Essex charity warns cost of living crisis may cause cancer patients to lose their homes
It's feared they won't be able to cover costs because they're unable to work
An Essex based charity which helps families of cancer patients with housing costs whilst they undergo treatment has warned the cost of living crisis may lead to some losing their homes.
The Tom Bowdidge Youth Cancer Foundation, based in Colchester, assists teenagers and young people fighting cancer.
One way they do this is by offering grants to cancer patients and their families to help cover housing, or equipment costs, whilst they undergo treatment.
Nikki Bowdidge, the charity's CEO says there are lots of costs when fighting cancer that many may not have considered: "The cost of a cancer diagnosis in a family is around ÂŁ600-ÂŁ700 outright, and then often, one of the parents will have to give up work to care for the child.
"Then there's also single parents who are the sole carer for their child, who are forced to stop working and suddenly have no income coming in... They might have to pay out extra childcare because they've got other children who need to be looked after.
"You've also got patients be at home resting more, meaning there's more electricity, heating, and gas being used."
At the best of times, these extra costs can cause families to struggle, but when you combine it with the current cost of living crisis, Nikki says more families are being impacted and asking the foundation for help everyday: "From the pandemic, applications rose by 1300% and they're continuing...
"The most heart-breaking thing is that I have parents that are asking: shall I feed the children this week? Shall I pay for the transport to and from hospital this week? Or shall I heat us and keep us warm for the week?
"Whilst the cost of living crisis is affecting all of us, for our young cancer patient families, it's doubly worse.
"I've got a young single dad who's had to stop work to look after his son who has cancer and he is going to lose his house because the mortgage can't be paid for. That means whilst he's facing the potential loss of his son, he's also facing homelessness as well."
The foundation is able to help short-term, in cases like this, but not for long periods of time, as they just don't have the money: "There is always a limit to what we can do... for anybody who needs us to help with their mortgage or their their rent, we might be able to help for a few months to give them time to get other grants or benefits in place."
Nikki says the charity do their best to help everyone, but the crisis has led to some tough decisions: "At the moment I'm having to sift through applications to find those in dire need as opposed to those that we perhaps would normally would help, who may have a way out or be in slightly less of a crisis.
"In the past, pretty much everybody that came to us, we could help, but knowing that it's going to get even harder in the next few weeks we've had to pick and choose because we've got to be ready for an even bigger onslaught of applications as the fuel cap is lifted."
Alongside assisting with housing payments, the charity also provide furniture and white goods for patients, many of whom are in their early twenties and may have young families.
Nikki once again highlights the importance of the foundation's assistance during the cost of living crisis: "We had a young girl, she's 23, with two young children under 5 who had to go to her mum's every night to get food as she couldn't afford an oven.
"She asked if we could just buy her an oven so that she could feed her children healthy food... I'm totally aware that so many of us are struggling ourselves, but she had the added thing that she'd got cancer - she's trying to look after her young children, and can't even cook them a meal...
"We're helping another young mum at the moment who's on palliative care. She's got a 2 year old little girl and her bed is so uncomfortable, because when you have chemotherapy, your bones and your joints hurt so much they swell and get really uncomfortable, and the bed that she's got is really unfit for her.
"We bought her a basic bed with a really comfortable mattress, and now she can just lie there and rest and watch her two year old... she hasn't got that long left, so you want that period she has left with her daughter to just be as comfortable as possible, so she can make those last memories in comfort."
She encourages anyone who's struggling to get in touch with them at their website: "Your your sole focus should be on the treatment that you or your child is getting. That's all you should need to worry about, without having to sit there thinking: how will we pay the bills Will I have a house when I get back home?"