Homeless, pregnant and not 'British Citizen'

[valencia88]

Hello,

I have been here for 9 years, working most of the time, but apparently thet cant find evidence to support this so I can not apply for any help or income support but JSA Contribution for 6 months.

I have been kicked out of my flatshare, cause babies arent allowed, I'm due in 3 months - what rights do I have?

I have already been down this road of collecting a hundred millions different documents p45, p60s to show how much tax I have paid over the years, but to no avail.

I am NOT with the dad who is a British Citizen. I am staying in a woman's living room I met through church and I need to leave her and her house alone but cannot get a job as no one wants to employ a pregnant woman.

I have a swedish passport so I have the right to live here but nothing else. What happens when my daughter comes, will I still be homeless? The council is saying they cannot provide me with housing unless I have an "INCOME" and contribution ESA/JSA does not count.

I honestly have NO idea what to do.

If you’ve been working why can’t you get statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance?

If you’ve been paying £500+ pcm tax for 9 years here in your 30s/40s why don’t you have a penny to your name for a deposit?

Are you actually applying for jobs? It’s hard but not impossible to get one when heavily pregnant.

Could you do some cash in hand Swedish tutoring to tide you over?

If you are broke and want to stay in the U.K. London is the worst possible place to be! Would you consider a temp move somewhere cheaper?

“I recently claimed UC due to redundancy, contributions based I received £73 a week. My council tax was £110+, then I had all my other bills to pay. That was after decades of working and paying NI and tax. With young children there are more funds made available. That is the reality ! I was fortunate to find employment quickly.”

That was the reality for you and your circumstances. The amount you get depends on a lot of different things.

You keep repeating that you want to know what responsibility the council will take towards you child, but that would terrify me. Homeless and jobless? Father surely a better prospect for raising the baby. Or foster care. And once the baby is born with his father’s name on the bc, youll have far fewer options.

These guys offer support in desperate situations www.svenskakyrkan.se/london/socialt

Just a thought: you should be able to get replacement P60 forms, might be worth trying if that could help your case? Good luck OP x

Your NI number will be on every pay slip you've ever had OP. You can use that to get a record of tax you've paid.

Re UK has made me pay tax and NI for years but will do nothing for me in return
Tax is not an insurance policy agains you falling into adverse circumstances.

But the child will be British, are they going to let a British baby be homeless? Will it?

The 10 years that has passed since I moved here I have been working the most of, rest of them I have travelled Asia, South America in long periods of time, have had good jobs and saved a lot of cash to go and live a little which I am now going to have to pay for
So you haven't lived in the UK for 10 years.
You can't just rock up and expect all the benefits available to a citizen, or someone consistently domicile here.

In the nicest possible way, go back to Sweden.

You can't not have a nationality. It's a basic human right. The best thing you can do is go back to Sweden and seek legal advise if your government refuses to help you. You are just wasting time in Britain. I say this as a forgeiner who had children in Britain. If you can't depend on the father to help you you need to go back to your country of citizenship to get help from the government. None will be forthcoming from the British government.

Another Emma, sadly as a benefits advisor in my past I have seen cases like this hundreds of times. With EU citizens who have been here for decades, but only have limited contributions or no means of supporting themselves.

It's the harsh and cruel reality of the system, you never get back what you paid in. I've dealt with people who have worked for 40 years and end up homeless. It's horrific. But a immigration solicitor isn't going to be able to overhaul the UC system, or ask for extra help.

It's a horrific situation to be in and I wouldn't wish it in anyone, but without a British passport this poor OP has very few options.

I'm sorry if you've already said, but what were you in employment when you got pregnant?

Is it that you think you meet the criteria but can't evidence it as lost p60, p45s (I'm sure DWP keep their own records and I'd get specialist immigration help to help you evidence it asap) or that you don't meet their criteria due to time spent travelling overseas? If the latter then however morally unfair it seems, the UK government unfortunately are unlikely to be flexible.

Can you afford to see a solicitor knowledgable in this area, will the father of your child support you by paying for this?

Be aware that if you do change your mind and want to travel to sweden later, there is a limit to how late you are allowed to fly in pregnancy. And once the father is listed on the birth certificate he can prevent you taking baby overseas if you later want/ need to move.

If you haven't had experience of UK benefits and council housing options I'd look at this now. Just that having grown up in Sweden you may be expecting the government to provide more. I live in central London and I know of mums of newborns living in cramped unsavoury B&Bs for weeks/ months until council housing outside that area was offered (as council can't provide anything locally, some were sent outside London completely). Some of these mums had factors that made them even more vulnerable, yet this was all the council could provide for them.

Also childcare is very expensive and hard to get flexibility e.g. if you work shifts or need a long day for commuting time. you may find it hard to afford to return to work and be dependent on child maintenance and benefits for some time.

Sorry I don't want to be unduly negative but if you haven't had experience of these aspects of UK life before you may be surprised by how little is offered.

There is a Swedish church in south east London, you are prob aware of it already, but if not this may be a source of support.

“But a immigration solicitor isn't going to be able to overhaul the UC system, or ask for extra help.”

FFS that is not what I said. All I said was that she needs to speak to an immigration adviser to find out whether she has any chance of getting permanent residency, given that it’s already been refused. If she doesn’t, then she’ll have to consider her options. But going back to Sweden isn’t her only option. For example, if she managed to get another job (difficult but not impossible) she would have the right to reside and the associated right to apply for social housing and housing benefit.

(Sorry to talk about you in the third person OP!)

If the father is registered on the birth certificate, the authorities could well place the baby with him or his parents as an alternative to foster care. And even if that didn’t happen, the father will still be entitled to go to court to seek to prevent the OP from removing the child from the uk at any point in the future. The risks of remaining in the UK are huge.
FWIW a friend who is British and has a baby and has lived in the same locality her whole life became homeless, asked for assistance, and was offered a room in a hostel some 35 miles away: this is standard now, I think.

A PP made a good point about maternity pay. OP, have you checked whether you will be eligible for Maternity Allowance? That’s based on NI contributions so you may well get it. Not that it would solve the problem with right to reside, housing and housing benefit...

I am reading into the fact that the OP states she will no longer be a Swedish citizen after two years elapsed, and she does not want to return to Sweden, that in fact she was a refugee/asylum seeker, and only in Sweden for a short time, hence no roots/ family there.
Is this the case OP?

I am afraid that British citizenship for your baby isn't automatic, as you aren't married.

You really need to see an immigration lawyer asap that can advise with the full details of your situation taken into account, because there's no way anyone on here can say what is what.
I assume you're in a UC area now?

Another Emma but OP doesn't have months to go through this. She needs a pretty much immediate solution as I believe her baby is due in 3 or so months time.

She could return to Sweden to have her baby where she will be cared for by the Swedish government and then fight her battle to return to the UK as a citizen. But in the space of 12-16 weeks she isn't realistically going to be able to do that sadly.

OP can't risk being turfed out from a hospital homeless because she risks SS intervening and possibly taking baby in to care or they both end up in a grotty B&B destitute.

Also if OP has no funds to house herself where is she going to get the money for a immigration solicitor and the fees associated with applying for citizenship?

In 6 months time free movement will still exist. Why not return to Sweden have the baby, stock pile any possible funds and then take on the citizenship battle and return to the UK?

that in fact she was a refugee/asylum seeker, and only in Sweden for a short time, hence no roots/ family there.
Is this the case OP?

if you are an asylum seeker, return to the local authority and ask for designated asylum seeker accommodation.

If you are a refugee, try contacting "refugees at home"

Neither is a good option, I'm afraid. Asylum seekers are only accommodated whilst their case is resolved, not when they become refugees.

can you try to set up a government gateway account that should show you all your documents x

She doesn’t need to apply for citizenship! She “just” needs a permanent residence card.

But then everyone’s an expert aren’t they 🙄

@AnotherEmma Permanent Residency Status (PR) is based on being a member of the EU.

PR cards are not valid from December 2020. (According to give.co.uk)

PR status is essential the first step to citizenship - There's no point in applying for PR with Brexit looming if your not going to apply for Citizenship.

It's not as simple as having PR - People will need to applying for the new 'settled status' but what that actually means no one knows....

Also worth bearing in mind you need to have health insurance if not working and wanting to claim our self sufficient which in your qualifying 5 years prior to applying for PR....

The whole system is hugely complicated and most definitely not as simple as applying for Permanent Residency Status.

You have a Swedish passport so you must still be a Swedish citizen.

Your country can't just disown you and effectively make you stateless.

I gather Sweden is much more generous with welfare, or was. The UK isn’t the same. I wouldn’t expect the same. And the child is normally designated the nationality of the mother. It doesn’t usually matter where you are born.
You have some excellent advice on this thread but need to think about your child’s future in a more organised manner.

“There's no point in applying for PR with Brexit looming if your not going to apply for Citizenship.”

I disagree.

No one knows exactly what’s going to happen for EEA Citizens who are already settled in the uk. There are various predictions and opinions. But I personally think it’s highly unlikely that they’re all going to be turfed out of the country in 2020 or at any other time for that matter. We still have to wait and see what’s going to happen with Brexit and in the meantime a permanent residency card is helpful.

It certainly would be helpful to the OP if she could get one!

You have not lost your Swedish citizenship. You will no longer count as "habitually resident" in Sweden which will affect your rights to support there.

It would be totally illegal under international law to strip citizenship from someone and leave them with no citizenship just because they leave the country for 2 years. You can lose Swedish citizenship if you were born outside Sweden, have dual nationality with another country and reach the age of 22 without visiting or forming any bonds to Sweden - but I don't think that applies to you.

Gaining British citizenship for your child is important but will not give you any additional rights. The British citizenship for your child will only be to ensure that your child isn't expelled to Sweden at the age of 18. Before the age of 18 the obligations of the state to all children will apply - if you have no means to support your baby and keep him/her safe then the state will take him/her into care. This could be a temporary thing - you are obviously capable of earning a living. If your child was in foster care you could presumably get a job and start renting a home and assuming your earnings were sufficient for covering childcare it ought to be relatively simple to have your child returned to you. I get that this would be utterly heartbreaking and awful but if you simply do not have the right to state support then the needs to the child will come first.

However, you may qualify for Maternity Allowance - once you can access your NI records you just need to show that you contributed at least £30 per week for at least 26 weeks in the 66 weeks prior to the expected due date (ie 6 months out of the last 15 months) - they don't have to be in a single unbroken period. You can start claiming MA now (you can claim for 39 weeks) and that will give you an income which should allow you to be housed.

You need to go back to Sweden and get help there.

“You can start claiming MA now (you can claim for 39 weeks) and that will give you an income which should allow you to be housed.”

No it won’t. Maternity Allowance is about £140/week which obviously isn’t enough to cover rent as well as food and bills. A single mother on Maternity Allowance would usually be able to claim Housing Benefit to help with rent, but the OP can’t claim it if she doesn’t have the right to reside (or can’t prove that she does).

Benefits for EEA Citizens are pretty complicated and I wish everyone would stop giving incorrect advice.

OP this thread is annoying me now so I’m going to avoid it for a bit. If you do contact Citizens Advice I hope they are helpful. Feel free to PM me if you want.