How has the pandemic affected your ability to pay your rent or mortgage?

In my job i've effectively had pay cuts for 13 years as wage increases have been below inflation (not all public sector is gold plated as people believe those are rare as our pay has been held back our benefit packages removed and our pension contributions drastically increased to pay for the former good pensions)

My pay will continue to be frozen, yet costs increase daily so much so that my job in the private sector already paid more and will fall further behind. I now actually qualify as do most of my colleagues for Universal Credit due to low wages.

These year on year cuts have left me struggling and as i now cannot afford the latest rent increase due to inflation facing homelessness.

Unfortunately their is no appetite or believe that we dont have gold plated jobs and pensions, that's the civil service of 10-20 years ago if not more, today is very different to that image, so much so that we consider should we all leave but that would then cause more chaos at a time of turmoil.

Your average civil servant has been held stagnant with less than inflation pay increases to pay for the banking crisis and now the pandemic.

Became unemployed as I couldn't travel for my work. I am in the high risk Covid category. Tried to get JSA but problems with health meant I couldn't work. Tried ESA but they only offered 'stamps' credits. They suggested I try UC which I got but lost four months benefits. Eventually came through but by then I had borrowed over £2000. Now I've reached retirement age and am awaiting 1st pension ayment. If it weren't for the kindness of my family / friends I would have been homeless.

There has been no help for renters. Rent is the largest outgoing for the poor. My rent is 60% of my salary. I am trapped as I can't buy and my rent keeps increasing. A home should not be a profit for someone else. Why is the government so keen to use our taxes to help those that can afford to save for a deposit to buy. We are lucky if we can save enough to pay the rent each month... and we work hard too!

What worries me is the messages coming from Johnson regarding 'levelling up' and the assumption that London is over privileged and taking more than its fair share.
I see comments from London based tory politicians that London is overheating and needs to sacrifice its success on the alter of this tory agenda.
We need to ensure that the level if deprivation in some London areas is not ignored in order to attempt to satisfy a tory agenda.

The pandemic didn’t affect our housing situation at all. The one thing that affected us is our baby’s miscarriage while the pandemic. Constant: don’t come to the hospital because of “covid”. So we’ve lost the baby because of covid never having it. Still we cannot get to hospital or GP, if so we have to wait 6-7 hours usually without any help. Haven’t been to a dentist for two years, got two teeth with opened root canal. Life goes on.

Our income has been adversely affected so that our financial situation feels more precarious. Making our regular payments is more challenging.
Our debt has increased. Our savings have decreased.
We can't afford a social life beyond staying in watching the television. This has caused a lowering of our quality of life.
I feel Housing Associations should be precluded from increasing rents for a while.

This is the third place I have lived in 12 months, and we have been served a section 21 notice. The private landlord sold to a housing association in haringey, and they are kicking us out. OUr leave date is 15th January 2021... Happy xmas.

The flats are damp, there are wires circling the build and no one knows what they do. The boiler is outside, and when it rains heavily, the rain short circuits it. The communal washing machine has ripped some of my clothes and the landlord refused to accept it.

I live in a lower ground flat, my neighbours smoke outside my window till 4 in the morning and then their children get up for schoool at 730 waking me up again.

By luck as a key worker I was able to keep working during the last session of Covid19, so no change of finanicial life. The impact of covid19 on life quality has been one of adaption and reduction of travel on public transport, as despite masks being condition of travel, ignorance and arrogance prevals. My team base lost two people in 2020 to covid19 from 30 people.
Support! Enforce the condition of travel RULEs in regards to masks.
Arrogance is not an excuse.

Long term illness, not being able to see specialist consultant, being told there is nothing further the (NHS) could offer as my brain is not responding to any treatment, but left in evil pain but not offered care plan to cope with evil pain. Stress, pain and worry.

LTNs may make it more pleasant for those who live inside them, but they make it much worse for those who live outside of them, especially if you are unfortunate enough to live on one of the boundary roads. The traffic does not just 'disappear' as the more fanciful modelling predicts, it goes onto the few remaining roads that are open, increasing congestion and pollution, making journey times longer for everyone, including emergency services, buses, care workers, the elderly, the disabled and tradesmen. This inevitably brings down house values on the boundary roads and impacts on the ability of local residents to go about their business or have trademen come to their homes.

Everyday living costs such as the groceries & the price of petrol have risen so fast lately, either as a direct or an indirect result of the pandemic but more likely, I think, because of Brexit.
So many of the negative effects of Brexit that were predicted before the referendum have come true & nobody seems to be admitting it.

I am freelance consultant and am set up as a Ltd. company as it is a requirement for my clients. I lost my freelance role at the beginning of the pandemic, and was also supposed to shield, which completely took away my income for at least 6 months. Being a freelancer running my own company I could not access furlough and the coronavirus- related help for the self-employed was also not available so I had no assistance whatsoever. I am now in significantly more debt that I was before the pandemic and have exhausted nearly all of my savings, in order to pay my mortgage and living expenses for me and my 5 year old son.
To make matters worse, my 6 year old diesel VW Eos is apparently not ULEZ compliant and I live 100m from the North Circular meaning that to drive to any of the places I visit regularly is now £12.50 a day and my car, purchased at the end of 2016 for £16,000, is now worth very very little. Again no scrappage schemes or assistance from the Government.
My energy supplier also went bust which increased my gas and electricity bill by £800 a year.
All in all, I am in a much more precarious position than I was before due to questionable decisions by the Government and lack of thought when it comes to ensuring certain groups or working populations are supported.
I feel completely ignored by the Government. I have always worked incredibly hard to put myself through university, progress and succeed in a career, pay a huge amount of tax every year and then when push comes to shove, there is no support available.

It would be useful if the mayor and councils could produce an estimated tax burden on its citizens from all the various schemes implemented since the pandemic began. I think that alone would illustrate in itself where they can start to help.

We have been lucky not to have gone out at all for 15 months. Dont have extravagant taste or many holidays abroad so we have no problems. However there os too many houses/Flats being built causing congestion and becoming unhealthy for people to live and get around. Also how are the emergency services and hospitals going to cope. It is also getting much more expensive to live and heat and light our homes.

Cost of living has gone up (groceries, bills, rent, utilities, public transport, travel, cafes, restaurants, etc). Salaries are not going up so less savings and more tighter budgets. No one can ever buy a full ownership home (house or flat) at this rate as noone has savings to pay the deposits. And risks of shared ownership are not well known as well. As well as flats only have leases for 100 years, so how can people leave them for their grandkids?

The support we need from our Mayor to counteract the loss in financial value, pleasantness and place value in our (LTN-damaged) properties and the damage the LTNs are causing to our children’s lungs is financial.
That finance will enable us to absorb the cost of moving, which cost will otherwise trap us here, as our children’s health and property value deteriorates.
Boundary road residents are not a sub-class of people, we are people too. We also expect to live in decent homes, whose windows don’t need cleaning every two weeks, because of extremely (both extreme quantities and extreme danger to our health) high traffic outside them.
Property surveyors will be able to calculate the damage to homes and the streets they are on that LTNs have created.
We can then present this information to the Mayor to make good on.