Case study: John and Karen
John and Karen are a married couple with six children (under the age of 20). John is working on a low income as a special needs teacher's assistant. Despite having the working tax credit and living in social housing, John and Karen found that the low wage coming in each month was not enough to cover their essential outgoings and started to go into arrears with the rent and bills, which led to them being evicted. The family has now been separated and homeless for over two years and are staying with extended family. Their words are spoken by actors in a film produced by iceandfire.
This is an extract from their interview:
John: When things started getting really bad, I was the only person working, I had two children at University, my wife at college. My income was not that much, about a thousand a month. I was coping more or less and in a normal week yes it's enough to live on. But then our cooker broke down, the fridge, the beds. And what happens is that the better children do the more expensive it becomes. Like our son comes in - 'I've got a geography field trip I need £85.' And if he doesn't go on it he can't pass the course. We haven't got a computer - so we pay a pound a time at the internet cafes - it doesn't seem a lot but it's every day and printing hundreds of pages for their coursework!
When we were evicted because of arrears, we went to Citizens Advice for help and they frightened the life out of us. They said by law is they only have to house children under a certain age, so in other words they will take your children off you.
Karen: That's what stopped us from seeking further help and we decided to live like we are now.
John: We went to the homeless part of the council and got nowhere. We thought our only option now is to go to our MP. Karen Buck who - she's an amazing woman
Karen: Brilliant I thought
John: Yeah she's brilliant ... you know when we told her about the situation, she had a tear in her eye ... she said -'that should never happen, they should be keeping families together.' She said no one should be evicted for arrears. Drugs, prostitution, yes that sort of thing
Karen: Or if you're neglecting your children. We've done none of that and they can see that we're a hard-working good family and yet we're just being punished for that. You know in some countries you even get paid for bringing up your children.
John: So now - Karen's just put in an appeal
Karen: It's medical reasons now. My health has been ... well I was born with a heart murmur, but um the stress of all this is just making it worse ... I'm getting terrible pains across my chest. My health is suffering because of it all. And then depression ...
John: I've got psoriasis .... I'm covered head to foot in psoriasis.
Karen: He's always scratching
John: I spent two weeks going to hospital getting treatment ... and treating it is a waste of my time, because once it clears, it's back again, because it's stress related.
Karen: If you told me two years ago that I would be homeless like this with my children separated from me I would have said no - you're lying.
John: I don't want to use this as an excuse, but when there's children involved, I thought that at least they would not throw them out and think about their welfare. We could have been turned out on the street and the council or the court wouldn't have cared less.
Posted on 12 October 2010