OK, Eve, so you are fixated on this whole B&B issue and not anything else in this 'story' that just doesn't seem to add up to so many posting here.
Let me tell you something about the people on this board.
In November, 2011, my daughter, the eldest of our 3, then age 8, had a bruise that went vastly awry. New to FB but not to MN (I have been on MN since 2004), nearly all my friends then bar family members, were MNers. I posted a photo of this bruise, asking if I should ask emergency appointment to GP.
The overwhelming answer was yes.
Suffice it to say, less than 3 days later, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and admitted to the nearest childrens' hospital to our rural home. This is at least 2 hours away from our home.
We had two younger children, one of whom is autistic.
We had nothing. No property to sell, never had, no savings, no pension or annuity, my husband a zero hours job he worked all the hours God sends, ineligible for benefits if he left voluntarily, which he had to do as his parents were 100 miles away and in very ill health and mine are abroad so no one to help look after our autistic son, then age 3 and little daughter who was 6, until the 3 months had passed for her to qualify for DLA (it is 3 months unless they are terminal. Ironically, she died 7 months and 29 days following her diagnosis, living less than many who were diagnosed terminal at the outset).
CLICSargent (Ronald McDonald house would not take us as we were onco and there was CLIC house) offered us a room after a month's wait. Our son with his condition pulled the room apart by 2am. Shared housing is unsuitable.
There was no B&B that allowed guests to use the washing machine. Really? I had to put my daughter's vomit-covered clothes (chemo makes people sick) in a suitcase and roll it all a mile away to the nearest laundrette. That place, when I rang them after months of using self-serve, to ask if they had a pick-up service, because my child was in ICU, she asked me why. And I told her in tears. You want to talk charity? The company van came and collected, wouldn't take any money though I offered.
The people on this board came through.
They helped. Food, company, help. It wasn't £9200 or anywhere near it was worth far more. They were there. They brought food, they helped.
Our daughter died on 7 July 2012. Her funeral and wake was like an MN meetup. It really was. People were there, all through it.
You want to know what gets peoples' backs up about this 'story'?
Not the whole B&B issue, but that there are many, many people on this board who live hand-to-mouth, working, carers, the disabled, those who have never had the chance to gain qualifications like this couple, much less house after house, deal after deal and hundreds of thousands of pounds at their disposal to secure accommodation. People who work in the NHS or the council who cannot afford to privately rent FA in tens of miles of their work, threatened homeless and homeless. Young people leaving care who have had the life of shit. Women who have never known anything but abuse and rape.
And £1400/month? Eligible for assistance, but come on like some great big sob story?
For real?
If you spent any length of time here, and read even Food/Recipes threads here, you would see what a great, big, ugly slap in the face it is for A LOT of people here.
One person said we should feel ashamed?
FUCK that! What a shame, how things have become, for the disabled and carers in this country, of which this couple are neither. What a shame, how budgets are slashed for, and how marginalised have become, the disabled and sick here.
These people are not needy.