Laura has been living in Springfield for 15 years. She is the mother of two girls and a boy who were categorised at risk by Children’s Services because she could not spend enough time with them due to her job. Since then, she decided to rely on benefits until her children had grown up and she could earn a better salary.
Life was still a struggle with benefits. She was living in a two bedroom flat, sleeping with her two girls in a bed. “I did not have my own space. I felt like I was dying”, she says.
Laura is now one of the tenants of ‘Raising The Roof‘, a social housing enterprise run by the charity Springfield’s Project , that offers housing to those most in need who are not being rehoused by Birmingham City Council housing services.
In an area where most people are relying on benefits and are less likely to get a good salary, living in a house in good conditions is difficult.
Overcrowding in houses, properties in bad conditions and benefits being capped, are the main problems of those families rehoused by ‘Raising the Roof’.
Sue Thompson is the Centre Business Manager of Springfield’s Project. She says:
“The family’s housing benefit can cover the cost of rent for a property but it can be a private rent in which the landlord has no real standards to meet for the quality of the property.
“Another problem faced by tenants is being overcrowded and not being able to be rehoused into a bigger house by the council. The only way the government considers any real applications is if the family is homeless.
“The benefit cap is also a barrier for finding a new home. We have a family with five children that receives only 250 pounds per month for the rent.”
Laura’s story is one of many that we can find in the most deprived areas of Birmingham, where families are struggling to lead a normal life.
Springfield is a ward with high deprivation, where most households live in low income and the child poverty rate is amongst the highest in Birmingham at 45.5%.
People in the area sometimes don’t have the educational achievement to secure a skilled job. As a result, most families are living on benefits.
Sue Round is Advice Worker at Springfield project.
“There is a high Asian population, 76% Pakistani, most from rural background. Sometimes that means that their educational achievement is not enough to have a skilled work.
“Mostly families are relying on benefits. They’ve got big families and the benefit cap is making them poorer.
“In addition to benefits they also send money home to support their family in Pakistan, that means they have less money.”
With families facing all these difficulties, growing up in this area is not easy for a child.
Round explains the consequences for children who are living in poor conditions. She says:
“Children go to local schools. In families where the english is not their first language, children can be behind other children in their stage.”
“There is overcrowding in houses. There are a lot of families living in one house. Economic deprivation has consequences when accessing outside play.
“Children are not feeding healthy due to a fixed income.”
Sue Round also warns that the situation is not improving and that much more support is needed.
“Less money means that the area doesn’t get better.
“The terms and conditions of the children centre’s income means that we can only work with some families. There are more families who need our support too and we have to turn them away because we don’t have money.”
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