Good morning. Welcome back to Survival Guide. I’m Isabella.

This is Debt Awareness Week, which focuses on smashing stigma and encouraging people to ask for help if they are experiencing debt.

A record 6.7 million people in the UK have fallen behind on bills in the last six months, new research has found.

Debt can be overwhelming and it can impact your mental health, making it even harder to handle your finances. It can take courage to ask for help, but that first step is often a lifeline.

In this week’s newsletter, we hear from David. He was devastated when he lost his job at the start of the pandemic and found himself facing £50,000 of debt. But he sought help and, within 18 months, he was debt free. Read to the end for a round-up on where to get help.

Also this week, we meet the tenants of a London housing estate who have faced “horror” mould and poor living conditions. They are now grouping together to fight back against their landlord and demand change.

If you have a story to share, we want to listen. Get in touch at isabella.mcrae@bigissue.com or share your story here.

David's story: 'I was panic-stricken'

When David Davensac lost his job just weeks before the country was plunged into lockdown in 2020, he was terrified. He had debt worth around £50,000 and no way to pay it off.

“I was panic-stricken,” he recalls. “I was three months into my probation and I was given a month’s severance. Immediately I was thinking, how am I going to pay my borrowings? 

“I wasn’t even thinking about the sadness of losing the job and the humiliation of it all. It was just, without overplaying it, terror.”

David had a senior role at a large international company and never imagined he would be unable to pay his debts. Suddenly he was worried about survival.

“It was really shameful to have to admit that I had so much borrowing and also to go from being quite well off to suddenly being one month away from ruin,” the 54-year-old says. “It did my mental health no good at all. And it would have been so easy to just bury my head in the sand and hope it went away.”

This Debt Awareness Week, he wants to speak out to encourage people that there is a way out of debt. Read David’s story and read to the end to find out where to get help.

In case you missed it

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'I'm in crippling debt': Brits are falling behind on bills in record numbers amid cost of living crisis. A record 6.7 million people in the UK have fallen behind on bills in the last six months, new research has found. Read more.

'I skip meals to save money': Life on social care frontline is leading to a support worker exodus. Poorly paid and overworked support workers are leaving in droves and it's hurting people with learning disabilities, warns Mencap. Read about it.

Tory government 'demonises' disabled people who face 'onerous' benefits system, UN warns. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities held the government to account over its actions. Find out more.

Rishi Sunak's refusal to call a UK general election in May could cost taxpayers millions. The prime minister could have saved the country a pretty penny by bowing to public opinion and holding a general election in May. Get the story.

Prince William pays tribute to 'brave' rough sleepers at visit to Sheffield homelessness project. The royal visited Sheffield as part of his five-year Homewards project, launched in partnership with The Big Issue last year. Read about it.

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Housing estate plagued by mould, damp and dire conditions. Now, residents are fighting back

Lorraine Byrne scrubs and scrubs the walls but black mould keeps coming back. She lives in a damp and cold two-bed council flat with her husband and four children on the Nags Head estate in Tower Hamlets, East London.

Last winter she moved the chest of drawers in the bedroom where her three eldest children sleep, and mould covered in fluff stretched up the unit. She was pregnant at the time.

“I just want to know that my kids aren’t suffering from breathing in those damp spores,” Byrne, 38, says. “There’s only so much you can do. We can mask it but it’s still there. It’s in the air. It’s in the walls. It’s like one of those horror movies.”

Byrne’s neighbours on the Tower Hamlets estate face similarly dangerous living conditions – black mould causing respiratory problems, slugs coming through the floors, crumbling staircases and mice.

They have had enough of feeling ignored and blamed. They are grouping together to fight back and demand better living conditions. Read the story.

Saving those coins: Where to get help if you are facing debt

If you are facing debt, like David, there is a way out and plenty of avenues you can take to get support.

We’ve rounded up a range of debt advice services, charities and organisations which might be able to help you with any money worries here.

A debt advisor can help you access support like the government’s Breathing Space scheme which gives temporary protection from your creditors while you get advice and make a plan.

They can also create a budget and plan to manage your debt, or advise you as to whether you might be eligible for a Debt Relief Order. Find out more.