You win, Howden House!

I’ve heard tales of this place called Howden House and I think I know where they are coming from now.

Our son who is 40-years-old, is after a council house or flat, so I call them up and am told the estimated waiting time for someone to answer is four hours 30 minutes.

After three days of trying at different times of the day I finally get through.

I explain who I am and that I’m calling for him because he’s partially deaf.

So I explain to this lady that he has nowhere to live and can they find him somewhere. She asked me if we could put him up for another month.

I said no, not really because his mum is 70 and in poor health and needs the spare room for herself.

The lady says well how about two weeks? that would give me a better chance to get him somewhere more appropriate. So I agree.

This was well before Christmas.

After several calls after the time we agreed I manage to get through again.

The lady says he’s got a case worker now and gives me his office number and says, I haven’t seen him in the office today but that doesn’t mean he’s not here, (very fishy) so I’ll give you his mobile number so if you can’t get him you can message him. (even more fishy I thought).

So after ringing these two numbers for a solid week my son finally gets a response on the mobile.

He asks me to have a listen because he can’t hear properly.

Turns out the number she gave me belongs to some lady who works at Wrigley’s Chewing Gum.

Now I know the numbers were correct because I always repeat them back to make sure.

So it’s back for another four-hour phone call.

I get through and this lady tells me the case worker is off sick until next Monday but he’s got around 50 cases but your son is top of his list. (Yeah, right).

So here we are into February and still having to sleep on a sofa.

I have left this case worker numerous voicemails to please get in touch but to no avail.

In fact I’m not even confident this fella even exists.

It’s Wednesday now and tried three times to get through to Howden House.

The first time I was told my waiting time will be six minutes 11 seconds. Brilliant, I thought.

An hour later my wife says are you sure it said six minutes and not six hours?

So I hang up and ring back and this time it’s 45 minutes 15 seconds. Another hour gone and still waiting.

I hang up and one last try and I’m back to one hour 35 minutes.

So you win, Howden House housing solutions.

I have to say though, absolutely disgusting.

E Fowler

Sheffield, S5