Last year I became depressed. Really
depressed. Clinically can’t-get-out-of-bed just-want-to-die depressed. So
depressed I could no longer handle my job and had to go on long-term sick leave
for several months.
I got sick pay but it came nowhere near
to paying my rent and living costs, but I found out I was entitled to housing
benefit. Now all I needed was a letter from my live-in landlord to prove I
lived there and paid rent, as I had no tenancy agreement.
The landlord refused to give me a
letter. He told me that if he did he would have to pay taxes and raise
everybody’s rent, and “you don’t want that, do you?” “No” I said, intimidated.
Since he wouldn't give me a letter and
the rent was paid in cash, leaving no paper trail, I could not prove I paid
rent and so receive housing benefit. Over the next few months I spent my life
savings (around £1000) on living and rent. Most of the time I was still too
depressed to get out of bed.
As my savings started to run out, I
panicked and started looking for flats. All I see is
NO DSS
NO DSS
SORRY NO DSS
NO DSS
SORRY NO DSS
Some don’t say this. So I call up and
ask, explaining my circumstances – and they tell me “NO DSS”.
My fragile depressed mind could not
cope with this constant rejection, nor the quickly looming threat of
homelessness. I had no one I could stay with.
I try a local homeless centre, who only
had very limited flats in obscure places with old men. As a young woman who has
had a lot of bad experiences, this does not feel safe to me. I am scared and
frightened and can’t cope and just want somewhere safe to live.
Desperate, I decide to lie. I start
pretending I’m still working when I call potential landlords. The first flat I
see is hellish, 14 stories up in the middle of nowhere with a balcony I could
see myself jumping off. The second, however, seemed perfect. Nice room,
nice area, nice kitchen. Unfortunately like the last landlord the landlady
lived-in and demanded cash-in-hand. But my money was almost gone and I needed
to move fast, and I was able to claim housing benefit at this address, without
her knowledge.
A few weeks after moving in she became
suspicious of my presence in the house. Although I had planned to make myself
scarce during the day, my depression got the better of me and I spent too
many days in bed. She was heavily pregnant so she didn't work.
She pulls me aside one day and starts
shouting and demands to know if I’m on DSS. I deny everything. She says if she
finds out I’m on DSS she will kick me out. She won’t tell me why she
would kick me out.
Because she is a live-in-landlord it is
perfectly legal for her to evict me for any reason with ‘reasonable notice’ –
which can mean any time.
Being threatened with homelessness
again, being watched at home and forced to be out the house eight hours a day,
pretending I’m at work, with nowhere to go, no money and no one to talk to - sent
me into a suicidal tailspin.
Between visit’s to A&E and the
Samaritans, I applied to council housing, stating my depression made it really
hard for me to live with people and I couldn't cope anymore. It took forever
and was a real struggle to get together. Exhausted but victorious, I handed the
application in. The sour-faced assistant told me it would take 13 weeks just
to look at my application. My application had several signed statements
saying I was suicidal and my housing stress was the major contributor to this.
I was advised that if I wanted it any sooner than this, I would have to make
myself homeless. Then they might put me in a hostel. Or something.
Needless to say I couldn't cope with
making myself homeless. The council was true to their word and didn't get back
for 13 weeks, by which time, thankfully I had found accommodation. A friend’s
landlord took pity on me and agreed to rent out the small room to me, knowing I
was on DSS and was struggling to find a place to live. I can only imagine this
was because she met me as her tenant’s friend first, realised I was a decent
human being and not ‘DSS scum’.
I’m now four months into my tenancy,
complete with a real tenancy agreement, and I love my new flat. So a happy
ending for me. But my happy ending was due to sheer luck, and the story could
have turned out a lot differently. And I’m sure has turned out very differently
for lots of other vulnerable people.
I am still so frustrated that it is
perfectly legal to discriminate against people on housing benefit in this way.
Perhaps it would not be a problem, if the government was not relying so heavily
on the private sector ‘to provide’ for DSS tenants, whilst offering no
incentive for doing so or penalties for not doing so. Furthermore, despite low
rates of occurrence ‘benefit fraud’ is never out of the papers, but I have yet
to read about the private landlords who are dodging taxes and exploiting
vulnerable tenants.
