Peter, an unemployed sign-maker with 20 years’ experience, and a talented graphic artist, lives in a three-bedroom home he was allocated 12 years ago, at a time when demand for properties on the estate was very low. He was born here and has strong ties with neighbours. Now, bedroom tax takes up more than quarter of his income. He has coped during the last eight months only because friends and relatives have paid for gas and electric and a bus pass, sourced cheap meat and clubbed together to buy a second hand fridge. A one-bedroom flat off the estate is likely to cost more, and he wonders how he could afford the cost of moving. Peter says, “Without all that help, I would have sunk months ago. It does embarrass me sometimes that I am effectively relying on people to live. I am surrounded by really good people. It’s bloody difficult. It is a crappy situation, to be brutally honest.”