Local support / Short-term Benefit Advances (Community Care Grants and Crisis Loans)

[nitelite2003]

im just wondering has anyone applied for one of these yet? i know they offer food voucher for living expenses but what about furniture cookers fridges ect ect? especially if there replacing community care grants

[id6052]

it will vary from council to council, i believe my local council are not issuing cash for anything

 

my local council are referring people to a local charity who provide donated/reconditioned cookers/fridges and other furniture

[time4change2]

i have often thought about this myself if its replacing the community care grant ect ect then how are they gong to do this? i know people who have had food voucher but i dont know how the furniture is going to work though be interested to see how it does work

[ellie12022]

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/budgeting-short-term-advances-guidance-las.pdf

[bs0lth]

Hiya,

 

I have had problems with my ESA being stopped 5 weeks ago, where is in the past if this happened I would have applied for a Crisis Loan, but today was told that I have to apply to my Council for help. So have been onto my council for help. They are not issuing any money what so ever, their crisis help states that they can help ONCE in a 52 week period. They will give you a food package with enough food in for 3 days and a £10 gas or electricity voucher. that is all of the help they are willing to give.

 

I have just been told today that even though my appeal had been upheld before I get any money from them at all I have to attend a medical. Atos says its going to be the end of May before I can get one, so I now have to wait 6 weeks for an appointment... and I have all ready waited 5 weeks to get this far.

 

I have no idea how I am going to cope in the next 6 weeks...

 

The local councils are unprepared for whats going on, and the help is so limited its virtually useless...

[ellie12022]

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/4668/ Someone has written a guide to the Short Term Benefit Advances/

 

Also if you have been successful in an appeal surely they should pay you any money they owe you? Seems very dodgy to me. Did you go to Tribunal? Any new assessment would surely only be valid from then, not what has been decided before..

[bs0lth]

Hi Ellie

 

I thought it was going to go to tribunal, however, after contacting them today I was told that they had upheld my appeal and my claim was reopened. This happened without it going to tribunal. I actually phoned on a completely different matter.

 

The guide is very interesting, nobody at all told me about the short term help, they all said, and have done for the last 5 weeks I needed to contact my local council for help.

 

The local council are inundated with requests, I had to wait 20 mins for somebody to answer the phone and say we will call you back when possible within the next three days...

 

Nobody seem to know and understand what on earth is going on. I suppose only time will tell.

[ellie12022]

Looks like a bit of fiddling going on at the DWP, either they accepted your appeal or they didn't. If they did surely that would mean they should be paying you something? If they didn't why would they reopen your claim. (which you had never closed?) I wonder if you could do a Subject Access Request to get all the information they have on you regarding this claim. Have they said why they won't pay you at least the assessment rate? (same as JSA?).

 

Everything is such a mess at the moment, and nobody knows what they're doing, there are so many changes, and most of them punitive.

 

Maybe someone else will know more. It all sounds iffy to me! I hope you can at least get some funds from somewhere quickly.

 

As an alternative, do you know if you are eligible for Income Support? have a look on gov.uk https://www.gov.uk/income-support/overview

 

Apparently you don''t get NI credits, but for some, it's less stressful, and can be assessed quicker than ESA.

[bs0lth]

Ellie

 

I have been trying to get help for the last 5 weeks, they totally closed my claim, said that I would have to claim again, and because I had missed the appointment that I had to wait until I had the appointment / medical before they would pay me anything at all. Unless I won my appeal which I was told today that I had and my claim was reopened and the new claim merged with it. Why they had to merge the two I have no idea, it would have made more sense to close that one.

 

I have had loads of help on my thread, I came on here because I applied or tried to get help with the Chris stuff from my local council which I kept being pushed towards. After talking to them they pushed me back to the DWP saying that if my claim was open I should be getting something from them.

 

the horrifying thing is though is the council can only give you 3 days help, and you can only apply for help once a year... not month YEAR which means that your stuck with no help. I have been pretty fortunate since my family is feeding me, if I didnt have that fall back I would have been in trouble 5 weeks ago when my last payment was due. to be honest its 7 weeks in total since my last payment, 5 weeks since it was due and 3 days help is just no help at all... it wont even plug the hole.

 

I submitted a SAR two weeks ago, but that can take up to 40 days to come back, which is another 6 weeks, it will be interesting to see what it has to say though and thank god it does not cost the normal £10 otherwise I wouldn't be able to have done it.

[bs0lth]

What has really got me is nobody seems to know what they are doing, this is benefit reform, and its in total chaos, when I first phoned my local council I got told that somebody woudl phone me back because there was only a limited staff on duty as they were trying to train more staff to deal with the requests but it was not happening fast enough.

 

The DWP are giving out wrong information

 

The Local councils are supposed to be helping with Crisis stuff but they are not there to pick it up its supposed to be a short term solution, I accept that, and I accept that it can be misused but when people generally just need help its not helping.

 

I was told to phone the action helpline but that is so busy there is an answering machine on all of the time and you have to leave a message, I am still waiting for them to phone me back.

 

I know they are snowed under, I understand that the changes are affecting a lot of people, but there seems to be this air of, well you just have to wait, and they take their time its not of course their problem its only their job it doesnt affect them, but come on...

[ellie12022]

I've just seen your other thread now, what a mess. The people taking ESA queries are only trained to follow a script and do not have all the information available to them. I'm just wondering if they are treating you almost as a new claim, would it make a difference if you could send in a 'fit' note from the GP? I really don't understand why they are not giving you any money at all.

[bs0lth]

Nightmare isnt it