Persecution

LadyMich63

I’m permanently disabled with nerve damage and spinal titanium fusion and have suffered every time getting my benefits to the point my mental health has gone so far downhill, I attended in my wheelchair dying attending a tribunal that took two years out of a 3 year award for the woman who literally sat outside my house and lied putting the opposite down and yet I had a benefits rights person with me . They gave me a year only a year after I told them I could not live through that again. That was august 2019. In September I was sent to emergency to Leeds hospital, had a run of nerve block and 2 micro discsectomy s on critical leading to a 50/50 operation, my son was told I probably wouldn’t survive, but it succeeded . The next a citizens rights person didn’t deliver my paperwork on time so I was badly let down and then the post office lost the letter but refused to pay back the fee of which the judge could see it never left the post office as he was given the number on special delivery slip but they did reinstate my benefits and a mental health charity spoke on the phone interview as I was so badly broken I could barely speak and he gave me my benefits to September 2027 but the esa dept computers didn’t update the pip award and cut me off so I had to send in my pip award copy to their headquarters after being taken the mick of over 5 calls and only 2 managers had access to the pip system and so finally they reinstated my ESA so that was 2022 despite pip awarded September 2021 . Today for past 3 months my home has been targeted as I’m the only non muslim white disabled person left and ended up at a & e as I haven’t been able to sleep as they broke safety glass yes safety glass in the attic window and no one has wanted the job and Churchill said they would only replace the glass but not the whole thing as it’s “ betterment not my safety as the wood had rotted and new measurements today it’s a major job . A massive rocket of which should not be used but Asians set off every night after 11pm has for the second time broken the attic window putting me at risk of potential fire starting, so I’m going to have to cancel a disabled facility grant as I’m not safe to live here plus on top it’s going to cost me up to the thousand pound mark and for how long before a third time of it happening . I’ve had my fence at the back pulled down and smashed , ornaments broken, chair chassis stolen plus offers to buy my house for peanuts, as one last Monday said “ we give you £70,000 cash , you get bungalow £60,000”, to which I told him you can’t get a bungalow for less than a house . So I’m suffering from religious persecution on top of worrying if I sleep and a rocket makes contact breaking the already broken glass my home could set on fire . 8th October before someone will look at it . My life I’ve literally been wanting to not wake up as I feel trapped and need to talk to victim support for help as there are no places in West Yorkshire bradford or Leeds to buy a 75% shred home with safer housing and as I own the roof over my head I don’t stand a chance to get a rental. I’m living in a hostile community where I can’t walk outside and have been racially abused. My son is half Moroccan so this isn’t a race problem on my behalf and I felt safer living in Morocco than I do here but haven’t the connections or money and being dependent upon my benefits I’m stuck living in hell in bd3 . I have a cat who was abandoned on my doorstep 3 months ago and had to make him a house cat because someone deliberately was withholding him for hours after let out and he smelt of smoke and dirty so you can’t have nothing living here . Bradford council have been selling bungalows meant for disabled and elderly people but tell us there are no bungalows yet an Uber driver who’s only been here three years was given one to rent , said he paid council £90,000 for it so it’s corruption as you can’t earn that kind of money doing Taxi’s and people like me are not getting the help other than stay put so it’s horrible what’s going on. My mental health is down to physical things happening to me beyond my control. On top of that I’m waiting for a solicitor case as the government paid cowboys putting insulation not meant for Yorkshire stone house’s damaging the house which is damp . The mental health nurse said I’m suffering physical exhaustion as a result of all I’ve been going through. I’ve been advised to talk to the community bobbies as I was told by West Yorkshire police that the breaking of my window is “ a victimless crime “, for which they wouldn’t even give me a crime number requested by Churchill and as the pane of glass was less than £150 excess their is no claim !!!! If anyone could help me in the actual physical help I’m waiting. 

Hannah_Alumni

Hello @LadyMich63

I'm going to pop an email over to you  

LadyMich63

I have even broken down and taken to hospital as I felt suicidal but was just as the mental health nurse said physically and mentally exhausted and not by thoughts but persecution. Even in the ambulance going I was told I wasn’t the first person ending up in hospital because of the mental torture and stress of muslim persecution. It’s not about religion as I didn’t suffer this when I lived for a time in Morocco and I know of an Uber taxi driver who has had his car windows smashed several times and house windows by those coming here illegally because they are given a place to live then attack the local population bringing violence with them. Ahmed my access bus driver struggles to get around my area streets because they park diagonally across the corners or stick out the end of the roads and he put it poetically “ they’d park in their front rooms if they could !”, as it’s hard picking up us mainly English elderly and disabled people dotted around with no community of our own. I felt safer on a rough mainly English estate where I used to live than here .

LadyMich63

I’ve been given the £950 damage replacement for my window courtesy of the fireworks mob the police protect but me no it’s deemed a “ victimless crime “, except had the firework broken through and set my house on fire I’d be dead as this happened after eleven at night. Police are there to protect the guilty mobs but not disabled older woman , it’s racism in reverse 

MW123

Hello LadyMich63

I deeply sympathise with the significant hardships and the sense of persecution you've had to endure in your current living conditions. It's crucial to highlight that your concerns primarily revolve around ensuring your safety, security, and the profound impact these challenges have had on your mental and physical well-being, rather than focusing on religion or ethnicity. 

Your experiences are profoundly distressing and physically exhausting. I strongly encourage you to persist in seeking assistance and support from local authorities, organisations dedicated to aiding victims, and mental health professionals to address these issues and work towards establishing a safer and more nurturing living environment. Support organisations should be prioritising your well-being and safety, and this alone should be their primary focus.

LadyMich63

I have reported all of the persecution to the local bobbies in my area last Monday and at last a new Velux window in the attic was finally done Wednesday so being totally exhausted I just slept and slept . I appreciate your aspect on not focusing on ethnicity and religion but this is and has been for the past two years the criminal behaviour of one community’s people and nothing to do with religion but behaviour commonly used to force people out by harassment, damage , illegally registering the generic names of people who have never lived here, as if they do and I have reported every single one , ranging from registering cars to my address, it’s worrying that the DVLA are not checking up if these registrations are legitimate and who they’ve got working for them. These events are happening even to people newly here from African countries who are Christian. Life is hard for us disabled without the stress of reverse racism and not right we have to relocate to another town because of a violent minority who are causing these offences. Even my peaceful muslim neighbours have cctv and said how bad it’s getting. The problem is not enough police or the will for fear of being labelled racist just because the ones doing this do come from one background. I have lived on a rough council estate in the past but not experienced anything like what is going on and this will only be rectified once that community address this issue just as we would likewise submit the perpetrators of any other community committing hate crimes. 

LadyMich63

On another note it would be good if more support is made available for vulnerable people who do not know how to access help , especially when they are in a family owned property not suited to their disability, like my friend Alan whose home has been condemned, being temporarily put up in a hotel until a place somewhere is made available ( sadly lacking with some councils) for whom we drop through the safety net . Just because we are English it isn’t a given we get help . There are a lot of people disabled who can’t afford the cost of some sheltered accommodation and those who are in places like this have virtually nothing left for daily living costs , more pressure should be made to the government to help our people with affordable housing and stop those who are buying up every house for private high tenancies where people are being evicted by greedy landlords taking advantage !

poppy123456

I don’t think it’s about greedy landlords. It’s more to do with Local housing allowance rates being so low and not covering the whole of the rent. 

The last time there was an increase was April 2020. For those living further down South the difference between the LHA and the actual rent is very often huge. This means that so many people are unable to pay their rent because of the shortfall.

Many landlords have a mortgage to pay so if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent then what happens to that mortgage? 

It’s more the Governments fault for not increasing the LHA rates than the landlords. 

There is help for the shortfall of rent through a Discretionary Housing Payment but this isn’t guaranteed and also a lot of people don’t even know it exists. 

WhatThe

LadyMich,

Anti-social behaviour exists everywhere but police numbers and budgets have been reduced meaning they can't do what they used to. It's probably true that once people get away with something, they are likely to do it again.

All public services are reduced and that's the fault of successive Tory governments and anyone who voted them in or didn't use their vote! Our growing wealth inequality has reduced access to social care, decent housing and support for us all. I don't envy the young in this day and age - what look like choices and freedom really aren't.

I'm old though not elderly but I'm not having my windows smashed. Your priority has to be moving somewhere safe while your son deals with the house. Pack up what I don't need and remove precious items is what I would be doing.  

Some members may not read your post because it's difficult to with no paragraphs but there is no need to name a particular community more than once. Religion in a secular society doesn't qualify for much, thank heavens! There is no such thing as reverse racism.

GP's, councillors, MP's can all lend support but not if you speak as you write. It's good to let off steam here and have people in your life who understand what you're going through but your Englishness isn't important to the people you want help from.  

In 2023 and online, you can't remain set in your ways. Thinking is one thing but saying it is quite another. It's not appropriate and you know why. If you want other people to care about you, you have to start caring about other people...
 

2oldcodgers

poppy123456 said:

I don’t think it’s about greedy landlords. It’s more to do with Local housing allowance rates being so low and not covering the whole of the rent. 

The last time there was an increase was April 2020. For those living further down South the difference between the LHA and the actual rent is very often huge. This means that so many people are unable to pay their rent because of the shortfall.

Many landlords have a mortgage to pay so if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent then what happens to that mortgage? 

It’s more the Governments fault for not increasing the LHA rates than the landlords. 

There is help for the shortfall of rent through a Discretionary Housing Payment but this isn’t guaranteed and also a lot of people don’t even know it exists. 

The principle of LHA, as far as I remember, is that each area has a different amount. two sides of a road could well have different amounts if the boundary goes down the middle of the road.
The amount given is based on the rents of the bottom 1/3 of the cheapest rental properties in that area. It also depends on how many bedrooms you need not want as well as your age.
For example in my area (down South) if you needed a 1 bed flat the LHA is £100 a week, for a 3 bed property it would be £172 a week.
Up in a run down town in Lancashire the 1 bed rate is £85 a week whereas the 3 bed rate is £115 a week.

There are such properties available but to be honest they are not in a 'good' area and likely to be needing damp and other work. However as my grandfather used to say 'beggars cannot be choosers'

I would not want what happened in the past when the Housing Allowance was based purely on what the rent was. I remember cases of people living in £500,000 homes costing £hundreds a week in Housing Allowance.

Wherever you live there will always be properties at the cheaper end that you can rent.

Adrian_Scope

2oldcodgers said:

There are such properties available but to be honest they are not in a 'good' area and likely to be needing damp and other work. However as my grandfather used to say 'beggars cannot be choosers'

I disagree with this and feel strongly that everyone deserves a home of reasonable quality, not riddled with damp.

2oldcodgers said:

Wherever you live there will always be properties at the cheaper end that you can rent.

Sadly this isn't strictly true. There are always cheaper properties but rarely any close to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA).

I've just spent some time researching and the LHA in my local area for my housing need is £1291. In a 10 mile radius, the cheapest properties are now generally £1650. There is one single property at £1500 which would leave someone with a £209 monthly shortfall in their rent. The rest cost £1650 or above.

My in-laws live up north so I've repeated the same process using their local area as an example. LHA: £423.84 a month. The typical rent starts at £625, but I did manage to find one property that was lower at £555. Again leaving a substantial shortfall.

poppy123456

2oldcodgers said:

poppy123456 said:

I don’t think it’s about greedy landlords. It’s more to do with Local housing allowance rates being so low and not covering the whole of the rent. 

The last time there was an increase was April 2020. For those living further down South the difference between the LHA and the actual rent is very often huge. This means that so many people are unable to pay their rent because of the shortfall.

Many landlords have a mortgage to pay so if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent then what happens to that mortgage? 

It’s more the Governments fault for not increasing the LHA rates than the landlords. 

There is help for the shortfall of rent through a Discretionary Housing Payment but this isn’t guaranteed and also a lot of people don’t even know it exists. 

Wherever you live there will always be properties at the cheaper end that you can rent.

It's very clear to me that you haven't experienced living in a privately rented property. There are very few across the whole of the country that the LHA will pay the whole amount. If you're very very lucky you may find somewhere in the area you want. However, then the extra difficulties appear, try finding a landlord that will accept someone claiming benefits, it's almost impossible. Down South it's even worse!

Social housing lists are extremely long, even longer if you're a single person. I'm on the social housing list as urgent medical priority. At the end of each week when the bidding closes for that week and each property is offered you can see which catagory that person was in. Last week there was someone that had been on the list since 2014, yes you did read right, 2014!

2oldcodgers

Not recently have I rented. I rented from age 17  to 23 both in London (Cricklewood) and in Manchester (Urmston).

I'm not saying that currently it is easy, it's not. But it's doable.

Like everyone else over the many years you had to upsticks and find a place to live near to where the work is. I think it was Norman Tebbit MP that said there is no excuse to be unemployed you should get on your bike and find where the work is.
So today is the same you will have to live where the cheapest homes are.
I had to move regularly for my job and thinking back I have lived/worked in most of the large towns/cities in Britain plus one in Scotland.

Yes I was lucky that I managed to get on the housing ladder with my first property in 1972 - a 2 bed new build terraced near Bristol.

My sister in law can't even name a village/town or city that she could say that she had roots there. She nominated a city on the south coast as that was were most of her friends lived.

poppy123456

2oldcodgers said:

Not recently have I rented. I rented from age 17  to 23 both in London (Cricklewood) and in Manchester (Urmston).

Yes, that's what i thought. You're 70+ now so it was a considerably long time ago. A lot has changed since then. It's not even doable for so many people.

2oldcodgers said:

Like everyone else over the many years you had to upsticks and find a place to live near to where the work is. I think it was Norman Tebbit MP that said there is no excuse to be unemployed you should get on your bike and find where the work is.
So today is the same you will have to live where the cheapest homes are.
I had to move regularly for my job and thinking back I have lived/worked in most of the large towns/cities in Britain plus one in Scotland.

Seriously! Not everyone is able to move around the country! Some people have health conditions (or had you forgotten that) and need the support from family and friends they live close to. Some have children that are coming towards exams at school next year and moving schools may not be possible.

Not forgetting what @Adrian_Scope pointed out here..

Adrian_Scope said:

I've just spent some time researching and the LHA in my local area for my housing need is £1291. In a 10 mile radius, the cheapest properties are now generally £1650. There is one single property at £1500 which would leave someone with a £209 monthly shortfall in their rent. The rest cost £1650 or above.

My in-laws live up north so I've repeated the same process using their local area as an example. LHA: £423.84 a month. The typical rent starts at £625, but I did manage to find one property that was lower at £555. Again leaving a substantial shortfall.

It's not always as easy these days as "just moving around the country"

As for "getting on the property ladder" that's not easy either, even for working people.

2oldcodgers

letitbe said:

 

I  live very near Cricklewood, it’s a dive and ridiculously priced for the area, you’ll pay £1350 for a flat that’s worth less than half , should I move somewhere cheaper ? There’s nowhere in London that’s cheap now . Should I get on my bike and Cycle to another city ? Life isn’t the way you want or think it is. Next you’ll be telling me to buy a tent , well Suella wanted that banned too. 

You have to accept that London is pricing many out of their homes - it's a fact.
Moving out of London would seem to be the obvious answer as nothing you or anybody else can do to change it.

2oldcodgers

A very good friend of mine who just happened to be the Leader of the local District Council, approved a change to a block of social rented flats to more up market apartments for sale. All of the residents where  claiming benefits as well as housing costs.
This was down south.
The offer made to these tenants was that if they moved to the North East where private rents are much cheaper the local authority would pay for the move.
Many complained but had to go North.
Now a few years later they are thankful that they moved as they now have more money in their pockets.

poppy123456

2oldcodgers said:

letitbe said:

 

I  live very near Cricklewood, it’s a dive and ridiculously priced for the area, you’ll pay £1350 for a flat that’s worth less than half , should I move somewhere cheaper ? There’s nowhere in London that’s cheap now . Should I get on my bike and Cycle to another city ? Life isn’t the way you want or think it is. Next you’ll be telling me to buy a tent , well Suella wanted that banned too. 

You have to accept that London is pricing many out of their homes - it's a fact.
Moving out of London would seem to be the obvious answer as nothing you or anybody else can do to change it.

Except it isn’t the answer because where ever you live in the country mostly the rent is above the LHA. 

apple85

2oldcodgers said:

letitbe said:

 

I  live very near Cricklewood, it’s a dive and ridiculously priced for the area, you’ll pay £1350 for a flat that’s worth less than half , should I move somewhere cheaper ? There’s nowhere in London that’s cheap now . Should I get on my bike and Cycle to another city ? Life isn’t the way you want or think it is. Next you’ll be telling me to buy a tent , well Suella wanted that banned too. 

You have to accept that London is pricing many out of their homes - it's a fact.
Moving out of London would seem to be the obvious answer as nothing you or anybody else can do to change it.

That’s true London is massively overpriced for renters….always has been, it is the capital after all

but I’ve lived in a few different areas in the country over the years and LHA is nowhere near enough to cover rent in at least 90% of places in the uk

for those hesitant in possibility leaving the London area and finding a cheaper area, what is the reason for currently leaving in London (nearby family, move triggering switch to UC, or another reason.

happy to chat @letitbe if you’d like an ear to bounce things off

apple85

poppy123456 said:

2oldcodgers said:

letitbe said:

 

I  live very near Cricklewood, it’s a dive and ridiculously priced for the area, you’ll pay £1350 for a flat that’s worth less than half , should I move somewhere cheaper ? There’s nowhere in London that’s cheap now . Should I get on my bike and Cycle to another city ? Life isn’t the way you want or think it is. Next you’ll be telling me to buy a tent , well Suella wanted that banned too. 

You have to accept that London is pricing many out of their homes - it's a fact.
Moving out of London would seem to be the obvious answer as nothing you or anybody else can do to change it.

Except it isn’t the answer because where ever you live in the country mostly the rent is above the LHA. 

That’s not necessarily true

The area of the country where I used to live in was significantly more expensive than where I am now but strangely the LHA was about £10-£25 less where I used to live compared to where I am now

but that may be a fluke scenario

Albus_Scope

As someone down south, with many friends renting, people cannot pay all their rent with housing benefits at all, many on other benefits have to use that money to make up the difference for their rent.  This of course means they have to go without food or heating to some degree.   Unfortunately, it's the same story with my friends up north. 

poppy123456

apple85 said:

poppy123456 said:

2oldcodgers said:

letitbe said:

 

I  live very near Cricklewood, it’s a dive and ridiculously priced for the area, you’ll pay £1350 for a flat that’s worth less than half , should I move somewhere cheaper ? There’s nowhere in London that’s cheap now . Should I get on my bike and Cycle to another city ? Life isn’t the way you want or think it is. Next you’ll be telling me to buy a tent , well Suella wanted that banned too. 

You have to accept that London is pricing many out of their homes - it's a fact.
Moving out of London would seem to be the obvious answer as nothing you or anybody else can do to change it.

Except it isn’t the answer because where ever you live in the country mostly the rent is above the LHA. 

That’s not necessarily true

The area of the country where I used to live in was significantly more expensive than where I am now but strangely the LHA was about £10-£25 less where I used to live compared to where I am now

but that may be a fluke scenario

In all fairness I did say “mostly” I didn’t say all areas will be more than LHA rates.