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Bailiffs to evict last Sweets Way family
Council denies disabled father new house after rent difficulty

THE last family living on north London’s Sweets Way estate was told yesterday that they would made homeless on Monday by High Court bailiffs.

Mostafa Aliverdipour and his family have one last weekend on the estate but Barnet Council has not yet provided them with a new home.

The disabled father of four, who suffers from severe mobility restrictions, has been left in such a state by the local authority’s lack of support that he recently attempted to take his own life.

“It’s been very difficult especially in the past nine months since they moved us to this estate,” Mr Aliverdipour’s eldest son Ash Ali­verdipour told the Star.

“On Monday they offered my dad a house which was perfect for him, but they also said this was going to be a five-year tenancy. 

“Today they have contacted us saying that they had withdrawn the offer after rent problems over the last month.”

The family said that Barnet Council cut off Mostafa’s housing benefit and they quickly went into arrears after that.

Ash said that the council asked him “to provide them with my dad’s disability papers, which will take 10 weeks for the Department for Work and Pensions to send to us. 

“I was at Barnet Homes this morning explaining to them that if they are going to stop my father’s benefits we are going to get in lots of struggle.”

Monday’s eviction would leave 23-year-old Ash, his ­parents, his 21-year-old brother and his two sisters aged four and seven with nowhere to go. 

An eviction resistance protest has been called by local group Sweets Way Resists “because of the council’s horrendous treatment of Mostafa and his family and because they are the last family standing on the estate.”

The Sweets Way estate has been emptied of residents over the past year, but housing campaigners have reclaimed some of the buildings. 

A five-month occupation of one of the estate’s two-bedroom houses was followed by a “do-it-ourselves regeneration” of another building, now available as a show home. 

But all the occupiers were served legal notices last Thursday and campaigners expect violent evictions and confrontations with bailiffs and police to take place. 

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