Mum wants a chance to find a home

"It's been quite a rough road, and it's been very emotional and distressing. I feel like I haven't been given a fair go...”

HOUSING CRISIS: Nikita, Lindsay and Zerelle Daley, Stacey Cutmore, Damian, Lindsay, Jaymarn and Tyjarn Daley with Ambar Daley absent- looking for housing. Picture: Adam Hourigan Photography

ALL Stacey Cutmore wants is a chance. A chance for herself, a chance for her partner and a chance for her seven kids to have a home in which they can grow up.

For the past seven months, Stacey and her partner Lindsay Daley have been searching for a rental property but have inspected and applied for more than 80 properties without success.

To add more stress, Stacey is now in the hospital delivering her eighth child, and doesn't know if she will have a home to return to.

Stacey said her family's housing crisis began after she and Mr Daley completed a three-month stint in a rehabilitation centre and moved to Grafton to be with their kids, who had been with her mother, Pamela Cutmore.

"We've been through every real estate place in Grafton, and we've filled out 10 diaries to help prove we need to be a priority for housing, and we've viewed a lot of houses and just every day, every time we've put an application in we've been unsuccessful," Stacey said.

"It's been quite a rough road, and it's been very emotional and distressing. I feel like I haven't been given a fair go because I've got seven kids and with a baby now I'm pretty desperate."

Stacey and her family have been living with Pamela, but, now in the process of bringing other grandchildren out of foster care, Pamela needs Stacey to find a place of her own.

"Stacey is staying with me at the moment but I'm in the process of bringing my other grandchildren out of foster care, which means that it's possible I might have to put her out of my home," Pamela said.

"That's difficult for me to do because she is my daughter and they're my grandchildren but if I don't do that other grandkids will stay in foster care which has been a very traumatic experience for them. I don't want to have any reason to stop them from coming home.

"I just don't know what else to do for her, she is just finding it really difficult to find a home or get any help. She has been to every system available in this town but had no results."

Originally published as Mum wants a chance to find a home