We were made aware of a family, Mum, Dad, and four of their children, struggling to keep their heads above water and not lose their home. They had been given two weeks notice of eviction, and had to raise £650, which were the arrears on the rent, in order to prevent this from happening. The mother is disabled and has been unable to claim employment support allowance previously as the husband has been working which wouldn’t allow this. Earlier last year the husband had surgery he had been waiting some time for on his back and was forced to go on to sickness benefits. He retrained afterwards as a lorry driver and was all set to go back to work, but was thwarted in his attempts when he was knocked off his motorbike. This meant he was back on sickness benefits again. With the introduction of Universal Credit, it means that many people go weeks before any money actually arrives in their bank accounts, from which they need to pay their rent, so this only served to mean there were huge gaps in their payments. Their attempts to claim for any financial help are made worse by the fact that their older sons are working jobs on minimum wage, so as non dependant adults, any housing benefit is seriously reduced. This meant that the boys money was literally keeping the family afloat, paying for the rent, council tax, bills and food. A fundraiser was put together to help the family, and £450 of the amount needed was raised that way, by donations offered by friends, family and complete strangers, that simply wanted to help. The Biscuit Fund stepped in and offered the outstanding £200 towards the final sum. This helped to prevent the whole family being made homeless as well as their two elderly dogs and their cats.