On Tuesday next week M, a local mum and her young family, will lose their home. M and her children are the next family among dozens of local women and children who will find themselves homeless through no fault of their own over the coming weeks – and North Edinburgh groups have joined forces to demand changes to the system.
Recent changes to the benefits system, and severe cuts to Discretionary Housing Payments, are seeing increasing numbers of families facing eviction from their homes.
Making It Work’s Pauline Nicol Bowie has been supporting a group of local mums at weekly sessions at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre. The initial purpose of the group was to support the mums back into employment – changes to legislation means that parents must be actively looking for work when their child turns three – but increasingly the focus of the group has been to try to keep families in their homes, or at least suitable accomondation.
Pauline explained: “This has been a nightmare for these women and there’s no sign of it ending. I have been contacting everybody and anybody for help but no-one seems interested, or say there’s nothing they can do. More than forty children face losing their homes over the next two months. It surely can’t be right.”
The women described their personal expereinces at a harrowing meeting on Monday, with each story more horrific than the last:
- Landlords entering houses unannounced and putting pressure on tenants to leave
- Children being forced to travel from early morning from other parts of town to ensure that they get to their school on time, with similar long journeys home
- One woman forced to give up a college course in her final year due to countless meetings to resolve accomodation issues for her family, all of whom have disabilities
- Women being asked to hand their keys in before going out
- One family in emergency accommodation on Leith Links found more than twenty families forced to share a single bathroom – and ONE communal microwave for cooking. Worn and torn carpets, soiled bedlinen, general filthy conditions: the young mother, J, who herself also has health issues, raised concerns over with her landlord. His response was to make repairs – with duct tape.
- This family was told they would live in this unsuitable accomodation for a maximum of two weeks – but learned yesterday that the two weeks was purely a ‘guideline’ and that, as no other suitable accomodation had become available, they will be forced to stay there.
It’s a catolgue of despair – and with a serious lack of suitable social housing the situation can only get worse unless urgent action is taken.
Edinburgh is already an expensive place to live and tenants are facing waits of eighteen months to two years for suitable accomodation to become available – and it seems some private landlords are taking the opportunity to hike rents up even further. Women talked of monthly rents of £1200 in former council houses in Telford.
The Making ot Work women were joined yesterday by members of Royston Wardieburn’s Power to the People campaigning group and the two have united to campaign against the cuts and demand better treatment for children and familes facing eviction through no fault of their own
But while that campaign gathers steam, J and her family are still living in one filthy room in a Leith Links ‘hotel’, unable to access their belongings and with no date of a move to somewhere they can call home.
And unless things change quickly, M and her children will find themselves facing the same bleak future when she leaves her family home for the last time on Tuesday.
This is Great Britain 2017. We really should be ashamed.
CPAG_EWS_UC full service May 2017
UPDATE: A glimmer of light – J and her family have now been moved to more suitable accommodation
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There needs to be greater regulations for these greedy landlords. Ex council stock using to exploit the vulnerable. It’s disgusting.