‘I can’t survive on £500 a week benefits!’: Single mother-of-eight says her children may end up on the streets after she had her benefits capped

 

• Marie Buchan, 31, lives with her children aged from two months to 12 years
• She claimed £582 a week in state handouts til the cap in September
• Now the single mother from Selly Oak, Birmingham, says she is struggling
• She also wants to be moved to a large house - but is £2,000 behind in rent
• Miss Buchan, who owes £600 in bus lane fines, says: 'I don't waste money'

By Harriet Arkell
  A single mother with eight children who receives £2,000 a month in state handouts has complained she is struggling to make ends meet.
Marie Buchan, 31, whose children range in age from 12 to two months, lives in a three-bedroom housing association house in Selly Oak, Birmingham, but says it's not big enough and has applied for a bigger one.
And she says her benefits payments, which were reduced from £582 a week to £500 a week in September after the government introduced a cap on handouts, are not enough for her family to survive on.

Marie Buchan, 31, from Selly Oak in Birmingham, says she's struggling to survive after her benefits were cut

Now Miss Buchan, who is £2,000 in arrears with her rent, says she fears she may be evicted after falling behind with her rent.
She said: 'The benefit cap has hit me hard - money is very tight.  I am £82-a-week worse off and, when you have eight children, every penny counts.

'I don’t waste my money - everything goes on my children. It is tough bringing up eight children on your own, a constant battle.

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'I feel the threat of eviction all the time. I have already been to court once due to rent arrears and I fear I may be dragged there again.

'I am scrimping and saving to try to get the arrears down but it is very difficult.'
Miss Buchan's financial problems are compounded by the fact that she owes £600 in bus lane fines after receiving ten tickets for straying in bus lanes in Birmingham city centre in three days.

Miss Buchan, pictured with her eight children aged two months to 12 years, has run up bus fines of £600

Bus lane fine: Miss Buchan owes £600 in penalty charges after she was caught in bus lanes ten times in three days

She says she was caught in bus lanes while looking for a parking space when taking her baby, Olivia, to hopsital for treatment for bronchiolitis.
Miss Buchan, a tenant of Bourneville Village Trust in the south-west of Birmingham, used to receive £385 a week in child tax credit, £100 child benefit and £97 income support.

But the benefits cap, introduced earlier this year by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to reduce the burden on the state, limited her handouts to £500 a week.

'The benefits cap sets a fair limit to what people can expect to get from the welfare system.

 'Claimants cannot receive more than £500 a week, the average household earnings.'

  - DWP spokesman
 

Miss Buchan, whose relationship with her former partner and father of all her children ended this year, has children Tia, 12, Leah, 11, Latoya, eight, Joshua, seven, Alisha, five, Mikayla, three, Amelia, two, and two-month-old Olivia.

She sleeps with three of her children in one bedroom of her £200,000 semi, while another four share a second room and Joshua has the third to himself.

She was on the waiting list for a four-bedroom home but has been removed from the list after falling behind with her rent.

A DWP spokesman said: 'The benefit cap sets a fair limit to what people can expect to get from the welfare system.

'Claimants cannot receive more than £500 a week, the average household earnings.

'We have been working with claimants for 18 months to help them prepare for the cap.

'Already 18,000 people potentially affected have been helped into work, as those receiving working tax credits are exempt.'

Bournville Village Trust spokesman said: 'It is normal policy for social housing landlords not to transfer households to larger properties when there are rent arrears, especially of this level.'

THE BIGGEST SHAKE-UP OF THE WELFARE SYSTEM IN A GENERATION

Dramatic cuts: ain Duncan Smith introduced the benefits capping legislation earlier this year

The benefits cap was introduced after politicians discovered that some families were being given the equivalent of a £70,000 annual salary.
It limited what people could claim to £500 a week, or £26,000 a year.  This is equivalent to an annual income of £34,000 before tax, similar to the income of many nurses or teachers.

Work and Pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith brought in the cost-cutting legislation, designed to reduce the burden on the State, this July.
So far, 19,300 households have been affected by the benefits cap.  By the end of next month, it is expected that 40,000 families will have had their benefits capped.

The DWP estimates that the radical reforms have led to 36,000 people trying to find work rather than live on benefits.

The annual national welfare bill was £208billion.