Low times in high office

When sober-suited Colin Ellar, deputy leader of Hounslow borough council in west London, leaves the executive suite at the civic centre after a taxing day, he goes home - to a cramped and cluttered room in a hotel for the homeless, shared with his young son.

For the second in command of an administration with a £260m budget, it is a cruel comedown to be homeless and relying on housing benefit. Ellar jokingly calls his room "the cupboard". But as he lists the contents - beds, wardrobe, table, chairs, chest of drawers, fridge - it is evident that he has been profoundly shocked by his plight.

As a casualty of homelessness, Ellar is possibly unique among the top tier of councillors in the country. He found he had no security when the landlord of the three-bedroom semi in which he had lived since 1996 wanted him out, even though he was prompt with the rent and had been a model tenant.

Ellar's circumstances are, in this respect, different to those of many of the other 1,100 homeless people in Hounslow. He had worked in Italy and Holland, for about 14 years, as an English language teacher. When he returned in 1996, with his son and a long-term partner (they split up two years ago), he was not earning enough to get a mortgage.

"It does sound a bit odd, but when I was living abroad, I was in rented accommodation, and that was very stable," he says. "I've never really had the capital to be in the market for a house, and it wasn't an issue with me."

It was relatively easy to find an unfurnished house in the outer London suburbs when he began renting six years ago at £500 a month. And though this had risen to £640 this year, he was happy with it, because house prices in Hounslow had doubled while he was there, making purchase totally impossible.

Ellar, now 51, says the reason why his income remained too low to get a mortgage was that he became interested in politics. He was first elected a Labour councillor in 1998 and became deputy leader in May this year.

He had been a part-time care worker for adults with learning disabilities, but, he says, the stress of the job, and the fact that his role on the council was absorbing more of his time, meant he had to give it up. Because his income is so modest - £7,000 as a member of the council's executive, plus £6,000 as a constituency aide for the local MP - he began claiming housing benefit when he was renting the semi.

His carefully managed budget fell apart with the arrival of a letter "out of the blue", says Ellar, telling him that his landlord wished to terminate his assured shorthold tenancy within two months. No reason was offered. Ellar soon found that the landlord did not have to give one; and just as quickly found out that he had no right to stay.

The most a county court could do was grant him a two-month extension - but then the bailiffs came anyway. It was a peaceful encounter as, by then, Ellar had realised that his only course, having failed in his search to find any other suitableunfurnished house or flat, was to go on the council's homeless register.

Being told by estate agents that they could not help clients on housing benefit soon made Ellar realise the depressing plight of homeless people. He found he was entering a realm of restrictions. "You get allocated a room - you get no choice in that whatsoever - and you can be moved at 24 hours' notice if the local authority chooses," he says.

Ellar and his 10-year-old son, Jason, have been in their one room for four months, father shading the light when the boy goes early to bed. Ellar still feels bewildered and angry at what has happened. "A landlord couldn't do this in Italy or Holland," he says.

For the homelessness problem that faces most councils in the south-east, Ellar blames the right to buy for the depletion of housing stock. He knows the government is aware of this and hopes that a policy change - as mooted recently, but officially denied - will happen eventually, at least in housing "hot spots".

In the hours he has spent thinking about his situation, Ellar does see a way forward. He wants the law changed so that people with assured shorthold tenancies would be given six months' notice, rather than two, and landlords would have to provide reasons for wishing to end the agreement. "It's a disgrace that tenants can be thrown into the street, just to facilitate the needs of commerce, when a landlord wants to sell a property," he says.

Ellar knows that he faces more weeks of existing in one room before securing temporary accommodation via a housing association. Then, after perhaps two years, there may be the chance of a council house. Even for the deputy leader, perhaps especially so, there can be no queue-jumping.