TAXPAYERS are paying for a single mother and her nine-month-old baby to stay in a three-star hotel after they were made homeless.
Lisa Bowman, who was evicted from her flat two weeks ago, is being forced to stay at the £60-a-night Miami Hotel. Chelmsford City Council cannot find her alternative accommodation, because there are already more than 4,000 people waiting for a home locally.
The authority expects that changes to the welfare system, introduced this month by the Government, will force more families from their homes.
It has even set aside £1.6 million to buy emergency properties in a bid to avoid families staying in "expensive" B&Bs.
"I'll be getting less money now because all my benefits will be affected, on top of everything else that I've been going through," said 33-year-old Lisa, who could not be rehomed until she had applied for an eviction notice from the county court.
"It is not good timing for me really. I did not plan to be in this position and it is not great."
She is forced to share a single bed with nine-month-old Alfie.
"I don't want to be without a job, on benefits," said Lisa, whose maternity pay from her job at an electrical wholesalers stopped on Sunday.
"I can't raise my child in a hotel, it's ridiculous.
"We just need a proper home where we can relax and get everything sorted."
Full story pages 4&5
BEHIND THE STORYLOADING the last boxes of toys, bedding and a push chair into a van, this is the moment mother-of-one Lisa Bowman was evicted from her one-bedroom flat in Springfield.
Handing the keys over to the bailiff in the empty room, Lisa burst into tears and embraced her landlord as the reality of the situation hit home.
Her life in disarray, the 33-year-old claims she has been asking Chelmsford City Council since May 2012 to help her find a flat but to no avail.
Also, with her benefits set to be cut after the welfare reforms, she will be receiving less child benefit and child tax credits as a result of the changes introduced on April 1.
"I have been to the job centre to apply for Income Support, but that is not going to come in for another three or four weeks," she said.
"It is not great that there have been reforms, because in my position I need all the funds I can get."
Lisa cannot move into another private rented flat because she needs a guarantor to be earning over £25,000, but knows no-one.
She also had to clear her debts with help from the credit consumer counselling service, (CCCS), which stops her from borrowing money.
Lisa's landlord wanted to sell her flat so she needed to move out, but with nowhere to live and still no word from the council about accommodation she is forced to stay at the city's Miami Hotel with her baby, Alfie, nine months. This was arranged as a short-term solution by Chelmsford City Council.
She said: "I told the council I have got nowhere to go, but they said I have to wait as other people have more needs than me. The hotel situation is diabolical, my son has already cut his foot on splinters and I had to wash him in his toy box because there is no bath.
"I have just been in floods and floods of tears.
"We could be moved to another temporary place, but I don't want to have to keep uprooting my son.
"We will probably be living on takeaways which is not healthy and very expensive – we cannot live like this.
"If it was just me alone I wouldn't care, I'd sleep in the bus shelter, but I wouldn't with Alfie, he would freeze."
Lisa had to give up her full-time job as a purchasing assistant at electrical wholesalers, BEW, in Chelmsford, when she had Alfie.
Her housing benefits have stopped, and she relies on her milk vouchers, child tax credits and maternity pay, which stopped on Sunday, to survive.
"Now I am going to be a homeless, single mum on benefits and that is not who I am," said Lisa. "I have worked hard all my life and this kind of situation should not be happening to me.
"I have been put on the waiting list for the Chelmer Housing Partnership, but one day they tell me I am fourth on the waiting list and the next I am 150th.
"I just burst into tears at the council, my son has never seen me like that.
"I am a nice person and I am a professional woman. I shouldn't be treated like this, my human rights and my son's human rights are being violated."
Landlord Stephen Button is outraged by the way Lisa has been treated, and said if he could afford a two-bedroom place for her he would buy it.
The process has even cost him £530 in court fees, which he paid for when the council asked him to take the case to court so Lisa could be declared officially homeless, something he says could have been avoided.
"No one would want to be in a hotel with a baby, it is disgusting," he said.
"There is no way the system is fair, it is disgraceful," said Stephen, 59, from Felsted.
"She has been a brilliant tenant and left this place immaculate; she does not deserve all this."
COUNCIL RESPONSEA Chelmsford City Council spokesman said: "We are unable to discuss individual cases in detail. "However, we can confirm that Lisa Bowman has made a homelessness application to this authority which has been agreed under the homelessness legislation.
"Miss Bowman also has a live housing register application, which has been given a high degree of priority.
"Miss Bowman has also been offered assistance by the city council to access privately rented accommodation as part of the targeted housing advice and assistance we offer to every household who makes an approach to us because they are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
"All households are encouraged to pursue accommodation through the private sector, as well as socially rented accommodation, due to the severe shortage of available social housing."
