Bedroom tax suicide

53yo Stephanie Bottrill killed herself because she could not cope with the bedroom tax.  Living alone in a three-bedroom property, her housing benefit was reduced by twenty pounds per week.  She was offered a smaller property, but it was not in a suitable location.

People hit by the bedroom tax have various options open to them in theory, but the reality is often quite harsh.

The ideal solution is to find a job which pays enough to allow you to pay your rent in full, but sadly we have an evil ConDem government which cannot be bothered to help the unemployed find work.

Another solution is to move to a smaller property, but there are very few smaller properties out there.  Another solution is to squeeze money from your other benefits to offset what you lose on your housing benefit, but that is also tricky for many people.

Another solution is to find people to move into your home and occupy your spare bedroom (or bedrooms), but this too is not easy.  For example many social housing landlords do not allow tenants to take lodgers.  In fact I'm not sure any of them do.

I confidently expect that this will be the first of many bedroom tax suicides - although I'd like to be proven wrong.

Update: it appears that this woman was unable to work because of a medical condition.