Abdull Balde and his family have been living in a bedsit for several years

A FAMILY of five – who have just welcomed a new baby – have been sharing a bedsit in Queen’s Crescent for years due to an extreme shortage of homes in the council’s housing stock.

The children – the other two are aged six and four – sleep on a sofa bed next to their parents’ double bed, which has a cot at the end for their one-week-old baby.

The kids do their homework and play with their toys on the small floor space between the couch and TV. All the beds are in the same rooms as the kitchen, which has a small table and two chairs.

The council said the family had the highest possible number of housing points but could not find a move because so many other people were in the same position.

Dad Abdull Balde, who works for the emergency services, cannot afford to rent privately despite earning a £36,000-a-year salary.

“It does affect their mood,” he said of his children. “Sometimes because of the shift patterns that I do, I come home really really late.

“My son had 15 lates this academic year on his school report. When we had our first child that was in 2016. [The council] said we were entitled to two bedrooms but it didn’t work.

“To be honest, I just feel like we’ve been really let down by the council, because I’ve been with them for many years. And I think by now we should have had a place to stay.”

Mr Balde, 34, alternates between day and night shifts sometimes coming home at 3am, which disrupts his family’s sleep. He said he got around four hours’ sleep a night. The children wake up at around midday in the holidays because they are so tired.

His wife Howa Barry, 32, who works in childcare, said: “As long as this light is on they will not sleep. Some­times you have to go to the kitchen to make something to eat and that wakes them up. Now the baby is here it cries and that disturbs their sleep. I get headaches because I’m not sleeping.

“We can’t relax in this house because we have no privacy. Everything is open. The kids need a space. It’s affecting their development.”

The family pays £110 a week in rent and £135 a month in council tax.

“We’re paying for a house that we can’t even sleep in,” Mr Balde said.

He said he had applied to move to a two-bed council property seven years ago. He checks every week if there are houses to bid on but said most of the time there are none available, or expensive homes that are closer to £300 a week.

Mr Balde works on the front line of a key public service, that he asked was not specified, but he said the salary was not enough to rent a flat from private landlords.

In February, his housing officer put forward a request “for a direct offer” but said “the offer was rejected on the basis that overcrowding is not uncommon in Camden”.

The council has given the family more points due to “severe overcrowding” but it said in June that there was an “extreme shortage of our available social housing stock”, including a lack of family-sized accommodation compared to the demand for it.

In June there were 7,054 households now being registered for social housing in Camden. Of these, 2,527 households are seeking a two-bedroom home, which represents just under 36 per cent of the whole register.

The response, seen by the New Journal, said: “I’m afraid it is the case that there are very many families living in homes smaller than they need.”

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We are doing everything we can to support Mr Balde and his family into a home that meets their needs as quickly as possible. The family have been awarded the highest number of points available and we will continue to support the family with the bidding process.

“We are calling for a national council house investment programme to help us end overcrowding and provide safe, decent homes for all residents.”

There are around 7,500 households on our waiting list for a council home – and 130 families on the priority list for a three-bedroom home.