Aibu to think the local authority will house me?

[Jojomarie29]

Hello,I'm 33 and have suffered with anxiety most of my life.
I still live with my mum and I'm single.
I claim esa due to anxiety but I'm trying to get my life on track.
What chance do I have of the LA housing me?
I'm desperate to move out but can't afford to private rent.
Will the LA house me?
How do I go about it?
How many months will it take?
Will I be entitled to full housing benefit?
I'm hoping to get back to work soon.
Any advice would be great

I think it really depends on your local authority. Here the council has some "hard-to-let" properties (mainly tower blocks in not very nice neighbourhoods) which are essentially available to anyone who wants them/can pay for them. To get a one-bedroomed flat in a nicer part of town, a single person who is not homeless would wait years.

I lived on my own for many years, and it can be really, really expensive - and I was in a good job with a very small mortgage because I bought the property while I had an inheritance to use as a deposit. I now live with my partner in a much bigger property, and things like energy and even food are not that different for two of us than they were for one person.

What if I said I didn't have anywhere to stay?

Then you would be committing fraud and you would be depriving someone of a property which they genuinely need.

OP, ignore the people who are being stupid and impolite. The golden ticket to social housing is a baby, preferably born into skint circs without the full complement of parents, but even that doesn't do the trick now.

My neighbour, who had luck so bad all the above applied to all 3 children, has been on the council list since Dc1 was born. The 4 of them celebrated his 18th in their tiny one-bedroom private rent last week.With the cockroaches and the block fires.

Now the children have waited so long they're adults, they're right back down the list again.

OP, ignore the people who are being stupid and impolite

Do you want to specify?

The shelter website is very confusing but I'm sure it says that you can get full housing benefit for a council /housing association.

In most areas you can, but you have to have the place to live first and that's where you're going to struggle. There just isn't enough social housing to go round.

I can guarantee that you will be offered room within a shared house and even then u are likely to have to pay top up for rent. It's likely that you will have to find private shared room accommodation yourself and then claim for housing benefit

The golden ticket to social housing is a baby, preferably born into skint circs without the full complement of parents, but even that doesn't do the trick now

Nice

I live in the North West too I got my house quickly with no priority why don't you just join your local list and ask your council how long it will be?Having said that my neighbours daughter and partner and two children are all living with her at the moment squashed into a two bed house we are in bolton.

TBH I think your chances are dependent on where you live/the local availability of housing. Different areas have different criteria too. In many areas you would be far down the list and it may take years, other areas would not have so long a waiting list. It's impossible to say until you make some enquiries and find out where you stand. All of this is pure speculation as to whether you will or won't be housed by the LA. You can't make any sorts of plans until you do this.

I think you have to be clear that you can afford it though, and not rush into things out of embarrassment or feeling left behind. If you suffer from anxiety, money worries are not going to help matters.

I think some people are reacting to the tone of some of your posts, that can come across as a bit demanding without much thought of the wider problems in housing at the moment. Of course, in an ideal world everyone who wanted social housing would be able to be housed. But it isn't the ideal world and we all have to work within limitations.

It just feels like everyone's life has started
Jobs,boyfriends,kids,houses
And I'm here ,it makes me feel awful about things,as if I've failed.

jojomarie, please don't compare yourself to your friends who have "jobs, boyfriends, kids, houses". Some may be very happy, some may be living lives where they'd also do anything to change their situations, even if they look like they've got it all from your perspective. What people post on their FB page is an idealised version of their lives.

Try to focus on what works for you, not these other people. You aren't them, and that's totally OK.

Id be concerned about losing the ESA if youre in the regularly re assessed work capability group tbh, it wont do any good to get in a property then lose all income if you get the house before a job. You might get full coversge of rent by housing benefit but that wont pay bills or buy food.

You are entitled to register with your local housing options.
You will be given a bidding number and a priority band. Given your current circumstances that band will be low priority. This means you can bid on properties every week but you will likely be last on the list for a long time.

Your housing benefit will be based on a shared occupancy rate so if you win a bid on a flat you will have a top up rent payment to find.
Given your mental health you may be able to bypass the housing benefit cap (shared housing would increase your anxiety) so a DHP ( descretionary housing payment) could be available to help with rent top ups.

Go along to the housing options in your area make an apication and speak to a housing support officer is the best advise.

Op just because you get full hb it doesn't mean that the hb covers your full rent. Private tents you will only be entitled to the shared room rate about £80pw. If council property or housing association anything over a 1 bed you will be subject to the bedroom tax.

Also depends if you are getting eas contribution based it income related. If your getting contribution based then it may mean you are not entitled to full hb.

Don't forget if you live on your own you will have to find money out of your esa for bills and council tax. Council tax reduction/support do not have the same rules as hb.

Council make their own schemes and a lot now don't cover the full charge even if you are on benefits. Would you be able to afford to live on your own

I would be a happy with a 1 bed flat it I'm honest.

In some areas 1 bed flats are at an absolute premium due to people wanting to downsize because of the under occupancy charge. This combined with LAs demolishing tower blocks in the 90s because no one wanted them then. I'm in Leeds and I believe the waiting list for one bed properties is about 5-6000 people long.

Talking of which, how would the under occupancy rules effect your mum if you moved out?

In addition is UC Live/going live soon in your area? Because if so moving out could trigger you and your mum onto that which = minimum 6 weeks with no income.

I'm in support group. Housing benefit is no longer in many areas enough to even cover social housing rents.

As I said 7 years here. And that's with a disabled child too.

Could you redecorate your current room into more of a bedsit set up? Then as pp have said take the appropriate steps to get you earning so you can save for a deposit/first months rent?

Yea 1 bed flats here are at best for couples. Potentially they can be assigned to families of four if both children under 3 parents expected to sleep in living room on some kind of sofa bed.

You have to furnish it yourself which is VERY expensive to do from scratch. It's not just the big stuff (beds, sofas, white goods are particularly expensive) it's all the little pieces which add up, kitchen stuff, light bulbs, shades, curtains... Also majority of social housing you have to floor yourself too. That alone can be £1000's

I would suggest that your best option would be to try and get a job, save enough for a deposit and then to look for a private rental. There are plenty in Manchester.

My single female colleague is 49, works full time on a low wage.

She lived in a privately rented shared house & put her name on the council list... 5 years later she has been given a studio flat (bed in the lounge) on an estate.

She isn't entitled to housing benefit as she works full time.

5 years seems a long time but she's just glad to be in her own place before she turned 50. We live on the South coast, in a place with little social housing.

OP it's worth putting your name down but you will have to wait for a flat so start looking at maybe volunteering again with a view to doing paid work in the future.

Good luck with your cbt & recovery from anxiety.

Don't say you have nowhere to go. If you say this the council will investigate to see if this is true. If so, they could say you are lying but they will find no duty to house you anyway.

Bristol was a nightmare for housing benefit. They used to randomly stop it for no apparent reason. Always without warning and usually taking weeks to get going again. This is really stressful with a private let.

I think you would be better off working at improving your long term issues like the anxiety and employment. Eventually things like housing will come. But social housing is like goldust and you may not like where you end up.

I used to live in my mums 3 bed house, mum and dad, brother and his girlfriend, me and my baby and me and my son had to share the box room - as in no room for cot/wardrobe or even a double bed. Me and the baby shared a single bed and had a set of drawers.

I put my name down when I was pregnant (around 4 months) and didn't get a place until the baby was 7 months old. It was in an undesirable location, had holes in the wall and no carpets/laminates as due to health and safety all flooring has to be removed. Paper was hanging off the walls etc you get the picture, all that I had to put right myself. I was working part time so only qualified for partial housing benefit and as PP have said paying the rest of the rent was easy it's all the bills and the food etc that costs the money (single parent before why didn't your parent help type comments come up)

Honestly if I could go back I would have stayed with my parents and grinned and bared it until I could move to a nicer location into a house I didn't have to haemorrhage money at to look decent. Luckily I managed to do this after 10 months and then met my partner and bought a home.

Apart from the 'embarrassment' of still living with your parents, what is it that's really making you want to move? Maybe this is something you could discuss at your counselling

Oh and the council came out to check that my living situation was as I had stated so rarely will they just take your word you are homeless

It's well known that people use to pretend they had been kicked out of there parent house to get a flat. My mum done it to all of us when we reached 16. With my council even if you said you were homeless you would still be in the lowest band as your not a "priority need" homeless wouldn't be enough you would need to be homeless and pregnant or homeless with kids a homeless single woman isn't a priority so it wouldn't change your position on the list.

I remember the sexist attitudes back in the 90s towards single women "oh she will end up moving in with a boyfriend" The boyfriend will usually be a single man who has already been housed.

including my best mates boyf when she finally kicked him out back in 92 after serious physical financial and emotional abuse he got housed before many of my female friends did.

I suspect those attitudes will have resurfaced in some areas over the last few years.