Our campaign to tackle racism in housing

Home is your stepping stone. To a better job. To a better quality of life. To a better mental state.

Why should people be discriminated against when that's all they want? It's just a basic necessity.

That's the way I see it; that racial discrimination is just somebody taking away your powers from you and stopping you from being all that you can be.

I have experienced racial discrimination in my quest to access social housing. My experience is of 15 years on the housing register with my two boys.

Before that, I was living with a boyfriend and it became an abusive relationship, so I had to remove myself from that, and I was actually in a hostel.

In 2007, I registered onto the housing list and it brought me to where I was bidding every Wednesday night at midnight for the next 15 years.

There could be a better way to do this that won't have long-lasting effects afterwards.

Because even now, 15 years later, why should I still be waking up on Wednesdays at midnight?

But it's still stuck in my head because it's just ingrained in me now. It's a form of PTSD that I have from having to do that all those years.

It's like I'm trained to do it now.

So, getting a social home after 15 years... My own bedroom, my kids with their own bedrooms, that was so amazing. A nice big kitchen, because I love to cook as well.

It was– is an amazing feeling.

But it's like, yes, I've been rehoused, but you have to think about where you've been rehoused to and what's going on in that community.

And the community that I live in now there is a problem with grooming. A problem with exploitation.

You don't want to be a sore thumb and be sticking out, you’re just like, you know what, let me just lay low. I don't want to start any trouble, because I know what's going to happen.

Because you can feel that – it goes back to the slippery discrimination thing, it goes back to that – you can feel it.

They're just not saying it, but you can feel the undercurrents of it. And that's where it got to me questioning what is it about me?

Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because I'm black? Is it because I'm a single mum?

I wish there was more of us that are exposing this injustice.

The council's mindset needs to change. Perspective needs to change.

And I think when it comes to you having a job that can change people's lives, that can impact people's lives, I think you need to be a bit more empathetic towards people’s needs.

A bit more sensitive and not make your job just a job.

Make it something that you know is going to change someone's life for the better, not for the worse.

The main thing I would say to people who are out there going through similar situations trying to access social housing, either for themselves, or for their family or growing family, is don't give up.

Just don't look down. When you have the dark days and you don't want to get out of bed, you need something that'll make you get out of bed.

Find it.