Getting Help About Benefits

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advice, asking for help, benefits, CAB, support

Citizens Advice say their phone lines open at 10am. No they don’t. They give you a long message before admitting that no assessors are available to answer your call although some specialists are. I eventually got through at something like 11:30am only to be told that they cannot refer me to my local CAB directly. There is a drop in today, between 10-1pm. So I pick up my folder and venture down only to find the above sign. People are allowed to be ill but I’m not feeling that great either.

There’s another drop in session tomorrow at a different office at the same time as my therapy appointment. Good thing I can change the latter but I do actually need it.

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Benefits Bonanza Day

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2son, £25000, benefits, council, disaster, housing benefit, overpayment, support

I telephoned the CAB on Thursday. I asked whether I should appeal on the basis that I didn’t know what was going on and wasn’t getting any information or whether I should keep pursuing getting a statement of reasons. They said they would refer me to a specialist which would call back within 48 hours. I realised this might mean Monday morning and tried to set it aside.

I tried to take charge of something and applied for child benefit for 2son as the CAB had advised me to do, saying if I got it for the next few months that I’m entitled to, then I can appeal to have it backdated based on incorrect advice given. As it turned out, I’m glad I got that moving.

I emphasis the “tried”. People ask me how I am and in my head I’m answering that everything is actually really positive except for this massive disaster that’s looming over me. How much of that answer I actually give depends on who they are. Even then the reply tends to be me “oh that’s awful” before moving onto something else. People who don’t get benefits, who haven’t had to rely on the state simply do not realise how terrifying these things are.

Taking Back Control

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benefits, control, decisions, future, housing benefit, planning, positive thinking

On Monday I decided I’d had enough of waiting for the post to arrive to see if the latest missive from Housing Benefit had arrived. I rang up. I got through to a guy who was trying to be helpful and telling me figures, but he was reading it out loud as he went and it didn’t make a lot of sense. He told me my claim hadn’t been suspended and that a decision had been made to pay some £3 rent a week for me. None of it made a lot of sense and he said the paperwork would be in the post in a few days and I left it at that.

By Thursday nothing had arrived and Friday was a washout too. After returning home I would open the door with trepidation looking for post on the mat. When a cold caller rang the bell I almost reacted badly once I realised he wasn’t the postman delivering a thick envelope. I’m waking up early with weird bad dreams. I can phone up and chase this or I can just wait it out. Either is stressful and quite honestly the end result will be the same.

Yesterday therefore, I sat down and made a list of what I have control of and what I can do something about:

• my physical and mental well being
• what do I want to do for a living?
• what extra work can I do now?
• what do I want?
• how do I learn and find answers to these questions
• love my children and carry on supporting them

I am going to try and focus on these. Some involve doing research online, talking to people about job opportunities and direction. There’s reading round counselling as preparation for September’s start. There’s also doing meditation and physical exercise as well as my physio. I need to get out of my comfort zone, at least once a week.

I acknowledged, for the first time, that I’m sick of being poor. I want to be off benefits and tax credits, to be financially independent. This claim re-assessment has swept the rug out from under my feet and for the first time in a very long time I am simply scared about losing my home, even though that is probably an unnecessary fear. It brings back old memories of being petrified of losing a home and then doing so. I want to feel safe.

So this scare has made me think harder and more immediately about where I am and where I want to be. Whether I can find part time work that fits in with studying and children and all the rest of it I don’t know, but I’m going to start looking. I have had it easy these past few years, and if that’s because benefits have been overpaid then so be it. It might all end up being a positive kick up the arse.

But I still look forward (sort of) to knowing whether I do owe £15,000 and whether I have to pay it back.

 

Council Tax Catches Up

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benefits, council tax, debt, disaster, housing benefit

Housing have actually been decent so far with me. I said I was paying the rent in full weekly and they accepted £20 on top of that to go to the month’s arrears which I got due to housing benefit backdating their suspension of my claim for a month. I was very grateful to talk to a human being who saw the £10,000 I supposedly owe and treated me like a human being.

Council Tax sent me a bill today in which they’ve added all the supposed overpayment to my current council tax (which doubled from £25 to £50 when they suspended my claim automatically as I’m on direct debit). What with full council tax for the year as well, this bill amounts to £5,000. The bill also said they were changing my direct debit payments to £600 a month for the next six months to clear this up.

This time I almost lost it. I’ve sort of been coping so far with this whole cock up but have been dreading the arrival of the postman each day and and am feeling a massive sense of relief every time I open a letter to find it’s not another disaster. I phoned up Council Tax and pressed buttons until I got a real live human being, after listening to their promotion for their automated online system several times. Real person told me that despite the situation they couldn’t do anything like suspend the overpayment until the decision was fully processed and that I just had to wait until the court summons and sort it out then. I don’t want to go to court. So I hung up, phoned up the CAB (lovely people, so helpful and sympathetic) who said nag your councillor. I did that and then cancelled my direct debit and set up a standing order for £70, nothing like the £600 odd they want but at least it shows willing. How long I can keep these payments going I have no idea but at least I won’t have to worry about whether I’ve breached savings limits.

Councillor said they’d just been told that housing benefit hadn’t received my last letters. Considering they’d been sent via email to the same address as the first, with the same reference and I’d received the automatic acknowledgement I really fucking doubt it. No doubt the non-receipt is what gave them the excuse to suspend my claim. Bastards.

I cannot tell you how terrifying this all feels. Not that there would be any point in the council making us homeless but the fact that this is possibly a risk and I have no idea how much money I will have to pay, let alone at what rate and for how long is all making the ground under my feet feel like quicksand instead. I’m worried for my children’s future. No doubt that is an exaggeration of the possible consequences but I’m being chased for £15,000 I wasn’t aware I owed and I still haven’t been told why.

Downward Spirals

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benefits, EHCP, exercise, GP, HAES, housing benefit, progress, social worker, tax claim, tax return

Bob Geldof, Pink Floyd, The Wall

I haven’t written for months, and most of what I have been writing has been about my counselling courses. The fact that I have been writing about it is good but I struggle to find the energy and motivation to write about me in other contexts which is really not what this is all about.

I was in a good mood this morning, woken up by the sounds of my children getting up and going out for the day without me leaving me in peace. I could catch up, potter about, do whatever, without calls of what’s for dinner, can I buy something, or the ongoing ramblings of teenagers playing videos.

Yesterday I went for my interview for Level 3 Counselling. We were together as a group for two hours which included a group exercise and a short writing piece. Then we came in for individual interviews. I really loathe job interviews as it involves me selling myself which is something I’m poor at but I did fine until the last couple of minutes when I started waffling and talking utter bollocks. I acknowledged the waffling and left, but it felt like walking out on a bad note. However I walked out feeling that the day had gone well and was positive.