Dying woman's husband forced to sleep in car while they wait for council housing
A man with a dying wife has been forced to sleep in his car.
Teacher Sumayah Zaman was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and could have just months left to live. Sumayah and her husband said they have waited for a home from Birmingham City Council for a year, and there's no signs of a property coming up.
Sumayah's husband Mohammed Ali, 32, has bedded down in his Toyota Yaris, while his wife and one-year-old son stay with her mum, who is also seriously unwell. Mohammed hopes they'll be reunited, but remains frustrated they were unable to secure a property, despite both having worked full-time.
Mohammed's Toyota Yaris where he has been forced to sleep (BPM Media)
Mohammed sleeps in his car while his wife and son stay with her mum, who is also seriously unwell (BPM Media)He told BirminghamLive: "My wife has terminal cancer. At first the council wouldn't accept us on the housing register even with her condition. They said we didn't meet the criteria. We then went to our MP and she got us put into Band A. But since then, the council doesn't reply to us. It doesn't help us. My wife is going back in for surgery soon. According to the doctors, she doesn't have very long left. We have a young son and we don't live together as a family. I sleep in my car sometimes. I just want us to be a family even for a short amount of time.
"My wife sometimes stays with her mum, but she also has cancer - stage four bowel cancer. So she can't help us as much as she'd like to. I have been in care and now work as an area manager. My wife was a teacher. We've made a go of our lives - it's not as if we've been on benefits. It's just an unfortunate situation we find ourselves in now. I feel like giving up. I'm trying to keep a full-time job as well and look after my wife and son. I have hospital appointments to go to three or four times-a-week. I don't know what to do."
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Mr Ali had previously been living with his parents and planned to save up to buy a house. But personal reasons and his wife's terminal condition turned their lives upside down. He said he was either unable to get through to the council or received no response when making inquiries on its housing search. The family approached their MP Jess Phillips for help, and she has assisted in getting them onto Band A of the ladder - for people with an extremely urgent need to move - but the authority has yet to rehome them, he claimed.
There are currently 20,700 households on the housing register with varying degrees of urgency awaiting suitable accommodation in Birmingham. Yardley MP Ms Phillips said: "The lack of social housing is a nationwide problem and I am supporting a number of constituents who are struggling to find stable accommodation. This family are in a dire situation and I have been working with Birmingham City Council in the hope they will be able to move somewhere suitable and permanent as soon as is possible."
A Birmingham City Council spokesman said: "We are very sorry to hear about the housing challenges faced by this household. Unfortunately, they are not alone, due to the ongoing national housing crisis, demand for accommodation in the city has never been higher. There are currently over 22,000 households on the housing register in Birmingham – of which nearly 7,000 are band A. There are around 7,000 families seeking a two-bedroom home.
"The shortage of accommodation is severely restricting the options we can offer to people in need, and we know many people across the city are in difficult situations like this family. Mr Ali has been accepted into Band A and an officer has recently reviewed their case to note the mobility issues they are both experiencing.”
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