A TORFAEN family who were rehomed due to overcrowding at their previous accommodation found themselves in an even worse situation - in a single room with no heating or hot water.
Jodie Scrivens, 27, her partner Damian Thurston, 30, his 22-month-old son Benjamin Thurston and Ms Scrivens’ daughter Alice Davies, four, were placed in temporary accommodation in Abertillery on Saturday, October 22.
The family were rehoused by Torfaen Council after it was decided their previous accommodation in Cwmbran - where they lived with Mr Thurston's family - was overcrowded.
A single room was allocated to the family of four. Picture: Jodie Scrivens
But when they arrived at the temporary accommodation they found it was just one room for all four of them - and had no heating or hot water.
Ms Scrivens said: “There was no bath for the kids, nowhere to prepare or eat food, nowhere for us to wash our clothes, the water was freezing cold so we couldn’t even have a shower and we had bed bites.
Inside the bathroom. Picture: Jodie Scrivens
“The single room also had mould which affected me and my daughter’s asthma.
“There wasn’t even hot water or heating.
“My daughter has hidden disabilities and born with a rare brain defect called hypoplastic corpus and absent septum pellucidum – the single room was having a massive effect on us.
“I wasn’t sleeping due to anxiety attacks every day – I have made an appointment to see a mental health nurse because of my panic attacks.
The family lasted four days in the Abertillery room before moving back to the property in Cwmbran - which has two bedrooms.
The single room. Picture: Jodie Scrivens
Ms Scrivens has been on the housing register since 2019.
She said: “They wanted us to stay in that single room for a year – we couldn’t even last a week.
“We had to move back into the Cwmbran house otherwise we would have become homeless.
“We were struggling so much that we had no choice to come back.
“They tell us that we can’t have a three bed, only a two bed but our children are not siblings.”
A council spokesperson said: “The housing service have seen an increasing number of individuals and families presenting as homeless.
“The team aim to use temporary accommodation in the borough where possible but there are occasions when out of county accommodation is used for short periods when the demand for assistance exceeds the supply of local suitable properties we can use.”
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