Amelda, a mother of three, spends sleepless nights on a chair in her kitchen. She has given over her bed to her 16-year-old daughter, Amelia, while her sons Kevin and David, 24 and 19, sleep by a gaping hole in the ceiling of their council flat. It has been months since her local council promised to fix it.
As winter begins and temperatures plummet, the ceiling remains damaged and their home freezing cold. Amelda, 56, said her utility bills are already “humungous”.
“You don’t want to think about it,” she added and began to cry. “It’s very emotional. Really bad. I don’t want my children to get ill.”
Amelda cares full-time for both her sons but is herself in poor health, with a spine disorder and diabetes.
Her overcrowded housing situation has only made things worse. “My back hurts, my feet ache, sometimes I sit up at night with panic attacks and I can’t breathe,” she said.
“I have to punch my knees out to stretch them and go to the bathroom. Sometimes I have an accident because I can’t get there in time.”
As a carer, Amelda is entitled to £76.75 a week. It doesn’t matter that she’s caring for two people: if she was caring for four, that benefit would stay the same. To feed the family, she has less than £11 a day. That’s under £3 per person. Saving money for bills in such circumstances is impossible.
Unpaid carers like Amelda are society’s unsung heroes. In 2023, they contributed a staggering £445 million to the economy of England and Wales every day, according to Carers UK.
That’s £162 billion over a year. In a country like ours with an ageing population, the burden on carers is growing and so is their number. It is estimated by CarersWeek, based on ONS population data, that one in five people will be carers at some point in their lives.
Carers suffer guilt, isolation and burnout. For some, anxiety about the financial cost of caring for others is overwhelming. For them, organisations like City and Hackney Carers in East London play a vital role.
Their eight part-time staff and 20 volunteers provide a service for carers that many say is life-changing, making them aware of their rights and empowering them to claim all benefits due.
City and Hackney Carers is one of eight charities being funded with a £31,250 grant out of the £250,000 pot of funds raised for our Winter Survival Appeal from the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund, which is administered by the London Community Foundation.
Our joint appeal with Comic Relief has raised over £2.2 million. CEO Joanna Brunt said funds were sorely needed with financial pressures on the charity mounting due to increased demand for their services and higher overhead bills.
“We’ve worked with 800 people this year,” said Joanna. “The need for support has never been greater.”
She added that many carers feel the system is rigged against them. For example, Amelda cannot work and has been on universal credit for years, but her carer’s allowance is offset against her universal credit.
She explained: “Say you have £300 universal credit, then, if you have £100 carers’ allowance, you will only get £200 [universal] credit.” Amelda feels let down and angry.
Hudda Abukar, 38, who has been supporting Amelda and is in direct contact with the council about fixing her ceiling, said that over 80 per cent of the cases she speaks to are struggling with “overwhelming” debt, “particularly around utilities.”
Another carer, Carine, 51, a single mum whose eight-year-old daughter, Anna, is severely autistic, told the Evening Standard that the centre was pivotal to her wellbeing. “It’s a place where I feel heard without judgment,” she said. “The work they do is phenomenal.”
Children’s names have been changed
How you can help
£10 could provide a nourishing meal for a Londoner every day for a month
£20 could provide a duvet and pillow to a young person helping them sleep at night
£50 could contribute to a new school uniform for a child fleeing with a parent from an abusive relationship
£100 could provide 400 meals for families at a local community centre
£300 could pay for all that’s needed by a family expecting a baby, including new cot, mattress and pram
£1,750 could get a truck packed with enough food for 7,000 meals
In a nutshell
We have partnered with Comic Relief to launch our Winter Survival Appeal Christmas Campaign, with Comic Relief pledging £500,000 to kick off our fund. The money we raise will help fund charities in London and across the country helping people who are struggling with the cost of living crisis.
How you can help
To make a donation, visit comicrelief.com/wintersurvival
