Homeless 76 year old

cashman82

@LunaLater she has been staying with me, but we have 3 kids under 12 and no spare room. She sleeps on my sofa.

While this is ok to do short term, it’s not something I can do long term - bearing in mind it was never my husbands desire to feed and keep my elderly mother.

All I’m wanting it for the council to acknowledge her homelessness so that I can get her some social housing. Basically, I’m upset they don’t seem willing to do the assessment even though she is homeless. She can’t get a private rental because her income so far has been too low.

cashman82

@Rubyroobs it is social housing. I listed her as homeless so she would get 1st position in the queue and I don’t see the issue in doing this because she is homeless. She is travelling between 2 houses weekly. All I need is for the council to recognise that she is homeless so she can get this flat. It’s a stipulation of the housing association I’ve applied through - and I believe many of them. They have different bands depending on circumstances. She was band 3, she’s now band 1.

My main gripe is she is homeless, the council want us to wait what could be from 6 months to a year before they will do an assessment even (the first step to a homelessness application) and we can’t wait this long. She has to get a rental agreement before she can get housing benefit and we can’t even get to that point.

The legislation seems to have been done in such a way to make it as difficult as possible for someone who’s genuinely homeless.

huckster

Visit Council housing team and ask them to help resolve. Always best to speak to someone at the council face to face.

Pollycat

There's something on Shelter website that may help.
Shelter - The housing and homelessness charity

includes 'sofa surfing'.

huckster

Councils are struggling at the moment. They have more priority cases for urgent Housing than they have places to locate people into.

Those sofa surfing are still classified as homeless, but possibly others are in more urgent need of the housing. And unfortunately other urgent cases will keep being referred to Councils and be a priority over someone sofa surfing.

elsien

cashman82 said:

Murphybear said:

There are some good sheltered housing association properties around, I live in one.  They have properties for over 60s throughout England.    With ours you don’t need to go through the council, you can apply direct.  There are waiting lists for the most popular areas such as Bournemouth or the Isle of Wight but for many places there are vacancies.  Rents are set at affordable and they are happy to take housing benefit.  

This is exactly what I’m trying to get her. I’ve bid on it, but despite her age, her health issues (including a heart condition, high BP and depression since this all began) she was in 3rd position. I understand that people with children can be higher up the pecking order but this is a 1 bed flat so intended as single occupancy.

She is, for all intents and purposes, of no fixed abode. I listed her on the application as homeless because she is as that has put her in first position BUT I require this official letter from her local council to say so and then she is guaranteed the flat. It is social housing.

She is receiving pension credit which i think is more than her actual pension - that’s how low her pension is! We’ve applied for private rentals but she always gets turned down. She pretty infirm in a lot of ways - also has mobility issues and I think landlords look at her application and don’t want the hassle of an old single lady. They also do a credit check and she has to tell them her income. It’s often lower than what they want. Even with pension credit it’s less than £9000 a year.

If it’s sheltered housing then people with children aren’t going to be eligible for it and the other bidders may well be in very similar circumstances to her. Or otherwise unsuitably housed with health issues and needing to move somewhere more accessible. 

Have you tried contacting your local councillors with regards to speeding up the assessment/letter.

With regards to the issues, the two solicitors couldn’t have agreed things amongst themselves without her consent. 

FtbDreaming

Get social care involved. Call your local council social services and tell them the issues. They have a duty of care to help x

cashman82

@elsien it was agreed between the two solicitors. There is no paperwork that gives her consent to the money being deposited. Her solicitor also didn’t send her the decree absolute until 2 days ago. It went through in October and she wasn’t told. This whole time she wasn’t aware she was divorced.
Add to this he even advised her to sell the house. Her new solicitor has said she wouldn’t have let her sell until there was a financial agreement in place as she wouldn’t have been in this mess.

elsien

Complaint about the solicitor, for financial redress?

as regards to contacting adult social care, if she does have eligible needs, this is certainly worth doing. They don’t have a supply of houses for people, but they may be able to help with speaking to the council about her vulnerability and eligibility.

cashman82

@FtbDreaming I think the housing department should be helping but are trying to fob me off. I had it with my local council. The legislation says they have to do an assessment with her but have said they won’t until the housing proceeds or financial order has been decided. With this being potentially a year away, I’m at a loss as to what to say to them. The sample letter from Shelter isn’t much help. I was hoping there would be a MSE form possibly but haven’t been able to find one.

Perhaps I can just quote legislation at them. Basically this authorisation of her homelessness would mean they no longer have to worry about my mum, she will move to my area and my local council. My local council told us to apply via the last place she paid council tax.