A SINGLE room in a B&B is what a working mum and her two boys must now call home.
Beverly Day and her sons have been left with no option but to move into emergency bed-and-breakfast accommodation after losing her house.
Ironically the single room costs Mrs Day, aged 47, £180 a week, about £720 a month, which would have covered her mortgage.
As previously reported in your Worcester News, the family lost their home in Dines Green, Worcester, three months ago when Mrs Day’s husband Jim fell six months behind with the family’s mortgage payments.
Eventually bailiffs demanded £6,000 and the house was repossessed.
Mr Day, 52, is currently living with his mother while Mrs Day along with James, aged 13, and Tom, 11, have moved into a bed-and-breakfast in Ombersley Road, Worcester.
Mrs Day, has no immidiate family of her own in the county they can all stay with, said: “It’s just laughable. This is how much I would be paying on a mortgage.”
To make matters worse, she says the family are discriminated against because she isn’t claiming benefits. They even miss out on breakfast because it is served after they leave for school and work.
Mrs Day, who has worked for the civil service for 26 years, has tried to rent privately but was unable to provide the six months rent in advance that private landlords asked for.
She believes Worcester City Council would do more to help them find a permanent home if she was claiming benefits instead of working.
“The council help you when you don’t work in finding a home,” she said.
“It seems fine if you are not working, a single young mother, a drunk and all those stereotypes, but for a working mother wanting to continue working, there isn’t any help and no means of support out there. I need to keep working and I want to keep giving my boys a life, but it just seems if I gave it all up we would be housed straight away.”
Mrs Day has met city councillors and Worcester MP Mike Foster, who has contacted the council’s housing department.
Nina Warrington, housing services manager at the city council, said the family’s accommodation was among the cheapest in the city.
“We will just have to wait for a property to become available,” she said. “She is a priority banding, but there will be some people who have been homeless for longer than that.”
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