "Yeah." "OK, careful." "Betty won't use the communal bathroom." "So every day she carries a bucket of water up to her room to wash." "It's shameful accommodation - a hotel without hope." "To be honest, it's almost hard to convey just how grim it is here, you know, it's filthy, um, it's really depressing and the smell is horrendous." "It smells like something died in the corner." "And it's hard to believe that that is what you get for your housing benefit in 21st Century Britain." "It's genuinely shocking." "Across the country, we are paying for hundreds of thousands of people to live in poor-quality accommodation." "Back at the caravan park, Sarah has had enough." "She's already got her bags packed and ready to go." "As soon as I get somewhere, I want to be able to just go." "I don't want to have then think, well I've got to spend two weeks packing." "I want to be able to just up and be gone." "So you're ready to go even though you've got nowhere to go?" "Yeah." "No." "That's desperate to get out." "Dave's now moved out of Ridley Villas, but his friend Georgina is still stuck in her damp room." "Those fighting to improve accommodation say they need more help in the battle against rogue landlords." "The heartbreak of seeing how people are being exploited through what's going on, that is the issue, and the fact that it's just not fair." "Unless councils get new powers to stop them, landlords will continue to exploit desperate tenants." "And we will continue to pick up the bill." "What would it take to survive in Victorian Britain?" "Where there's muck, there's brass." "Six celebrity time travellers eat, sleep and work..."