Benefits cap mum fears family may end up on street after £82 cut from weekly payments

She is now struggling to make ends meet and has already been threatened with eviction from her home after running up rent arrears

Big family: Maria Buchan and her children in three-bedroom house

A single mum-of-eight fears her children may end up on the street after her benefits were capped at £500-a-week.

Marie Buchan received a total of £582 until the weekly sum was cut earlier this year.

The 31-year-old said she now struggled to make ends meet and had already been threatened with eviction from her three-bedroom home after running up rent arrears of £2,000.

"The benefit cap has hit me hard - money is very tight," Marie said.

"I am £82-a-week worse off and, when you have eight children, every penny counts.

"I don't waste my money. Everything goes on my children. It is tough bringing up eight children on your own, a constant battle.

"I feel the threat of eviction all the time. I have already been to court once due to rent arrears and I fear I may be dragged there again.

"I am scrimping and saving to try to get the arrears down but it is very difficult."

Marie used to receive £385 in child tax credit, £100 child benefit and £97 income support.

But the cap, rolled out from July in a move the Department for Work and Pensions said would "restore fairness to the welfare state", limited her benefits to GBP500-a-week.

Marie is a tenant of Bournville Village Trust and lives in Selly Oak, Birmingham.

Family: Maria's children range in age from 12 to two-months and are all the product of one relationship

Her children range in age from 12 to two-months and are all the product of one relationship, which has now ended.

They are Tia, 12, Leah, 11, Latoya, eight, Joshua, seven, Alisha, five, Mikayla, three, Amelia, two, and two-month-old Olivia.

Marie sleeps with three of her children in one bedroom while another three share a second room and Joshua has the third to himself.

She has been fighting to win a move to a five-bedroom home.

And her financial worries increased when she received ten bus lane fines, totalling GBP600, as she took Olivia, who was suffering from bronchiolitis, to Birmingham Children's Hospital.

She received five fines on October 5, three the following day and two more on October 12 as she travelled down Priory Queensway, in Birmingham city centre.

A Department For Work and Pensions spokesman said: "The benefit cap sets a fair limit to what people can expect to get from the welfare system.

"Claimants cannot receive more than GBP500 a week, the average household earnings.

"We have been working with claimants for 18 months to help them prepare for the cap.

"Already 18,000 people potentially affected have been helped into work, as those receiving working tax credits are exempt."

Bournville Village Trust spokesman said it had just five properties with five bedrooms on its books - and all were occupied.

A spokesman said: "It is normal policy for social housing landlords not to transfer households to larger properties when there are rent arrears, especially of this level."

Mirror