Mother of six just days away from homelessness

A DESPERATE mother is pleading with whoever will listen to help her daughter and six grandsons find a home.

HOMELESS: Simone Dowling with her mum Leanne Jenkins. Simone is looking for a home for herself and her six boys. Picture: Craig Warhurst

A DESPERATE mother is pleading with whoever will listen to help her daughter and six grandsons find a home.

Glenwood grandmother Leanne Jenkins said her daughter, a single mother of six boys, will be homeless any day now as time has run out on her emergency accommodation in Gympie.

"I feel like just getting out there and screaming at the top of my lungs, 'there must be somebody out there that's compassionate enough to give her a second chance'."

On the back of bad circumstances, her daughter Simone Dowling, whose sons are aged 13, 10, nine, seven, five and three, has had to uproot her children several times in the past few months.

After relationship breakdowns, losing furniture in floods, and a vehicle stolen, the 30-year-old mother is in a desperate situation; and just a few days away from being homeless.

Her name is blacklisted on Australian tenancy database TICA, she explained, after a rent debt involving her ex-partner was incurred six years ago.

"I'm trying everything to improve," the woman pleaded with The Gympie Times.

"I just want a house, something I can call home, something I can make a life for the kids."

"No one wants to look at you if you're on TICA and when you've got six boys."

Ms Dowling's biggest concern is that her children will be separated. Her mother has only one spare room in a small house in Glenwood and the mother-of-six can't bear the idea of some of her boys staying elsewhere, even if only temporarily.

"The longest we've ever been apart is two months and that almost killed us," she said.

Both mother and daughter said they had tried every avenue they could think of to secure housing for the family.

Mrs Jenkins said her daughter had hit rock bottom, but her priority is to give her six sons stability.

"She's a good mum; she loves her boys. She wants to do the right thing - she's trying her best," the distressed grandmother said.

"These kids need some stability in their lives, if they have to move again that would be three schools in six months."

Ms Dowling said she has been saving and could pay a month of rent upfront, if someone would just give her a chance.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get somewhere for me and the kids," she pleaded.

"We can't keep doing this."

Originally published as Mother of six just days away from homelessness