All in the same boat

On this course I'm doing I've met two fellow stigmums and a married mum in our situation.

Honey has an 18 month son and lives in Englands Lane Hostel. She doesn't like it and she doesn't like what she sees. She recently stood down from chairing a residents association she'd started up there as the hostel would give her no funding for it, nor for courses she wished to take in Child Protection Rights and Advocacy.

Minnie has an 18 month daughter and also lives there with her husband but doesn't mind it. She says it's much better than Ivy House, where the council originally placed them, where an infestation of cockroaches and ants were quite at home in the filth. Like me, she refuses the private rental scheme which she sees as 'going back to square one'.

Billie is in a permanent one bedroom council flat with her five year old daughter. Tomorrow she is viewing two two-bedroom properties. She is 6th on the list to view both despite having no points she says. She has no points but she does have a social worker. I am happy for her, genuinely so. However, we all want the same, I want the same, why can't we have the same for our children?

I've asked all three if I can raise what they say on this blog, use some of their stories to back up things I say.

I row row row our boat gently down the stream
Hopefully when the time is right
I'll know just how to scream