‘I feel like I’m failing as a mother’: Woman and daughter face eviction after moved between temporary accommodation by council for 11 years

A woman and her daughter have been moved between temporary accommodation with broken locks, mould, damp and a broken boiler for the past 11 years.

Jamila Dwyer, 29, who currently lives in Adil Court, High Street in Bromley said that constantly being moved has seriously affected her daughter’s emotional well-being.

Ms Dwyer’s daughter, Amirah Dwyer is 11 years-old and has grown up moving between temporary accommodation.

She said: “It’s got to the point where my daughter is behind at school because we’re constantly moving around.

“My daughter can’t get attached to people, she can’t make friends.

“Every time she goes to a school she gets ready to move.

“I feel like I’m failing as a mother.

“Lambeth has done nothing, they don’t care about what we’re going through.”

Ms Dwyer and her daughter were first housed in temporary accommodation by Lambeth council in 2011. At the time Ms Dwyer was 18 years old and her daughter was a newborn.

She said: “Since then it’s gone back and forth, I’ve been moved between hostels and flats where the conditions are awful.

“They put me in a hostel in Acre Lane in Brixton that was terrible, it had bars on the windows, it was like a prison.” 

After Brixton, Ms Dwyer was moved to a property in West Norwood.

She said: “The conditions were terrible there, too. The door lock was broken, the windows did not have locks and cupboards were falling down.

“I got broken into one time, then the council moved me to Streatham.”

In Streatham, Ms Dwyer and her daughter were moved into a hostel. She said she felt unsafe because of the other tenants in the property.

She said: “I told the council I was scared when I went to the toilet but they wouldn’t do anything.”

In 2021 Ms Dwyer moved into a flat in New Cross. When she arrived, she said there was damp, water damage and no boiler.

She said: “The council emailed me promising it would all be fixed.

“They said things weren’t done because of setbacks over Covid.

“We didn’t have a boiler for four months. I went back and forth with the council and they just kept saying the landlord was refusing to do the work.”

That same year, the council moved Ms Dwyer and her daughter to their current address in Bromley.

She was moved into the private rental sector by the council which means she has to renegotiate her tenancy-which can be between 12 months and two years-directly with the landlord, not the council.

Now Ms Dwyer and her daughter face eviction as her lease is coming to an end and the landlord has asked for the property back.

She said: “I don’t understand why we have to live like this.”

A spokesman from Lambeth council said: “We do all we can to find the most suitable accommodation for the 4,000 homeless families in Lambeth that we provide temporary accommodation for every night. Where there are issues with this housing we do all we can to address them.

“We apologise to Ms Dwyer for the very difficult situation she faces as a result of her landlord deciding to sell the property she lives in, and the shortage of council homes that we could house her in. However, we are working to find her a new and suitable home as soon as possible.”

Pictured top: Jamila Dwyer and an overgrown property she was offered by the council (Picture: Jamila Dwyer)