The fact that I am affected by the ‘bedroom tax’ had a great negative impact on my mental health and my finances. I felt so much depressed after I heard that I will need to pay £100 more as a consequence of the changes in the housing benefits. Due to my HIV diagnosis my health is already fragile and this is just making me feel more stressed and anxious of what is going to happen to me next. I am not able to pay my bills and food anymore, and every day I am going into bigger debt. I had to ask money from my friends and I am not sure how I am going to repay them. On top of this, I struggle to get to hospital appointments because I can’t pay transport fees. I found it extremely hard to get assistance for claiming benefits especially since I am not UK-born and I need a language support. It is very hard to understand the changes, I feel lost. Everything became so unnecessarily hard and complex. 

Emma