I worked hard to get into Cambridge. But I needed benefits too

The government's plans to cut welfare for the under-25s will force others in my position to choose between an education and a place to live
Student taking exam
'I rushed between lessons and the ­Homelessness Advice Centre during my free periods to make sure my ­benefits were in order.' Photograph: David Davies/PA

I am a Tory dream. If George Osborne heard the Drake lyric "started from the bottom now we here" he might think of someone like me. I was born to a cab-driving father and a mother who was diagnosed with severe mental illness when I was eight. My father was in and out of prison and my home life was unstable, dysfunctional and, in the end, unsafe: I was forced out aged 16. Despite this I made it through sixth form and into Cambridge University, graduating a few years ago.

And yet I still depended on the very benefits for the under-25s that Osborne is planning to axe. As a minor who could not live at home and with no one to take me in, I wouldn't have had a roof over my head without housing benefit. Without income support I wouldn't have had money to eat.

Was I propped up in a lavish house? No. I was placed in bed and breakfasts and hostels for the mentally unwell where I had to prevent people breaking into my room at night while I worked on my coursework. I rushed between lessons and the Homelessness Advice Centre during my free periods to make sure my benefits were in order. And I was lucky: my brother, aged 16, had to sleep in a telephone box for a week before the council would place him anywhere.

But Osborne would have you believe that people like me are making lifestyle choices, that we're claiming benefits because it's easier than getting a job. True, I didn't want a job – I wanted an education. That wouldn't have been possible without housing benefit for the under-25s.

Of course, many of the young people I met in hostels and elsewhere didn't opt for an education. That's not surprising when you consider that if you move out of your borough to go to university you risk being homeless again in the holidays. I was an anomaly: if I hadn't got into such a prestigious university I probably wouldn't have taken that risk, and I was lucky enough to have made friends whose parents loved me and were able to put me up in the summer.

My friends in hostels who had grown up in the care system didn't have those options. Under the new legislation, I wouldn't even have been able to support myself through A-levels – it relies on a false assumption that all under-25s can live at home, without providing a safety net to help those for whom this is simply impossible.

I represent too small a minority to matter, the government might say. My response is that if you continue to remove the infrastructure that assists those who are not so lucky, you are loading the game in favour of those who are already fortunate: a game of too many snakes and not enough ladders. Axe housing benefit for people under the age of 25 and you will force people like me to choose between education and a place to live, a choice that will only exacerbate the cycle of poverty.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm not prepared to claim that it was my "hard work" that got me where I am today. I won't be Boris Johnson's atomistic cornflake that shakes off the rest to get to the top of the packet; I'm not prepared to kick the proverbial ladder from under the feet of my peers by peddling the myth that it is only the lazy who stay behind.

It is the very structures that Osborne would scrap that got me where I am today, but I suspect that he will continue to claim it is people like me who prove that these welfare cuts make sense. For every benefit that he strips, he will do so singing his song of the hard-working who are unwilling to accept their lot. Well you won't do it in my name, Messrs Osborne and Cameron. You and I are not in this together.