A job is no guarantee you’ll keep a roof over your head ...that’s the brutal reality now
I never thought the words ‘I’m homeless’ would fall from my mouth
LIMARRA Sealy is at work planning orders with chefs as a deputy manager of a busy restaurant chain in the City of London – but she’s also tired.
Last night, her daughter fell out of the armchair she was sleeping in, again.
“She sleeps in the armchair and I’m on the sofa,” Limarra says. “Last night, I was upset because she told me, ‘I pray for a house every night mum’.
“She’s nine. Her school asked me if there was something wrong. We’re homeless. All of her things are in storage. Even her piano. The only time she gets to play it is during her lesson.”
Limarra, 25, is one of around 33,000 “working homeless” people in the UK – a number which the charity Shelter says has risen 73% since 2013.
On Wednesday, the charity launched a new strategy aimed at tackling a “national emergency” in housing. “The brutal reality is that being in work no longer guarantees that you can keep a roof over your head,” Shelter CEO, Polly Neate, says.
“In fact, as a result of expensive private rents, crippling cuts to housing benefit and a chronic lack of social homes, the majority of those families who are now homeless are in some form of employment.”
Limarra works full time – but hasn’t had a permanent address since June this year, after becoming the victim of a ‘no fault eviction’ by a private landlord a year ago.
“I never thought the words ‘I’m homeless’ would fall out of my mouth,” she says, when we speak this week on World Homeless Day. “I do everything the right way – I’ve got my education, I work. But so many working people are in the same situation.”
After her landlord had served the eviction notice, Limarra’s fear of becoming homeless led her to attempt suicide. “I got pregnant when I was 15, and had my daughter at 16,” she says.
“I’ve always tried so hard not to be the stereotype of the young single mum. I went back to school and did my GCSEs when I was pregnant. I went to college, and then I studied business management at university. I worked in bars, became a team leader. Now I have a good job. But I felt like I’d failed my daughter.”
Southwark Council is actually one of the better places to become homeless, with its services recently rated ‘Very Good’ by Shelter.
But, even so, Limarra found herself trapped inside the inner workings of the housing crisis. “I even ended up paying for my own eviction because I was in work,” she says. “When I tried to look for somewhere, I was getting ‘No DSS’ all the time.”
On eviction day, she ended up sitting in the council offices with all her belongings in a removal van outside. “Eventually they offered me a bedsit several miles away,” she says. “I explained I’d just started a new job in the City. I needed to start work at 5.30am and there was no way I could get there. It was nowhere near my daughter’s school, my family support, or my mental health team.
“When I saw the place, down a dark, filthy alley, with a cooker right next to the bed, I cried.”
Limarra was moved to a homeless hostel with her daughter. But she struggled to cope with the rent – almost £1,000 a month. “Temporary accommodation doesn’t work if you are working,” she says. “It’s so expensive. And I was paying storage costs for all my stuff on top of that, and for my travel to work.
‘I had to shower with my slippers on, and my daughter started wetting the bed rather than walk along the corridor to a toilet with no loo seat. I couldn’t wash my work clothes because the machines were always busy. We were in bunk beds. Yet the only way not to be in arrears would have been not to eat.”
Polly Neate says the impact of homelessness on children is particularly damaging. “They often arrive at school unrested and unprepared, falling asleep in class, and behind with work,” she says. “Their social life and mental health suffers too. Having a home is a fundamental human need.”
Limarra says the only way to make the hostel work would have been to stop working or reduce her hours – a far cry from the Government’s mantra that “work is the best route out of poverty”. “I can’t quit my job and sit in that hostel all day – I suffer with depression,” she says. “I ended up giving the keys back.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says the Government is providing “more than £1.2billion, so all those left homeless get the support they need”.
For now, Limarra remains living at her mum’s house, with five other adults and her daughter.
“Space is tight, so I have to leave my suitcase and the rest of our stuff out on the balcony,” she says.
“When I put my jeans on when I got up for work today at 6am, they were freezing. But at least I have a roof over my head.”