I’m a mum-of-nine and two of my boys have to share a single bed as the council can’t find us a big enough house
A FAMILY with nine children has been forced to squeeze into a three-bedroom home, because there aren’t any council houses big enough.
Amanda Watkin lives with nine children between six months and 18 years old in South Kirkby, Yorkshire. The family are squashed into three bedrooms with two of the boys even sharing a single bed.
Wakefield District Housing (WDH), which provides social housing in the area, has no houses available for a family their size.
Amanda, who has five children of her own, was given guardianship of her four nieces in April last year. She was granted Band A housing status when the girls joined the family, but has still not been able to find a home for all of them.
The family has outgrown their current social housing home, which Amanda moved into in 2015 when she only had three sons.
The total crowd now includes Cobie, 18, Maja, 12, Lena, 10, Olga, 9, Blake, 8, Kellen, 6, Abbie, 3, Brodie, 1, and Romie-Marie who is six months old.
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Luckily, the cousins all get along with each other most of the time.
Amanda said: “They just get on like brothers and sisters, because they have their arguments but then they’re best friends two minutes after.
“Because they’re all similar age ranges they tend to entertain each other, so it's not as hard as it sounds. We have adapted so quickly to them being here.
“To be fair, it's a big close knit family, it’s just a lot of stress having to live under a roof where the kids have got no space to play.
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“The four girls at the minute are sharing one of the double rooms. With the two boys, the little bedroom is so small, we can only just fit a single bed in and you can only just open the door.
“My two boys, Blake and Kellan, are having to share that single bed, so it's not nice. I mean they should be able to have their own space, even if it were like bunk beds so there's more room to do what they want to do instead of being cooped up in this little bedroom.
“Then obviously, in our room we've got Brody and Romie because there's no space for them to have their own bedrooms. My eldest son is 18, but he's living with his girlfriend at the minute just to make more space.”
Amanda claimed the council won't give the family bigger bins.
She said: “They won’t even allow us to have bigger bins. Because obviously we've been an overcrowded house so there’s a lot more rubbish and it piles up in the garden then.
"And that's not safe or healthy for kids, because they can’t play out in the garden when there are bags of rubbish there.
“We are having to pay people to come and take the rubbish. Twice I’ve applied for a bigger bin and both times they’ve told me no. It’s just the little things that could help, that they’re just not willing to help with.”
Since her youngest son, Brodie, turned one, Amanda was also told by WDH that she can only apply for five-bedroom homes. The only properties of this size in the area, however, are all full.
'PASSED FROM PILLAR TO POST'
Amanda said: “There's only four five-bedroom houses in this area and they're all occupied. We didn't want to move out of the area because of the kids’ school. We didn't want to disrupt them anymore, they'd been through enough already as it was.
“We tried bidding on a four-bed - it was a new build - and they said the four-bed was too small so we couldn't apply for that one. There's no way on earth that we’d be able to afford a five-bedroom private rent.”
Amanda even explored the option of an extension grant to make more space in her current home, adding: “I got told the other day that the council do extension grants, so when I rang them I enquired about that as well. We got passed from pillar to post for a good hour.
“And then they said the only extension grants available are for Disability Living Allowance. But none of the kids, nor me are on any DLA or anything like that. So she said she can’t see that happening.
“I said to her, well even if we did get an extension grant, would we be able to build out or do a loft conversion? And she went, I don’t think they’d allow it.
“I got in touch with the local councillor and she was very lovely, Michelle Collins. She said she’d email them and see what she got back from them, but I’ve not heard anything just yet.”
Mick Walsh, Executive Director of Housing at WDH said: “We work closely with Wakefield Council to meet the housing needs within the district. We cannot comment on individual cases, however we consider applications for homes based on an applicant’s circumstances, and is dependent on the properties available.
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"Unfortunately, there is a severe lack of larger homes within the district, which makes it more challenging for us to support larger families find suitable homes.”
The Sun has contacted Wakefield Council for a comment.
