Lesedi’s Story
Lesedi was referred to us in January 2024. She was experiencing domestic abuse from her ex-partner. He would not let her work and she was unable to flee their shared accommodation because of his financial control and her need to care for her 4 children aged between 4 and 17. She was scared to go to the police because of her migration status.
Her one chance came when her husband left the country for a period. She approached the job centre to try and access her universal credit. This alerted her husband who returned to the country immediately forcing her to flee overnight with her children. This is where we got involved.
We could not access a refuge place because of the age of her oldest child, so for the first few days we had to find her a place to stay on a night-by-night basis. The local authority housing team, who declared her ineligible for housing because of her immigration status referred us to work with another local authority who rejected her saying her risk level was too low and should return to her ex-partner and use 999 as a back-up plan.
The first local authority then confirmed that they would help if her migration status changed, following a letter from us appealing their initial decision using homelessness reduction legislation. We supported her to make that application for a Destitution Domestic Violence concession working alongside Migrant Help. Within 3 days she was granted long term leave to remain. We also supported the service user to engage the police to ensure they were aware.
This took a huge toll on the family on all sorts of levels. They were living in penury. The children had had to change schools, the family was unable to observe Ramadan effectively and Lesedi’s physical and mental health were suffering with migraines and thoughts of suicide.
The local authority was then able to find her more stable hotel accommodation on a weekly basis whilst processing her housing application. With this fragile stability in place, we were able to address her financial situation. We worked with Citizens Advice to support her applications for Universal Credit and Child Benefits and the Council supported her application for Housing Benefit.
We made a case to the local authority that her housing should be prioritised and at last on 10 June, she was allocated somewhere to live. She has now moved into a safe new four-bedroom house with her children which we have helped her furnish. Our Specialist Outreach Worker said, “I have never seen anyone so happy. This was an incredibly challenging case especially as everything had to be done through a translation service, but it was so rewarding, to see her grow in confidence and start to take control of her life. The work we have done is transformational.”
Lesedi said to us “this is all thanks to you because you fought and helped me to get all of this and you also helped me get my settled status which gives me indefinite leave in the UK and I will never forget you and all the work you have done to help me and my family. I am now able to start a new life and have a fresh start with my family and this is all thanks to your help. And I just want to say once again thank you for everything.”
Thanks to our services Lesedi has leave to remain accommodation and is financially stable. She is also happy safe and secure. The effect of our work will be felt through the generations as her children are now in a position to achieve their full potential.