Statement and housing benefit?

[redhappy]

Talking to a friend yesterday, and she said if we got a statement we could get housing benefit for another bedroom for ds. Anybody know if this is the case?

He is terrorising dd at the moment. Every morning I have to rush in there to the sound of her crying, and he is sat on her, standing on her, lying on her...

Trying to come up with some alternative sleeping arrangements, separate bedrooms would be the best solution though

sorry never heard of that, you do get a discount on council Tax if you have a adapted house, but that is the only thing I have heard of.

I would be very surprised. A statement means you need help at school. I'm not sure why that means you would be automatically entitled to benefit for an extra bedroom.

She may mean that you can use the statement as evidence of need so that if you move into a house with an extra bedroom you could justify it, but it would still depend on the facts of the individual case, I imagine.

I've heard of someone getting council tax discount for an extra bedroom which is used for therapy if that helps?

Every council has its own criteria for how many points you get if there are extra medical & social needs. And how they decide on severity will also vary. So it's possible your area only allocates points to a child with (say) asd if they have full 1-1 at school, get higher rate DLA, have injured sibs more than once... or whatever.

The councils are usually reluctant to divulge this info, but if there's a local law centre or housing advice bureau they may know. Being able to show that sharing a room makes his distress or behaviour worse should help. Evidence it adversely affects his sister should be useful. Treat the housing application like a DLA or statement application... send them as much info as possible, dont try & sqeeze your answers into the little boxes on the form and make sure you include everything dire.

Be aware that even maximal medical points for your ds may not be enough to trump the other families on the council housing w/list. It might help in getting a higher rate of housing benefit if you're renting privately.

It's worth a try then. We did as DS can be aggressive and DD has a life-threatening blood clotting disorder so it wasn't ideal for them to share. No joy [hhmm] but something like mariagoretti suggests may work in your area.

Thanks. My friend lives in a different area, but her dss has AS so I took her more seriously than most people's suggestions

We rent privately, don't receive housing benefit currently, but I imagine if we can prove we need another bedroom, we would get something as we are on a low income.

Ask marne - I'm fairly sure she managed to convince the council that her 2 girls needed to be in separate rooms because of their ASD.

Google discretionary housing allowance/benefit/payment plus your council (not much funding though).

As others have said, evidence varies, but would have thought it would be OT/GP/SS rather than being statemented.

PS not sure if they'd only pay this if you already had the 'extra' room...

Hi, we have just been housed in a 3 bed as dd2 needed her own room, we had to fight for the extra room and even with a statement, gp letters and pead letters we were told that we could be lying about dd's problems? We appealed twice before they said we could have an extra bed room. We are not on HB but we thought we would phone the council and ask if they would cover an extra room if we needed to claim HB, we were told 'no', they don't consider special needs when deciding how much HB you are entitled to, its just down to how many children you have.

If you rent privately (a 3 bed) then they will only cover the rent for a 2 bed (you will have to find the rest), you can find out on the councils web site how much that will be.

If you manage to get a council house (3 bed) they will still only pay HB for a 2 bed house but as its a council house the rent is alot cheeper so most of your HB will cover your rent.

We could not afford to rent a private 3 bed house as your looking at £700-£900pm in our area so we went down the council house route and now pay £490pm.

I'm guesing it depends what area you live in as councils can have different rules. But i think the best thing you can do is go down the council house route to get a larger house, you may have to fight but its worth it in the end, it has change our lives. Dd2 and i used to sleep down stairs as she would wake in the night and wake her sister (also ASD), now she has her own room she is sleeping through most nights and has her own room to chill out in when she's upset (a safe space).

If you need any help with anything i am happy to help.

As an alternative, Contact the "Children with Disabilities" team in your Social Services department.

Ask them to assess the needs of your son.

You may get extra points to go on the Council Housing list.