Terrified about upcoming eviction as an autistic 30 year old.

I went through this last year. My local council at first provided me with guidance that instructed me to remain in the property and refuse to leave and wait until the landlord had the locks changed one day while I was out and then I would have to go to the town hall to declare myself homeless and they would then be able to get me some temporary accommodation. This was terrifying and wholly inappropriate.

As an autistic individual you must be treated as vulnerable and you are entitled to additional help from your local authority. Unfortunately, this additional help is unlikely to be given willingly by those you deal with at the housing office. It's one of those situations in which you need to be very demanding when it comes to getting them to go the extra mile for you.

Do you have someone who helps you? A family member or a support worker? I have a sister who fights for me and I'm quite certain that is what made the difference. Local authorities can and do give discretionary payments to help people in the exact situation you find yourself in. I was offered a bump up the housing list but managed to find a new private letting through my own and my family's efforts. The deposit was almost one thousand pounds and I didn't have the money. It was made clear to the housing office that if they didn't assist me in securing the new apartment then my mental health would suffer, I would lose my part-time job, and the costs to the local authority of getting me back from that kind of disaster would be many times the amount required for the deposit. We badgered them and secured the full deposit from the council and that made the move an enormous amount less stressful.

Bottom line I think is that you can get some of the help you need but you must fight for it and I hope you have people around you who can assist you with that. Speak to the housing office and don't hold back when it comes to outlining your conditions and the fact that you need additional help. Don't let them dismiss this and repeat it as often as you can. If you can find an appropriate property privately then you should be given help to secure it but again it depends on how hard you push for that help.

I know how terrible it all feels when you're at your current stage of the process but if you can focus on the basic need of finding a new place and then going all out with the council to get them to do what they should do but don't want to do, I am sure you'll be fine in the end.

Remember that you have the right not to be discriminated against by potential landlords and to be treated as vulnerable by your local authority. You need more help than most people but getting that help will depend on how persistent you or your advocate are prepared to be.

I wish you the best of luck and will answer any questions if you want to pick my brains any further.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much for your reply — it genuinely means a lot right now to hear from someone who’s been through it.

I completely relate to the fear you mentioned — it’s constant. The idea of being forced into a hostel or waiting until I’m actually out before anything happens is exactly what’s been keeping me up at night.

I’m glad your sister was able to help fight for you. I don’t have anyone like that locally, but I do have a social worker involved now and Autism Initiatives are supposed to be supporting me too — though I haven’t properly started with them yet. I’m hoping they’ll help push for supported housing or a single-let situation, because a hostel honestly would be unbearable for me.

Your point about having to push hard is something I’m trying to prepare myself for. It’s tough, though, when you're already exhausted just trying to cope day to day.

I might take your advice about looking at private lets too, and asking the council for help with a deposit if it comes to that — I hadn’t even thought that might be possible.

If you don’t mind me asking: how long did it take for things to actually move once you made that final push? And did your council understand your autism right away, or did you have to spell it out repeatedly?

Thanks again. Your message gave me a bit of clarity and some hope, and I really needed that.

Thank you so much for your reply — it genuinely means a lot right now to hear from someone who’s been through it.

I completely relate to the fear you mentioned — it’s constant. The idea of being forced into a hostel or waiting until I’m actually out before anything happens is exactly what’s been keeping me up at night.

I’m glad your sister was able to help fight for you. I don’t have anyone like that locally, but I do have a social worker involved now and Autism Initiatives are supposed to be supporting me too — though I haven’t properly started with them yet. I’m hoping they’ll help push for supported housing or a single-let situation, because a hostel honestly would be unbearable for me.

Your point about having to push hard is something I’m trying to prepare myself for. It’s tough, though, when you're already exhausted just trying to cope day to day.

I might take your advice about looking at private lets too, and asking the council for help with a deposit if it comes to that — I hadn’t even thought that might be possible.

If you don’t mind me asking: how long did it take for things to actually move once you made that final push? And did your council understand your autism right away, or did you have to spell it out repeatedly?

Thanks again. Your message gave me a bit of clarity and some hope, and I really needed that.

No they absolutely did not understand the difficulties that my autism causes when I first spoke to them. I was treated like anyone else would be treated and no consideration was given to my neurodivergence and the special needs I have as a result of it.

I asked for a second assessment and for this to be done face-to-face with a senior staff member and from the housing department and this is when things changed. Once someone with authority sees you and understands your situation and needs then attitudes will change. The discretionary payments are designed for exactly people like us in precisely these kinds of situations and actually help the council to save money by preventing homelessness for individuals for whom that problem would be extremely costly to resolve. You just need to get the message through to the right person in the housing office because many of the staff are - to put it as politely as I can - less than impressive.

Once I decided to get a private rent it was pretty quickly done. I paid one week's rent as a holding deposit then went to the council and presented them with a solution to the problem with the caveat that without financial assistance this solution would a lost opportunity. I think they wanted to get me and my sister out of their hair by that point and they readily agreed to paying my security deposit. Again I stress that this kind of help is designed specifically to assist people with disabilities so although I couldn't say that you're guaranteed to get it I do expect you will if you can speak to the right person and keep being politely pushy. Speaking to the right person is often a matter of speaking to everyone until you get to the right one so daily calls and emails might be the best approach.

I hope you have good fortune and that the help is agreed to quickly. If not, get proactive and keep calling.

I know you must be exhausted and there's no advice I can provide that wouldn't seem either patronising and/or one of those things people say that sound helpful but that are functionally useless. It's one of those situations where we just have to keep on keeping on because we have to deal with the ordinary humans more than we'd like to get what we need. But you will get what you need. Do all you can each day and once you can't do anything more until the next day just chill and let the knowledge that you are working hard be a source of comfort and confidence. And then just chill as best you can.

I'm rooting for you.