benefits and my housing help

DRAGON40

Hi its really about my benefits and my housing. I am disabled and so is my partnermy husband has MS, Heart disease & Epilepsy and I have COPD, Fibryomyalgia, Arthritis-rumatoid and osteo, diverticulitis, collitus, chrones and more but I won't bore you.

We'll I used to care for my husband while working full time, well my husband was getting a lot worse keeping me up all night with his choking and I had a very demanding job doing rotas, care plans, risk assessments etc because I was project manager, and I had noticed my health had been declining so I took the decision that my husband came first so I applied and recieved carers allowance and income support and housing benefit and council tax credit That was January 2012-2013,

The ESA were paying out underpayments at that time scope, I was working my notice on the January of the year when they paid out thousands to people. Well my husband has been on ESA since 2007 and I applied for that payout for my husband and they denied it because I worked for a month, working my notice, in there time scale to recieve this money. But there was a time that i wasn't working at all.is this right. But now I am on Dissability and not working, my husband receives ESA and PIP but I just get PIP and we recieve housing element (universal credit) and council tax and get joint UC £200 a month is this correct were I am now worse of £448 a month and we got housing benefit and council tax on top this. We are so much worse of since going on universal credit and can't afford to live, we are now in rent arrears £1000, Gas and electric arrears £2000 and we can't afford to buy food shopping let alone things we need for our Dissability. I have never been so worse of than we are now and it's making us ill on top of our illnesses. Is this right please help.

And then we get to our housing we have had OT out once for my husband as going up the stairs to bed was a no go so he slept on a put you up bed in the lounge. They assessed him and offered him a through floor lift, which meant the settee would of been on top of the TV and we would of lost wardrobe space upstairs, when I said there's no room for easy wheelchair access downstairs and the fact of not being able to fit wardrobes in the bedroom upstairs, they said put your clothes somewhere else well we have two teenage girls at that time living with us that couldn't fit our clothes as well as there own, so my husband declined it. Then I can't get upstairs so we have them out again to access me, we are both sleeping in our bedroom that was the lounge because we both can't get upstairs. They came out and offered a lift even before they had looked round, they might as well been assessing my husband again because that's all they focused on. We'll they said no lift, no help so we had to decline again. Well we have no family communal area now everyone goes to there room as that's the only place you can sit, we have no dining room we partioned the lounge diner but the diner parts so small you can fit a two seater in there but no one sat in there because it's awful having a plasterboard sheet practically on your nose and two seats so I had it changed to my hobby room, that I can only do in very small amounts because of the pain. But most importantly and the thing that really affects our life even more so than the no family time is we have no bathroom-wetroom to be showered everyday. We have to be washed in the kitchen but I not being crued but I have to keep my private parts bathed all the time because we're I'm a larger lady bossom wise, they get very soar underneath and same for my tummy because of my bedridement it's left me with hanging stomach down there. We really need a bungalow so please how do I get help with this. Thankyou for taking time to read this and I hope it is clear what I'm saying. Xx

Alex_Alumni

Hello @DRAGON40 and welcome to the community, thanks for sharing your queries. To help our members find your post I've marked it as unanswered, edited the title, and moved it into our housing and independent living category.

I can appreciate that your situation must be very frustrating, as sometimes the solutions on offer don't work for everyone day to day. Scope has some guidance on finding accessible housing as well as applying for accessible council and housing association homes, which I hope you will find useful.

I'm afraid I lack the knowledge to answer your queries around benefits directly, but hopefully our members can share their thoughts soon. 

If there's anything else you're unsure of or anything you need a hand with, please do let us know

Alex

Adrian_Scope

Hello @DRAGON40. How are you and your husband getting on? Have you made any progress with housing?

With regards to your benefits it may be worth checking your UC claim is correct. Do you still receive Carer's Allowance?

It should have a breakdown at the top of your statement showing which 'elements' you receive.

From what you've said these should be:

• Standard Allowance
• Housing
• LCWRA
• Carer element

And then in the deductions section it should have a deduction for your partner's ESA and Carer's Allowance (if you're still receiving this)

Is that what your statement shows currently?