The chairman of Douglas Council’s housing committee insists evicting tenants is always a ’last resort’.

Councillor Claire Wells was responding following concerns over the plight of tenant evicted over rent arrears of just £302.04.

Ross Ward died in a private rented flat in Douglas on April 3.

He was found the flat by the charity Housing Matters following his eviction last summer from his council home where he had lived for the past 15 years.

Mr Ward had no previous history of rent arrears and the £302 debt had built up while he was serving a short prison sentence in 2017. Douglas Council was granted possession of his flat at a court hearing in the tenant’s absence.

Homeless charity Graih had highlighted Mr Ward’s plight shortly before his death.

Graih founder Michael Manning wrote: ’Ross first came to us last summer. He had been sleeping in a friend’s van for a night or two following his conviction and this was his first contact with us. He stayed for a night at the drop-in before moving into a private flat that Housing Matters had found for him at short notice.

’It became very obvious that he was confused. Douglas Council had evicted him for rent arrears even though benefits were paying the rent directly. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t go back to his old flat to reclaim his possessions. He had left with almost nothing.’

Mr Manning ended up in the rain helping Mr Ward trying to recover his possessions, which had been dumped in a skip. ’It was a ridiculous situation. Ross was keen to get his story out there,’ he said.

Councillor Wells said every effort was made to help a person who was in rent arrears before legal action was taken.

She says the vulnerability of tenants is taken into account by the council and housing officers will direct those in need to social services.

But she said: ’It needs to be remembered we are not social services. We will refer people if we think there is an issue but it is not up to us to deal with somebody’s social issues. We provide a tenancy, we are a housing provider - that is our duty in society at the moment.

’Officers are trained in these situations and they will make every effort to help a person who is in a difficult situation with regard to payment.

’Payment can be spread out and if there is a plan put in a place which a tenant sticks to, to repay any debt that is owed to the council then we wouldn’t go down the route of eviction. The key thing here is that person has to keep up that agreement.’

Missed payment of weekly rent is flagged up immediately by the authority, with letters sent the week after and phone-calls made, Mrs Wells explained.

She said a lot of work goes into speaking with the tenants to see what help can be provided to sort out their debt before eviction is considered.

However, the councillor said there was a limit to what could be done if tenants didn’t respond to communication - and if a person was unable or unwilling to fulfil a tenancy agreement, the council had to act.

Mr Manning said Mr Ward seemed to receive no support from other agencies until after his eviction.

He said Graih would have quite happily paid the arrears for him.

He said: ’Ross was told while in prison that his arrears would be cleared. That never happened.

’I don’t pretend there are easy answers. The support is there but agencies have to let people know what is available.

’Any system has to have flexibility, not fixed in black and white.

’Lessons from what went wrong are never learned, for the vulnerable simply yearn for some peace and the organisations and systems involved just move on.’