This is a long read, sorry. Back in 2012 I think it was, I was out of work, completely ran out of money, and signed on at the job centre for job seekers allowance and other income support. I found everything about it demoralising and awful, but three specific problems stand out,
They wanted to see evidence of my efforts to apply for jobs but if it wasn't a standard CV/letter application they didn't seem to recognise it as an application. I was registered with several recruitment agencies and I would contact them to say please put my CV forward for this role, and they would, but with no evidence to show. Or I would fill in an online application (the sort big employers have on their own website) and get an email conformation after submitting it, but the email would be automated and just say something like "your application has been received" and not show my name, other than that it was emailed to me, so they wouldn't include it as evidence of me. So I often got criticised for not applying for enough, even though I was.
I lived in a shared ownership flat, I had bought a quarter outright with an inheritance and paid rent on the rest, so I was classed as a homeowner but had no mortgage and did have rent. They could not understand nor find a way to add this to their "system". For housing support, they wanted either proof of mortgage, or proof that I was a tenant and not a homeowner - I had neither.
I also had a service charge on top of rent. At the beginning of the financial year the freeholder would send an estimation of the year's charges, which I then paid monthly. At the end of the financial year, an independent auditor would review this and finalise the costs. Then I would either get a small refund or additional charge. They would not accept my estimated service charge as proof of cost and wouldn't believe me that it was not finalised until the end of financial year. They would not accept the previous year's "final" as it related to the previous year.
Aside from these issues, I also found the job centre staff were really dismissive, spoke generally as though I was lazy and made me feel worthless, but that's a separate problem.
Because of the second two points, I was not given any housing support, only job seekers allowance and something towards council tax, so I ended up getting into a lot of debt but eventually got a new job and all worked out.
2024, now I've found myself unemployed again. I am very experienced in a particular area of work and have been applying for jobs for six months but with no success. I get really good feedback on applications and interviews, but there's always someone just a little better. I'm now branching out of my focused area and applying for literally anything, but also still no success. I've used up all my savings and need to apply for some financial support. I am filled with dread about having to go through all of this again.
My housing situation is exactly the same - homeowner with no mortgage but with rent, and service charge that is estimated.
So finally to my question, are things still the same?
I think job seekers allowance doesn't exist anymore? Is it just universal credit now?
Am I likely to be criticised for not applying in a CV/letter format (because pretty much none of my applications are like that now) or is it more accepted that applications take a different formats?
Am I likely to get anywhere with financial support for rent and service charge given that my situation is still as above?
I'm going to run out of savings soon but I've been putting off doing this because the process last time was honestly so stressful and made me feel awful and worthless.