The “depressed” Sube family…
From Express UK: Arnold and Jeanne Sube, originally from Cameroon in west Africa, live in a three-bed semi costing the state more than £15,000 a year. But when Luton council came up with the extra two bedrooms, the couple insisted the house on offer was still not big enough.
Labour councillor Tom Shaw said: “People have to realize we are in the middle of a national housing crisis. We have more than 10,000 people on the waiting list and 1,000 in temporary accommodation. “
“This family are living in a large three-bed house. We managed to find them a large four-bed house and then a five-bed, which they turned down. We can’t be any more sympathetic. We can’t just magic the property people want out of thin air.”
A five-bedroom, tax-payer provided home is just too small
Michael Garrett, Tory leader on the council, added: “There are not many five-bedroom council houses in Luton and they were lucky to be offered one. I haven’t a lot of sympathy for them.”
Student Mr. Sube, 33, moved his family to Britain from Paris four years ago. He has children aged from three months to 16. The oldest is Mejane, followed by Fabian and Analia, both 13, ten-year-old Prosper, nine-year old Dylan, six-year-old twins Sharon and Stacy and the youngest, Mary.
They live in Bletchley, Beds, in a home that boasts a large flat-screen TV with Sky HD, plus a TV and X-Box console in the children’s rooms.
The larger home offered to them is in nearby Luton. Mr. Sube, who studies mental health nursing at the University of Bedfordshire, rejected it because there “wasn’t space for the things of ten people”.
He added: “Me and my family have been neglected. We are in a three-bedroom house. It’s so cramped and the conditions are terrible. The council is trying to make things hard for us. My wife is a full-time mother and I am a student. “They’re just making excuses. We need a five or six-bedroom house with double rooms to comfortably fit in.”
“We have developed depression, anxiety, which we were on medication for. The area is the worst I have lived in. This is the worst house.”
Before their present home the family were put up in a hotel for four months and then given a five-bed home but they were evicted.
A Luton Borough Council spokesman said: “We managed to find Mr. and Mrs. Sube affordable housing large enough to house them and their children. If declined without, what we judge, good reason, then we will offer the property to another family.”
DCG