Mum-of-three ‘told to use living room as bedroom’ by council amid housing crisis
A desperate mother of three was told by her local council to use the living room of her one-bedroom home as a bedroom in Wales.
On the waiting list for five years for a larger place, Leanne, 28, said she and her family share a single room with a double bed, bunk bed and cradle in Ely, Cardiff.
She told WalesOnline: ‘I don’t think they actually realise how small it actually is in this flat.
‘Then we have got a living room and a kitchen. You can’t even turn around in the kitchen it is that small.’
Leanne lived alone when he first moved to the Highmead Road property before having her first child, now four, in 2017, so asked the council for a roomier home.
She was placed on the waiting list for band B2 (medium priority).
‘There is no storage – nothing. We have got one cupboard which is full of the kids’ stuff,’ she said.
Though the council has since brought her up to the band A (urgent priority) waiting list, she still has no idea when she’ll be re-homed to a two-bed.
Her youngest, a four-month-old baby, is getting ‘bigger’ and she has no space to put a cot. Her four-year-old and three-year-old both sleep on bunk beds.
‘That is the next thing on my list now – how to squeeze one of them in. We have got three chests of drawers in there as well but they are piled on top of each other,’ she said.
When Leanne raised this with the council, she was allegedly told to use her living room as a bedroom.
‘I can’t really because where are the kids going to live? They have to have somewhere to live through the day,’ she said.
Leanne is in no way alone. According to Cardiff Council, there are currently more than 8,200 people on the housing waiting list.
The council receives around 400 new applications a month but there are only 1,600 properties available each year.
Applications for emergency accommodation have surged by 427% since July last year – yet more than 1,300 properties in Cardiff remain empty.
‘It does play with my mental health a lot. I don’t really want to go out and I don’t want to stay in,’ Leanne said.
‘It is mainly affecting me because of the kids. I know that their quality of life is just really bad because of the situation that we are in. It affects me because of them.’
Councillor Lynda Thorne told Metro.co.uk: ‘Cardiff is by no means any different to other cities across the UK in facing unprecedented demand for affordable housing.
‘Demand for good-quality social housing has been high for a number of years but it is no exaggeration to describe the pressures we are currently facing in the city as severe.
‘We’ve been working to tackle demand for good quality, affordable homes in the city for a number of years and if we hadn’t embarked on our ambitious housing development programme that is set to deliver 2,700 new council homes for the city and 4,000 new homes overall, then the difficulties we are facing now would be even more critical,’ she added.
Thorne said the vacant homes in Cardiff are a ‘blight on communities’ and a ‘wasted resource’.
She said: ‘The onus is on the private property owner in these cases but we do actively pursue them and provide schemes to help turn the properties back into homes.
‘When empty property owners refuse to engage with us, we do have enforcement powers available, including the use of compulsory purchase orders when all other avenues have been exhausted.’
A spokesperson for Shelter Cymru, a Welsh housing charity, said there are nearly 90,000 households on social housing waiting lists.
More than 8,000 people are homeless and living in temporary accommodations, like hotels or B&Bs.
‘Overcrowding, bad conditions, and homelessness are a fact of life for far too many,’ they told Metro.co.uk.
‘Having a decent home is an essential foundation for people’s family and social lives, and for health and wellbeing.
‘Being stuck waiting for months or even years without a decent place to call home is stressful and makes it very hard to get on with your life,’ they added.
‘It means children having nowhere to do homework, or having to move schools often because they don’t have somewhere settled to call home.’
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