Male friend with bipolar needs to go on benefits - what are the odds he will get them?

[Watdidusay]

A good friend has had bipolar for 20 years. He's deteriorated in recent years and realistically can't work. He's now in a lot of debt and has been evicted from his rental property.
He is engaging with all services but he's now sleeping on a friend's sofa.

We think he needs to go on benefits until he gets better. His career is extremely stressful and it's unlikely he'll be able to return.

I have heard men never end up getting homed through the benefits system. Is that the case? Is he likely to have to continue to sleep on friend's sofas? He has no partner or children.

Does he have a social worker and/or a community psychiatric nurse? Has he applied for benefits with their support? Has he been able to go to the housing department of the council?

Locally the charity Mind has a benefits advisor who supported my late dh with his benefits application. He was incredibly helpful.

Benefits and housing are separate things. He needs to contact the local council and join the housing waiting list and apply for universal credit and PIP if he is unable to work due to ill health

Yes he has all this and has done for years. I'll get him to speak with them. And that's a great idea re: mind. Thank you.

He needs to visit his GP and get a referral to the community mental health team.

He can phone Shelter regarding housing.

Citizens advice can help with form filling

There may also be local charities in the community who can help, his GP should know.

Regarding the debt, National Debtline should be able to advise.

If he is still employed, he needs to wait until his employer lets him go. Please make sure he doesn't resign. Then he should apply for New Style Employment and Support Allowance, and also Personal Independence Payment. He should use a benefit calculator to confirm. Apply for housing via his local authority.

He's seeing his NHS consultant psychiatrist every 2 weeks at the moment as he's really unwell. Does he still need the GP? Or can the consultant help?

He was let go several months ago. He was on adjusted work conditions and they just did not renew his contract as he could not keep up.

Following.

I really recommend he sees his GP as a first port of call. The GP will know what support is available in the local area and can make relevant referrals.

I also recommend Rethink for further help and advice, they have a very good helpline.
https://www.rethink.org/

the PIP forms are notoriously difficult to successfully navigate. Ideally he needs someone to guide him through how to frame his answers, because the questions are designed to trip you up. Citizens Advice can maybe help or someone working on a local councillor’s team?

turn2us has just released a which guides you through every aspect of the application and also allows you to do a survey which indicates whether your symptoms mean you will be eligible.

@AgileGreenSeal it takes you through every question giving you guidance on how to answer and why they are asking it.

Private rental (with housing benefit) can be extremely poor quality and success depends on how much he can stay on top of it.

DB has schizophrenia and had 1 supported accommodation, 2 private rentals, then 1 Housing Association studio flat. None worked ranging from damp to lack of security due to being a ground floor flat.

His GP and support worker wrote to the council and he got moved up the housing list due to being a vulnerable adult.

At this point he was having daily contact from the community police to check his wellbeing. He is now in a safe secure HA flat.

Does he have siblings?

He has a brother yes why

Just that siblings can be a source of help and support - does he know what's going on?

Oh his brother has largely washed his hands of him. They're barely in touch. I think brother is traumatised by some past experiences with our friend. Brother ended up losing a lot of money and having a fire brigade call out years ago.

Oh that's a shame. Yes I've put up with a lot from my brother but we were close before the age of 10. He seemed to struggle making friends and I had the mentality that if he ended up with a heroin addiction or dead that would cause me more pain and guilt. At times I've wondered why but in the end I'm glad as he is stable and happy and that's good for me. We have had periods of not speaking.

Not working can be a lonely isolating life, you are outside the system and get a different perspective, different friends, can feel less valued as a man. Thats just my observation of DB as its been over 20 years since he worked, but it can also lead on to doing something completely different too.

Good that he has friends to keep an eye on him.

"Going on benefits" and "getting housed" are two separate things.

If he's off sick he'll be on SSP. After a while (6 months?) his employer will terminate his employment on the grounds that he's too unwell to do the job. At that point he claims UC, including the sickness element. This is because while sleeping on sofas he has no rent to pay. If someone wants to give him a room as a lodger, he can claim UC whilst on SSP, for help with the rental costs. This will be granted because SSP is a low income (assuming no savings). There's a cap on the rental costs and its age dependant too. He's entitled to either the one bedroom rate or the shared house rate. Look up the LHA for his postcode, that will state the maximum rental help. If he's entitled to the one bedroom rate he can claim upto that even if he's actually living in a shared house.

Council tax single adult discount for council tax may apply when he gets housing (obviously not for shared housing). As may council tax reduction, which is means tested. These are claimed separately to anything else.

But if he's someone's lodger then he's not homeless. Until they decide they don't want a lodger any more and give him notice to leave then he's homeless again.

The council will only help with housing in limited circumstances, including homelessness. His illness will give some priority points on top of homelessness giving priority. They don't have to provide a HA property, they can house people in private rental too, it's pot luck really. He has as much right to apply to the council for housing assistance as anyone else does. They'll let him know what assistance they can offer, if any. Eg if he doesn't qualify as homeless he may still be allowed to join the housing register and bid on properties, he'd just have a lower priority and take years to get something.

He is unlikely to be accepted by the council as homeless if he voluntarily left his last home because they asked him to. "Eviction" is something only the courts can do, not the LL.

At any point he can claim PIP, which is not means tested. Whether he qualifies or not depends on whether he is disabled by his condition. It's possible to be too ill to work but not disabled.

He needs help with the debt. IVA. Interest frozen. Bankruptcy. Whatever is appropriate.

He hopefully is involved with GP and secondary MH services, if not, he sounds like he needs to be. There may also be charities who can offer support.

£6k savings starts to affect means tested benefits. £16k is the cut off point. Even with savings that disqualify him from income based benefits, he'll still qualify for a limited period of contribution based benefits because he's been paying NI.

He should still be able to claim New Style Employment and Support Allowance as he would have been making National Insurance contributions for the qualifying years. To put your mind at rest, please use a Benefit Calculator. Turn2Us is a good one.

The benefits system won't help him get housed. He needs to speak to the housing team at the council and declare himself homeless. He will then possibly be given a hostel place, which could lead to social housing. But it will likely take many years, people with children have priority over single people. And he may need to go into private.
He can claim housing as part of his UC. He should get ESA and possibly PIP depending on how his illness affects him.
Definitely claim for UC asap.

Consultant can write supporting letters to other organisations.

He needs a SW. If there's no MH team in your area, contact adult SS duty SW for an assessment of care needs.

Also contact the council about Tenancy Support (for anyone struggling with life situations that if left unchecked may lead to eviction), doesn't matter that he's currently homeless. If he's involved with the homeless team they may already be sorting it.

He can phone Shelter regarding housing.

I wouldn't bother. They primarily deal with helping clueless people on how to avoid being evicted and how to ensure you become accepted as officially homeless when you are. If he's sofa surfing it's too late for that.

BipolarUK are a fantastic resource hub for support/advice/navigation through the benefits system etc.

They know first-hand the complexities involved. You can book very helpful peer support phone calls during rough times, too.

I wouldn't bother. They primarily deal with helping clueless people on how to avoid being evicted and how to ensure you become accepted as officially homeless when you are. If he's sofa surfing it's too late for that.

I've got no idea why you'd say that as it clearly isn't true. Shelter are very highly trained and campaign on all aspects of housing. It's not too late for him at all, they'll tell him how to approach the LA and what other options are available to him.

Campaigning is something else entirely and not relevant in terms of this man gaining help right now.

He doesn't need to phone a helpline to find out general advice on how to approach the council. He needs to phone his council itself, who can tell him how to go about it in his area including the address to go to.

The other options you speak of are - private renting of some kind. So lodger/HMO/flat share/renting a flat. Buying a home/shared ownership. Using wages or savings to pay for B&B. Staying informally with friends. There's no magical options he's won't have already heard of.

He's a bipolar adult who has been working in a stressful job, so not someone young and incapable who needs to move into supported living accessed via social services. Which would be the only other option.

He has already left his previous accommodation, so preventing eviction is a no-go, it's already occurred. Whether he has actually officially been made homeless or is deemed to be voluntarily homeless is also a situation that's already occurred and so can't be changed. He's already in whatever situation he's in, so yeh, it's too late to prevent it.

Phoning Shelter would mean probably wasting time sat on hold for ages, only to be told nothing of any use when he eventually gets through. Time and energy that would be better spent dealing with the things he needs to deal with.

It's not usual for a local councillor to have "a team" or any special expertise in this field. An MP on the other hand will have, or be about to have, caseworkers who will be able to help. I'm not meaning to nitpick but wouldn't want someone whose mental health is already down the drain to be making lots of approaches to people who will have to say they can't help.

What a councillor will be good for is advising how to get onto the housing list and make sure he has all the points he can get if they operate a points system, and pointing them to any local housing associations whose lists he should also get on. But form filling is not going to be their area of expertise unless they have personal experience.

OP, I would recommend his local Citizens Advice Bureau as a good starting point, this is their bread and butter and they will know where to refer on for stuff they can't deal with. They'll also know about any local support services that could help, such as for mental health, things for single men, etc.

Whether or not he gets housed promptly will be down to the housing situation in his area. In London he's going to struggle, in a northern town without much going on it will be easier. It's important to know that if he's sofa surfing he is already homeless so support services that apply to homeless people (rather than 'street homeless' or rough sleeping) should be available to him already.

That is incorrect regarding Shelter.I personally know of someone who had cancer and was sleeping in their car.Consultant said could not go ahead with operation till had an address to go back to.Council said no.Contacted Shelter and he was put in temporary accommodation that very night by the council after Shelter got involved.