It was three months ago that Samaira Riffat and her daughter, Eman, decided to start sleeping in the lounge of their two-bedroom terrace house in Bolton. “We can’t afford to heat more than one room,” said 21-year-old Eman on Thursday. “So, we moved a bed downstairs for mum, and I sleep on the sofa.”
Their situation is, in the call centre worker’s own words, desperate. Both bedrooms have extreme damp and rat droppings have been found in the kitchen cupboards. In December, a burglar broke in – and left with nothing. “What could he have taken?” asked Eman. “Our secondhand air-fryer?”
Such tales of hardship come thick and fast at the Citizens Advice charity in Bolton – a centre which specialises in supporting perhaps one of the UK’s most vulnerable groups: those, like Samaira, whose unsettled immigration status means they have no access to any state support or benefits.
Local charities such as Bury and Bolton Citizens Advice – which help the least well-off amid the ongoing cost of living crisis – will benefit from the 2022-23 Guardian and Observer charity appeal. So far, readers have donated more than £1,450,000. The appeal ends at midnight on Sunday evening.
Every day here in Bolton, advisers hear stories of extreme deprivation: of people using old pasta water to make cups of tea so they don’t need to boil a kettle; of fridges being unplugged to save on electricity; of clients asking food banks for cold items so they don’t need to use ovens or hobs.
Yet, even in such a crowded field of poverty, Samaira and Eman’s plight feels especially insidious. Originally from Pakistan, they have lived in the UK for five years. But when Samaira’s husband – Eman’s father – divorced her last year, it left the 53-year-old without any official right to stay in the UK.
Now, while she applies to have that changed – a costly, bureaucratic and time-consuming process – she has been left, in the official parlance, with “no recourse to public funds”. Which is to say, the welfare safety net which protects the rest of us – meagre as it is – is not extended to Samaira. She is entitled to exactly no help. No benefits, no housing assistance, no hardship grants.
For now, she and Eman must survive on Eman’s minimum-wage salary. “I was supposed to be going to university last September but how can I?” she said. “Even working full-time, we can barely pay rent [£650 from a private landlord] and bills. We have one meal a day because we can’t afford any more. When the burglary happened, we had to pay £300 to have a new door. I had to borrow it from an old college friend.”
There are 1.4 million people in the UK who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF), including 175,000 children. They include overseas students; spouses, like Samaira, who were granted leave to remain because of their partner’s status; and people in the process of applying to remain here longer.
For those who find themselves suddenly in need, the consequences of not having access to any assistance is often devastating. People with NRPF status are four times more likely to be behind on at least one essential bill, according to research by Citizens Advice. Almost one in five – 18% – have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity.
“This is a small group of people but the impact of economic hardship on them is colossal because they have nowhere to turn,” said Richard Wilkinson, chief executive of Citizens Advice Bury and Bolton. “These are people who have often lived in this country for years – many have been key workers – yet, despite that, they are locked out of support when they need it most.”
This is where he and his team step in. They signpost clients to charities that can help, while using their legal expertise to identify any available support. They help with immigration applications and appeals. For clients who have got into debt, there is a specialist team advising on ways to deal with repayments.
“This cost of living crisis is the biggest challenge we’ve faced as a charity in my time here,” said Wilkinson. “But, for most people who come here, there is almost always something that can be done. At the very least, they leave knowing there are people on their side.”
In Samaira’s case, there is good news. Advisers find that, because of certain specific circumstances, the universal credit she received while married should, in fact, never have been stopped. More, she is almost certainly also entitled to housing assistance, too.
It would mean receiving roughly £700 a month. “It would change our lives,” said Eman. “All we’ve ever wanted to do is build a better life for ourselves instead of living [hand-to-mouth]. With this, maybe we could start to do that.”
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