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NATALIE Bridger and Winnifred Doherty in their overcrowded room.
Overcrowded homes: ‘Worst for 20 years’ - MP
Stuart Pike23/ 2/2007
TWO women living in desperately overcrowded homes, including a family of nine living in a two-bedroom terrace, claim they don't know where to turn to get a council house.
Natalie Bridger, 26, and her four young children have moved into mum Winnifred Doherty's house on Dalbeattie Street, Moston, already occupied by Winnifred, her two grown up sons, and 16-year-old granddaughter.
Their case is far from unique - as a few miles away in New Moston, Carmel Cleary, her partner, teenage daughter and son, and seven-month-old granddaughter are all without a bed at 75-year-old father Patrick's one-bedroom bungalow.
Both families are registered with Northwards Housing as homeless, but despite their exceptional circumstances, neither face the immediate prospect of being rehoused.
And Blackley MP Graham Stringer has claimed surplus demand for council housing in his constituency is at its worst for two decades.
Natalie, who sleeps in the living room with all her children on a mattress and sofas, said: "We shouldn't be living like this in this day and age. The kitchen is so small that the bathroom's got the washing machine and dryer in it and at the moment I'm living out of black bags."
Natalie believes she is being treated as a lower priority because she refused the offer of a property overlooking a railway line, which she feared would be unsafe for her children.
They have been living like that for two weeks having stayed with friends and relatives, after losing their previous property last year due to rent arrears.
Winnifred, an angina sufferer, said: "She's threatening to sleep in the park with the kids. It's making her ill and it's making me ill."
Carmel, 42, has been based at Colesmere Walk after her house was repossessed last November. She sleeps with her daughter on a blow-up bed, with her partner and 18-year-old son making do with two sofas.
She said: "We ploughed all our savings into the mortgage until we didn't have any money left to pay for it. We want to stay in New Moston - our family is here and we have always lived in New Moston."
Mike Stevens, Northwards Housing's Director of Neighbourhood Services, said: "Ms Bridger has received offers of accommodation but refused them. Although council homes are in high demand, we will continue to work with the family to try and help them find a solution to their housing problem."
On the Cleary case, he said: "The family are registered for rehousing but this is the first we have heard about what seems to be a change in their circumstances. Now that we are aware of it we will speak to them again to establish the latest situation and see what we can do to help."
Graham Stringer wrote to Northwards in support of Carmel, after she visited his advice surgery, and claims such cases now account for up to half of his casebook diary.
He said: "In the last nine or 10 months the availability of housing for people who are in severe housing need has got as bad as it's been in the last 20 years."
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24/02/2007 at 05:34