Need advice please - no money and no gas / electricity

CACHAF

Hello,

I will try to keep this brief as it is a long story so bear with me! Earlier this year my husband was made redundant at the same time my grandma became very ill and I had to become her full time carer. As a result we received contribution based job seekers allowance at the single person rate as they wouldnt allow me to sign on as I spent too many hours caring but I couldnt claim income support / carers allowance until my gran had been ill for 6 months and had claimed attendance allowance.

On the 20th September the JSA ended and we were not allowed to swop to income based as I am still doing too many hours caring but we couldnt swop to income support as the earliest my gran could claim attendance allowance from was the 18th October. This means that since September we have had no income at all apart from a couple of crisis loans.

Now the attendance allowance forms have been submitted we have applied for income support (and my husband, who apart from 4 months last year has never been out of work before, has applied for a lot of jobs) but it will be another three weeks before it is paid. In the meantime we have survived with the help of friends and food parcels from our neighbours but we have now run out of goodwill and options.

We have no income at all for at least three more weeks, have run out of gas (pre pay) and will run out of electric in the next few days (prepay too)

I applied yesterday for a crisis loan but was turned down as we have had our limit. I tried applying for a budgetting loan / community care grant but we havent been on income based benefits for at least 26 weeks so they couldnt help either.

I have tried ringing British Gas who told me to contact the BG energy trust and they said they could help with arrears (which we have from when my husband was made redundant last year, sadly) but they couldnt help with the immediate problem.

I just dont know what to do. We are so cold at night and it is starting to really affect my asthma and the lack of sleep is affecting my ability to care properly for my gran. We can't stay at her place as we have pets at home that need care and couldnt go with us to her home and she only has a small one bedroom flat anyway.

Does anyone know of anywhere that could help us? Any grants or loans that would be available to us in our situation just for the next three weeks? All this talk of snow is really worrying us now and we just don't know how we are going to survive.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post and I hope someone can help us.

Seadogs_2010

I am ever so sorry to read about your really sad situation, contact your citizens advice office asap and im sure they will give you some good advice what to do.
All the best

u_r

Extremely sorry to hear about your plight.May your patience and your goodwill(caring your grandma) be rewarded abundantly.
Unfortunately, apart frrom CAB I dont where you could go for issues.AS it looks like you have exhausted your options.

Hard to live without gas/elec.regards to feeling cold(as silly and obvious the advice sounds and perhaps you are doing it already), hopefully you will not be short on clothing, so please wear layers(lots of em). dont worry if feel silly. have extra fleece, blanket, duvet.yes!!!u have to keep body warm with what you have.

can you not cook food at grandma and bring it home to eat.I am sure she will understand your problem and tell her that hopefully it should be solved soon.

Other than that, I really do not know waht to advice.Sorry!

firesidemaid

hi.

i really feel for you and can't belive that the system can leave you without any income - its beyond me.

i too, would camp out at the CAB. could you also try contacting your local MP/surgery too?

Joyful

Have you contacted the British Gas Essential care team to see what extra help they may be able to give? The number is 0800 294 8604.

solongmarianne

do you have anything you could pawn??? might be worth a try.
am ff to have a look see if i can find anything else which could be of use to you x

solongmarianne

your local salvation army might help too , worth asking x

CACHAF

Thank you all so much for your replies, it is so nice to know that people care. We have been using extra blankets and staying late at my grans to keep warm as long as possible and we already eat there which is a big help. We have sold anything we have of value over the last 8 weeks to raise income so sadly there is nothing left to pawn.

I went to the job center today but they said there was nothing they could do, that was the point at which I sobbed on the desk and the advisor had to get tissues and calm me down but I just really have had enough of being treated like this. It is as if we have done something wrong and can't have benefits although actually I thought that by caring full time for my gran we were doing something right! Also, apart from the 6 months this year and a period of four months last year my husband has never been out of work since leaving school 21 years ago and has always paid his tax and nat ins so how can we not be able to get help when we need it?

I am not sure what the British gas essentials team is so will go annd try them and see what happens. As for the Salvation Army, they are actually my church! They can't help with money for gas though although they can help with food parcels for which we are very grateful.

Thank you again and sorry for the mini rant - my frustration is huge at the moment.

CACHAF

Just tried the British gas essentials team and there was nothing they could do to help either, they just dont have grants available to help people in these circumstances. They suggest i try the CAB which I will do tomorrow. I just desperately hope it doesn't snow here tonight.

Thank you all again and if anyone else has any suggestions I would be very grateful. I am also going to repost some of this on the benefits board and see if anyone there can help too. xx

nearlyrich

This doesn't seem right to me surely if you have no income your husband should get income based job seekers?

If you are not working because you are looking after your gran but you are not getting any payment for it why does that stop your husband getting benefit?

Could you swap places with your DH, he looks after Gran and you look for work? Not ideal I know but in the short term you may be entitled to contributions based JSA in your own right?

CACHAF

Hi,

We can't claim income based job seekers as I spend too many hours a week caring for my gran (I am here 9am till 9.30pm each day) so I am not able to sign on as available for work, but the job center were unwilling to disregard me for signing on purposes. You cannot get jsa for just one person if you are both not working, they would need me to sign on but they wouldnt allow me too as they know how many hours care I give and so they said that until my gran receives attendance allowance they class it as my deliberately making myself unavailable for work by spending my time with my gran! If only that was the case!

I cannot claim contribution based job seekers as I have not got two years nat ins payments. I had been training for a specialised job area but have that up to care for my gran and it is not something I can just go back to.

As for my husband caring for her, most of what she needs is personal care and so it would not be appropriate for him to do that. She is really poorly at the moment as she has got an infection and like with a lot of older people it has made her completely confused and rather distressed and behave in an erratic way - something my husband could not deal with easily.

Hope someone has some answers soon x