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Please Help Me... (Housing - benefits)

Luke

My anxiety is skyrocketing at the moment due to housing issues.

I have lived with my mum and step-dad for the past 8 years or so.

My mother is a Methodist Minister, and housing is provided integrally to this job.

She has been assigned a new manse along with a change of location.

The new location will not be appropriate for me to live in - it is too small.

I also do not want to move away from this area, which has been a base for nearly 20 years.

For a long time a local organisation have been promising that autism appropriate accommodation would be available imminently.

They knew that the start of August 2014 was my deadline for moving out, ever since my initial application, which must be at least 18 months ago now, maybe 2 years or even longer.

Only now, at short notice have they confirmed that they in fact do not have any autism appropriate vacancies available, nor will they at any time in the forseeable future.

Up until this point they had always presented a rosey outlook on the availability of their services.

As such I am suddenly left in the lurch, struggling to source a local autism appropriate property, together with dealing with all benefits related issues and so-on, then move out, all within a time frame of weeks.

It is going ok I guess, I have a social worker assigned to me, and I also have the involvement of a local autism specialist charity.

My big problem at the moment revolves around housing benefits.

A disability advice organisation has told me that I can get housing benefits up to the amount of the average price of the average comparable property rate.

When I pheond the council helpline the council say I can only get the shared rate - around £58 per week.

I've only found one property that I could afford with that, and it seemed entirely inappropriate - I am quite scared by the idea of living there at the moment.

I have viewed at least 2 properties at about £80-90 mark that seem ok - there seem to be quite a lot locally, it is just the money that is the issue.

I am on ESA, I also claim low rate moblity DLA, but I am studying and still paying for that.

I think I might be able to top up my rent about £10 a week but I would struggle with much more than that.

I thought my social worker might help with all of this but at the moment he seems to have left it to me - with the help of my charity support workers.

I discovered Discretionary Housing Payments with an application form on the council website.

Do you think that this is what the Disability Advice organisation was referring to?

Please - what are other peoples experiences and knowledge around this area?

I would greatly appreciate it if somebody could share. The thought of being homeless, or in horrible housing is terrifying me - it is so frustrating that nobody seems to be able to help me or give me a straight answer.

I am just going round in circles and I can feel it making me quite ill.

Parents

  • NAS18906 said:

    I think I'm getting a better picture of how bad the social anxiety can be for some people. I always think of buses as very safe places - everyone normally tries to avoid saying anything to anyone. It was different when I was at school as bullies would pick on the younger kids and anyone who looked too studious or different but I haven't suffered this, or seen anyone being picked on on public transport, since then.

    For some time I had to commute by bus from my mother's where I was sleeping to the city center daily. I experienced persons referencing my discomfort and mocking my coping mechanism (pretending to be busy on my phone). People would point out my deteriating body language and do impressions, all just half-audibly. On one occasion, at night while waiting for the bus, some persons engaged in the entertainments described above so agressively that I would have left but for the 10mile walk and the lack of any later buses. I became practically catatonic. This was pre-diagnosis for me, I have a different policy now. When the bus driver arrived, he made an excuse "exact change only, theres a shop open there" to get rid of them and drove off, in order I think to protect me from this behaviour. I am not ungrateful.

    While its true as Recombinant says, that adults tend to go around ignoring each other; once they notice you they are just as capable of anti-social behaviour as the schoolyard bullys they once were...

Reply

  • NAS18906 said:

    I think I'm getting a better picture of how bad the social anxiety can be for some people. I always think of buses as very safe places - everyone normally tries to avoid saying anything to anyone. It was different when I was at school as bullies would pick on the younger kids and anyone who looked too studious or different but I haven't suffered this, or seen anyone being picked on on public transport, since then.

    For some time I had to commute by bus from my mother's where I was sleeping to the city center daily. I experienced persons referencing my discomfort and mocking my coping mechanism (pretending to be busy on my phone). People would point out my deteriating body language and do impressions, all just half-audibly. On one occasion, at night while waiting for the bus, some persons engaged in the entertainments described above so agressively that I would have left but for the 10mile walk and the lack of any later buses. I became practically catatonic. This was pre-diagnosis for me, I have a different policy now. When the bus driver arrived, he made an excuse "exact change only, theres a shop open there" to get rid of them and drove off, in order I think to protect me from this behaviour. I am not ungrateful.

    While its true as Recombinant says, that adults tend to go around ignoring each other; once they notice you they are just as capable of anti-social behaviour as the schoolyard bullys they once were...

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