Bedroom Tax Blamed For Woman's Suicide

[Jazzy]

A woman who committed suicide left a note blaming the Government's so-called bedroom tax for her death.

Stephanie Bottrill, who killed herself earlier this month, wrote in her final letter: "I don't [blame] anyone for me death expect [sic] the government."

Her son Steven, 27, said she was struggling to cope after being told to pay £20-a-week extra for two under-occupied bedrooms at her home in Solihull.

He told the Sunday People: "I couldn't believe it. She said not to blame ourselves, it was the Government and what they were doing that caused her to do it.

"She was fine before this bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people living in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum."

Ms Bottrill died 10 days ago. She was 53.

In the days running up to her death she had told neighbours: "I can't afford to live any more."

Describing her case as a "tragedy", shadow chancellor Ed Balls told Sky News' Murnaghan programme the bedroom tax was "driving people to the edge of despair in their many thousands across the country".

Solihull Council Labour group leader David Jamieson, who knows the family, said: "I'm absolutely appalled this poor lady has taken her own life because she was worried how she would pay the bedroom tax.

"I hope the Government will sit up and take notice and reconsider this policy."

The bedroom tax means people of a working age in social housing who have a spare bedroom will find housing benefit claims reduced by £40 to £80 a month.

Ms Bottrill had lived in her £320-a-month home for 18 years as she raised her son and daughter, but she could not cope with the extra £80 she had to find every month.

Mr Bottrill said his mother wanted to work, but there was no way she could.

As a child she was diagnosed with the auto-immune system deficiency, Myasthenia gravis.

The illness made her weak and she had to take constant medication.

Doctors had told her she was too ill to hold down a job, but she had never been registered as disabled, so she lived without disability benefit.

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Here in the U.S., we don't have such a tax. I don't understand this bedroom tax. Do you?

 

[Andrew Darmac]

I figure it's something to do with living space in Britain being at a premium versus the U.S having plenty of space still for expansion.

That doesn't make it right, however.

 

[Jazzy]

After reading it again I think because she had two spare bedrooms she had to pay an extra $80 a month. What was she supposed to do, rent them out to strangers?