Hello I’m 18 years old.
I’m in supported accommodation and I’ve been living here for 10 months now. The service charge that I have to pay is £95 whilst everyone else only has to pay £25 due to them having care packages. I was never made aware of this. However, my support worker is being incredibly overbearing about my finances. She’s tries to find out how much UC I get and whether I’m getting PIP. I haven’t told her as she’s no need to know because once when she thought I was getting PIP she actually had my service charge increased to £300 and something a month, so basically all of my PIP money would have been gone if I was to be getting it. However, this wasn’t the case and I got an MP to challenge them which is when they dropped it to £95. Now I’m moving into another property but she’s being very pressuring and saying that when I move I will either need to sign into my UC in front of her which I’ve refused as it’s my account and I know she’s just trying to find out how much of a meagre allowance I’m on and depending on what accommodation it may be I may have to fill out a housing benefit form which would mean that I’d have to put my benefits down and the amount down. However, she’s being incredibly overbearing about that to and I fear that she will just use it to see how much money I’m getting. It’s not a lot but I wouldn’t mind, it’s just knowing that the company tried to take away the whole of one of my benefits last times scares me. I know that I can make a claim for housing benefit myself when I move but I’m worried. Like, if it’s with UC I won’t be allowing her to look or even try to be near my account as she wrote my old password which I had to change down in her daily notes. AIBU to be secretive about my finances? My support worker has in the past severely tried to pressure me into giving her permission to speak to PIP to the point where she rang them and had them I loudspeaker and when the woman asked if she could talk to her I said ‘no. She’s trying force me to see whether I’m getting pip or not’ my support worker completely berated next afterwards. She even tries to find out ether I’ve got a partner (I don’t) or if I go away who I’m with etc but as I’m 18 and there’s nothing in place saying that she needs to know then idk why she’s even like this.
Ps; my support worker isn’t my carer but she’s told me many lies such as me being able to stay at my current placement for as long as I wanted to only to then say that it was a 2 year placement which is crazy as after 6 months to a year you are meant to get a permanent tenancy I believe but they made all sorts of excuses to never give me one ie everyone’s tenancies are different etc and now they are saying the next place will be for 2 years but I’m confused and idk tbh.