A family with four young children have been living, sleeping and cooking in one small room for over a year – costing them £1,436 a month – in a damning example of London’s overcrowding crisis.
Rania Issa and Roshdi Basheer Ali have been living with their children, aged 13, 12, nine and two, in the cramped room in Brent for a year and eight months.
Rania said the conditions are making her eldest and youngest sons sick, one with a dry skin condition and the other with asthma. The property’s landlord has described the situation as “ridiculous” and the council, which has offered the family temporary accommodation outside the borough, said it was an example of the “tragic reality of the housing emergency” in the capital.
When The Independent went to visit the family, the front door to the building – which is made up of six flats – could be forced open and the communal stairs were dirty, with paint peeling off the wall.
Rania said the children are only able to play on the small landing at the top of the stairs, which was also being used to dry and store clothes. A shared wardrobe on the landing is full of clothes that they cannot store inside their tiny apartment.
With the help of translation from a friend, Rania said: “My youngest child has asthma and my eldest child has a skin condition, with dry skin. There are lots of bugs and there is no space for us to live.
“When I cook on the hob it gets very hot and steam comes up and my children are always coughing. We have put bags over the smoke alarm so that we can cook. The hob also gets very hot and it is dangerous for the children because they can reach up and touch it. The room becomes hell, it gets very hot. But we don’t want to open the window because it opens wide and the children could fall out.”
“I am fed up. I need help,” she added. The Sudanese family are paying the rent through their housing benefit. The parents also receive Universal Credit as the father Roshdi is too unwell to work.
Roshdi said: “I am always worrying for my family. My children have nowhere to play. We tried to get help from the local civil centre and the council but we were very badly neglected. I came to the UK first – I have been here for five years. And then my wife and child came after me.”
When they use the bathroom, water also leaks into the flat below them, Rania explained. The small bathroom just has a shower, a toilet and a hand basin but no bath so the family is using the sink to wash their youngest child.
A spokesperson for the landlord London Estate Management said: “The flat is not built for that many people. We’ve been in touch with the council. The whole situation is ridiculous. I can’t believe that this is happening in this country. We’ve been trying to get help with finding the family suitable accommodation but the council has not come back to us at all.”
They said that any issues of disrepair will be looked at but that “the main concern is that there are too many people”. They added: “The tenants say that they’ve tried to get help from the council countless times but they’ve not been answered.”
Brent council said they had offered the family temporary accommodation outside the borough to alleviate the situation but they have not accepted. They are also on the housing waiting list.
The family don’t speak English, their children are in school, and they are being helped by other locals, a neighbour and friend Nassir Yahya explained.
Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent council, said: “Sadly, Rania Issa and Roshdi Basheer Ali’s situation is the tragic reality of the housing emergency that our city is facing.
“It breaks my heart to say it, but Brent is one of the worst affected areas in the UK by the housing crisis – with 34,000 people on the council’s housing register, just like Rania and Roshdi.”
He added that the supply of new build homes cannot keep up with demand, explaining: “This means that most people in housing need will have little other choice but to work with the council to find a home in a more affordable location in the private rented sector.
“We have made an offer of temporary accommodation to relieve the pressure of overcrowding, and we will continue to work with the family and other residents to help source and secure decent homes.”
A spokesperson for the London Renters Union said: “This is a life and death issue – the Covid death rate in Church End was the highest in the country for this reason, with Somali and Sudanese families particularly impacted. Education, sleep, and health and wellbeing are all impacted for the kids growing up in these homes, and yet councils and developers continue to prioritise smaller homes that are more profitable.
“We desperately need mandatory targets that reflect local need.”
