Helen Kunda cannot even imagine getting on the housing ladder. The 29-year-old single parent says George Osborne’s announcement in Wednesday’s autumn statement that he is cutting stamp duty makes little difference to her. Kunda adds that she has little left to live off after paying rent and childcare costs out of her part-time teacher salary. Saving for a house deposit is out of the question.
“Rent is a massive proportion of people’s money,” says Kunda, mother to one-year-old Matthew. “I have got friends who are in married couples and they can’t afford to rent here.” This week official figures showed that much of the increase in household expenditure in the UK was taken up by rent payments.
Kunda’s main hopes for the autumn statement were for more help with childcare and more affordable homes. Instead, the chancellor sought to woo voters with changes to stamp duty that he said would cut the levy for 98% of homebuyers. Will it get Kunda on the property ladder? “No. Unless I bought a garage somewhere,” she says.
Kunda will be staying in the flat she rents as part of a social housing scheme in South Woodford, north-east London. Tax credits have also helped the secondary teacher get by. Without them she would have just £200 left a month after childcare and rent.
“When my marriage broke down I was renting privately and I couldn’t afford to stay in that position and I was lucky that I got offered this two-bedroom flat at an affordable price,” she says. “Tax credits make a difference. I am not living in luxury but the tax credits do add up to an extra £500 a month.” But she sees little hope of things getting easier for herself or the other single parents she meets at the local group she runs for charity Gingerbread.
“People are finding things difficult. The vast majority are in work but it just doesn’t work for them with housing and childcare costs,” says Kunda.
Her experience is echoed by Gingerbread’s own research, which shows while employment is rising, for many a job is no longer enough to pay the bills, and work is increasingly insecure.
Kunda is not holding out much hope of things improving after the May election. “As a citizenship teacher I encourage people to use their vote... but come 2015 I don’t know who I would vote for. I think this government is terrible with all the cuts... they don’t understand what people are going through,” she says.
“I don’t trust the Lib Dems and I am not sure Labour’s got it together either, I have not heard anything from a Labour MP that has captivated me.”
