What’s more terrifying than finding out your life-saving surgery is no longer available to you in your adopted city of Prague?
It’s knowing you’ll have to take on the UK rental market.
Indeed, my first thought, when my doctor threw up his hands and told me, incorrectly, that this was the best quality of life I could hope for, wasn’t: “How am I going to manage?” It was: “We’re going to have to go back to the UK. I hope we don’t end up homeless.”
This is not an irrational fear. I spent a lot of my childhood and teens “temporarily homeless” – the name given to families who weren’t sleeping on the street but were living in unsafe, unsuitable single rooms in homeless hostels. And it has only become worse, with less social housing to go around and a frankly terrifying private market. Year on year, the average monthly rent in Scotland rose by 8.5%, and homes stayed on the market for around just 20 days.
When I wrote a short film, Hannah, on poverty for the BBC series Skint, about the plight of a young family with a toddler finding themselves homeless, I never imagined I’d be facing similar challenges only a few months later.
Desperate to avoid the precarity of the UK rental system
I’ve rented since my teens. In 24 years, I’ve never missed a rental payment. I have what many would consider a fairly successful career, as does my husband, and yet we would still not be desirable tenants. I’m a freelancer and we have our cat, a well-behaved old rescue dog, a slightly less well-behaved toddler.
I’m fully aware of how tough it is for anyone who’s not a child-free, young professional couple with an unblemished credit score to find a home. Almost as though private landlords don’t want to rent to humans, but to convenient entities that will pay their mortgage each month with minimal fuss.
When we arrived in Prague two and a half years ago, we were astounded to find that there were no competitive open viewings, credit checks, bank statements or references demanded. The owner met you and, if they liked you and you liked the flat, then it was yours. I still remember our giddy relief as we walked around viewing homes.
I was desperate to avoid the precarity of the UK rental system again. But, I still need life-saving and progressive treatment that’s only available to me in the UK. I have a little boy who needs a healthy mum. So, I need to come home. I consider myself extremely lucky to have the option.
I’m ready to come home
In a race against time with my failing body, I decided to completely avoid letting agents with their added-on fees and ongoing hoops to jump through. Instead, I wrote an ad for social media, explaining that I had to come home for medical treatment.
We weren’t fussy: we threw the net across the whole of the UK. Anywhere where there was a big hospital for urgent care and reasonable rail or air access to London to see my specialist.
Within three days, it had been viewed 122,000 times on Twitter, and we had leads from kind people wanting to help in Durham, Norwich and Glasgow.
We chose a tenement flat in Glasgow, rented to us by a lovely couple going overseas for a year. I picked Glasgow because I’m ready to come properly home. I love the idea of my son growing up with a Scottish accent, and having the same cultural touch points: he’ll know sausage should be square, and he’ll learn Burns and the wild beauty of the Scottish coast and country.
Yes, so much more needs to be done, but I’m trying to be optimistic
I also want to be active in the local community and in local politics. I want to contribute to society in a way that, as an immigrant with a language barrier, is difficult here in Prague.
Promising positive changes
I’m aware of how lucky we are. Not everyone could choose any city in the UK. Not everyone has a load of good-hearted strangers on the internet who’ll go to bat for them. I’m well aware there are many struggling. Indeed, two other friends, successful people, have struggled for months to find homes to rent – both have children and pets.
I do see positive changes. When I got my contract, I was surprised to see there’s now only a 28-day notice period so tenants will never be trapped into paying rent for something they can’t afford.
I was also impressed by the mid-market rental scheme, designed for those who don’t qualify for social housing but who are excluded from the current booming private rentals. And Homes for Good, Scotland’s only private sector lettings agency specialising in homes for people on low incomes or benefits.
There is hope. We all know what the problems are with accessibility to housing, but I think they are now actually being truly acknowledged.
Yes, so much more needs to be done, but I’m trying to be optimistic. Because I’m moving back with my whole family, and I want to know we can build a life in Scotland, even if we’re never able to buy.
Because housing is a human right, and I don’t want my son, or anyone’s child, to be terrified every time they need to find a home.
Kerry Hudson is an Aberdeen-born, award-winning writer of novels, memoirs and screenplays. She lives in Prague with her husband, toddler and an angry black cat
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