[jtheory]

Eh, read between the lines here. That's written specifically to seem confusing & crazy. It's not. Two families split up because one partner from each formed a single new couple.

That's all that happened. It's only "complicated" in the writer's mind because the two families had put in applications in the same apparently-awful social housing computer system.

The complaint about needing this info "in a timely manner" is a bit ironic... the original two applications have apparently been pending for "a couple of years" before the story even begins.