Family of nine squeezed into three rooms faces years on endless waiting list

A mother raising eight children in a cramped three-bedroom house in Cardiff stands as a stark example of the mounting pressure on the city’s housing system, as highlighted by city councillor Lynda Thorne during a recent council scrutiny committee meeting. Cllr Thorne described the mother as “at the end of her tether,” underscoring that she is just one among many large families enduring long waits for suitable council housing, a situation that has become a significant challenge for Cardiff Council.
Council officials have expressed deep concern that Cardiff may never fully meet the growing demand for social housing, a need that continues to rise each year. By November 2024, the housing waiting list had surged to 9,500 households, a 24% jump from November 2021, and by early April 2025, the figure had reached 9,682 applicants. The council’s own data reveals that 6% of these applicants have been waiting for more than a decade, with Cllr Thorne sharing the story of a woman who has spent nearly 20 years on the list, unable to be rehoused due to a lack of sufficiently large properties.
“She has eight children,” Cllr Thorne told the committee. “She has been on the waiting list for about 20 years but of course we won’t… rehouse anybody and overcrowd them, so she is in a three-bed property and we don’t have a large enough property to house them in. I have to say… she was just at the end of her tether.” The council’s housing allocation data also shows that 20% of applicants have been waiting two to four years, and 10% have been waiting four to six years.
The mother’s situation is further complicated by the fact that her children, despite their academic achievements—one is a junior doctor and two others are studying medicine—cannot afford to move out. “You can see now these children… they are grown up, but of course they can’t afford to get anywhere and so it is heart wrenching and you can’t blame anybody, but I guess she is one of those ones. She has been on the waiting list for over 10 years. The family is growing up and it is very hard to know what to do about those cases,” Cllr Thorne added.
The housing waiting list is divided into several categories based on need, with priority bands ranging from A (highest) to F. Of the 9,682 applicants at the beginning of April, 91 were in the ‘immediate needs’ category, which includes individuals facing exceptional circumstances such as domestic abuse or hospital discharge. There are 997 applicants on the homeless list, 284 on the beneficial transfer list for those needing to downsize, and 8,310 on the general waiting list, which includes families facing overcrowding or medical issues.
Cardiff Council has outlined plans in its 2025-2028 corporate strategy to accelerate its council house building programme, recently launching a partnership with the Vale of Glamorgan Council and Lovell Partnerships to deliver at least 2,260 new homes over the next decade. Allocation and rehousing manager Katie McAndrew told the committee, “Whilst there is a good supply of housing… it’s just absolutely not enough to meet demand and so there are lots of challenges that we need to address… to try and increase the availability of social housing to try and meet that demand. Although, honestly, I don’t think we ever will be able to will we?”
Between April 2024 and February 2025, 1,461 homes were allocated through the waiting list, but the gap between those waiting and those housed remains substantial. However, the number of properties available for letting increased by 17% compared to the previous year, and the council is also helping more people downsize, freeing up homes for families. As of March 2025, the council reported delivering 1,819 new homes of all tenures, including 1,461 council homes and 358 homes for sale, with another 422 under construction and hundreds more planned.