A mother and daughter were given 24 hours by council officials to leave London and move 125 miles away if they wanted to stay off the streets.
Yuri Montoya, 30, and 11-year-old Hayley were told that moving to Darlaston in the West Midlands was the only alternative to their single room in an emergency hostel.
Brent council said a lack of affordable housing in the borough meant it was cheaper to send them to Darlaston, claiming the town between Walsall and Wolverhampton was “a reasonable distance” from London.
Ms Montoya, a school receptionist, turned down the offer — saying uprooting her daughter would be “devastating” — and has now been told to leave the hostel by midday tomorrow.
She said: “They only gave us 24 hours to move from Brent to the West Midlands. The housing officer said once the offer is given you only have 24 hours to move to the new property.
“I said to him I’m not going because I’ve built my life here. Now we have to leave the hostel on Friday and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The Standard yesterday reported on London’s homelessness crisis, with official figures showing that more than 100 rough sleepers “live” at Heathrow airport during the winter. Ms Montoya has been in Brent for 15 years after coming to London as a refugee from Colombia.
She has indefinite leave to remain in the UK and Hayley was born in the borough to an English father, but their relationship ended.
The mother and daughter have been in the hostel in Sudbury for a month since being evicted from their former home after it was sold by the landlord.
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When they applied for council housing in Brent, officials offered them a privately-owned two-bedroom house for £104 weekly rent in Darlaston, which has 18,000 residents.
Ms Montoya said their future is now uncertain, adding: “We only have our friends and our church.
“It takes a lot of time and hard work as a single mother to bring a child up by yourself. My daughter is really depressed and has been crying.”
Last year, Brent made 149 “out of borough offers” to some of the 4,500 families on the housing waiting list.
Margaret McLennan, Brent’s lead member for regeneration and housing, said: “Unfortunately, the impact of the Government’s benefit caps and an extremely overheated London housing market means that accommodation cannot always be provided in Brent.
“We are always very open about these difficulties and do tell people that there is a need for the council to make out of borough offers when they apply for accommodation.”
Darlaston councillor Paul Bott, who is an independent, said there were “thousands” on the local council’s housing waiting list.
“They haven’t got the facilities for housing and schools to deal with extra people from London councils,” he said.
“Our medical centres are full to capacity and we’re waiting three days to get a doctor.”
