Hampshire woman has only left her home once in 20 years

Sandra Shaw who suffers from agoraphobia, claims she is being thrown out of her house because city chiefs want to give it to a family on its 14,000-long housing waiting list.

Now she has called for Southampton City Council to "show some compassion" and let her stay in the home, in Alder Road Maybush.

The council says Mrs Shaw’s mother, Eileen, who died in September, was the rightful council tenant of the property.

But after the council said its legal services team is considering action to remove her, her family is calling on the authority to allow her the time to beat her condition if she cannot remain in the house.

Community figures are now urging the council to rethink its decision.

Sandra said her agoraphobia began in about 1985, when she had to deal with a number of deaths among her family and friends, including her father, and was mugged by two men in broad daylight.

She said her condition got progressively worse, causing her to suffer panic attacks, migraines and severe chest pains.

It culminated in a massive panic attack when she was on the way to a job interview and she decided to move in with her mother at her council house in Alder Road in 1991.

Throughout the two decades they lived together, Sand-ra and her mother cared for each other, until Eileen died.

Since moving into the house the 61-year-old has developed posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES), a condition which leads to further seizures, headaches and confusion.

Although she made attempts to walk to a nearby shop with her mum when she first moved in, her fear of being in the open became so severe that between 1992 and last year the only time she left her home was when she suffered a seizure and was taken to Southampton General Hospital for treatment.

Her agoraphobia is so crippling that she has lost several teeth through not going to the dentist, and has dealt with medical problems such as kidney stones and an abcess herself to avoid going outside for treatment.

Her son, Ian, said: “If mum thinks about going out it gives her these feelings of anxiety and if she tries to go out then she gets a full-on panic attack.”

Three months after her mother’s death Sandra received the first of several letters from the council saying that she would not be allowed to remain in the house as she was not the tenant for the property.

This month the council informed her that her case had been referred to its legal services department in a bid to get her to leave the house.

She has sought help to beat her agoraphobia and says she had made progress with a council support worker.

However, the worker was taken away from her after only half-a-dozen sessions due to a reshuffle in the council’s adult social care team and she says the subsequent care she has received has not been as productive.

She says she is now making steady progress independently and on a couple of occasions has been able to walk for a few metres on the pavement outside her house – the first times she has voluntarily stepped outside for 21 years.

The mum of one said: “Ideally I would like to live here because it’s been my home for the past 22 years, but I also want to get outside, be independent and get better.

“I know that I will probably have to leave the house, but I want the council to show me some compassion.”

Son Ian, a 42-year-old builder, said: “I think we know now that mum just isn’t going to be able to stay here long-term.

“But she wants to get better and the pressure that the council is putting her under by trying to force her to move is not helping her get better – it’s like going two steps forward and three back.

“I’ve never been able to take my mum out for a roast dinner or anywhere for Mother’s Day. Can you imagine what that feels like?

“Agoraphobia is a serious condition but one that isn’t very well understood – no one likes being pressured but that’s what the council is doing to mum.

“If it’s a case of paying the council rent for mum to remain here I’ll do it.”

A council spokesman said: “Demand for council housing stock, especially family homes, is extremely high, with around 14,000 applicants currently waiting for properties.

“We are sympathetic towards the tenant and she has been given priority to relocate to a suitable sized home to accommodate her and her dog. Throughout the case the council has provided support and advice to the tenant and her family.

“The council has a duty to make the best of the stock it has, so homes generally only pass from one family member to another once, which in this case has already happened. A family of up to six people could live in a three bed house.”

Sandra’s ward councillor Don Thomas says he will be pressuring the council to rethink the decision to force Sandra out.

He said: “When dealing with real people the council must recognise there will always be exceptions to the rule such as we have here – they must never act without a heart, or have no compassion otherwise the council becomes a sort of robotic computerised assembly line where individual and real people are put in one end and come out the other end all the same, only to be forced into a rigid housing slot which may very well solve the council’s problem but does not solve the individual’s problem or the actual housing need.

“I will ask the council to rethink Mrs Shaw’s housing needs with fairness and compassion and make an exception to the rule.”