I didn't tell you.. Well, my housing officer didn't tell me did he?
My landlord has changed.
I got the letter last week, a few days after my housing officer's visit. I ahall text him in a minute, ask him if he is still my housing officer
Because
This morning I have recieved a letter from my new landlord, still a housing association but a different one, saying that I am £1380.00 in arrears.
I was at the housing benefit office just last week. They have been paying my rent since I moved in. How could I possibly be in arrears? I have not declared my job yet (though the pay is so low it's probably not going to effect anything)
I think these organisations just like to upset you. It should know I'm in full receipt.
I've an appointment at the Citizen's Advice Bureau on Thursday - about how many hours I can take without being worse off financially (oh ha ha, like we can be millionaires down here when we earn the minimum wage!)
I shall contact the housing officer
I shall contact my housing support worker
I might also text Hannah, she in same boat as me, well, same raft, our homes aren't sturdy enough to be called a boat, find out if the same has happened to her family.
Happy Monday's ey? Tsk, if only today was good music...
Showing posts with label CAB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CAB. Show all posts
Monday, 16 May 2011
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Where would we be, without the CAB?
Where would we be without the CAB
Drowning I imagine in that big black sea
Where can we be with the CAB
Support, advice, and tips to clear a way to see
She told me to come back next week for an appointment, clarify my housing benefit as soon as possible and to hold off telling housing benefit, just for a week, that my circumstances are changing.
There weren't as many people as usual at the Citizen's Advice Bureau; it's the woman next to me who pointed it out. She remembers it as I do when it was packed and you'd have nowhere to sit.
Odd really, given people are really beginning to suffer right now. The woman next to me said they'd extended their opening hours. I forgot to ask CAB woman as she helped me with my impending work questions but I might mention it next week if I remember....
We need the CAB (I'm chanting)
A safety buoy when we're cast at sea
We need the CAB
Cut the funding you kill me
and a whole load of other people I imagine
(Stiggers is telling me to stop imagining that...)
Drowning I imagine in that big black sea
Where can we be with the CAB
Support, advice, and tips to clear a way to see
She told me to come back next week for an appointment, clarify my housing benefit as soon as possible and to hold off telling housing benefit, just for a week, that my circumstances are changing.
There weren't as many people as usual at the Citizen's Advice Bureau; it's the woman next to me who pointed it out. She remembers it as I do when it was packed and you'd have nowhere to sit.
Odd really, given people are really beginning to suffer right now. The woman next to me said they'd extended their opening hours. I forgot to ask CAB woman as she helped me with my impending work questions but I might mention it next week if I remember....
We need the CAB (I'm chanting)
A safety buoy when we're cast at sea
We need the CAB
Cut the funding you kill me
and a whole load of other people I imagine
(Stiggers is telling me to stop imagining that...)
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Self Employment
The CAB have given me a number to call to arrange a consultation about going "Self Employed". This is incase I manage to sell articles over the next financial year.
I will do this because the whole thing confuses me no end and I might learn something.
What is quite curious is that this morning I sent an article to the website on which I am a member of the editorial board. Will I be pouring pennies into my "business"?
Nah! Because I am doing it all for free. I am doing it all from the goodness of my own heart. I am doing it because it's easier not to be paid for what I love doing.
With Government making cuts upon cuts to local councils will our little website survive?
If it does, will I still be thrown back to the factories because my child is seven years old and I'm not picking up a wage?
My Back To Work interview should be coming up soon. I'll find out then....
I will do this because the whole thing confuses me no end and I might learn something.
What is quite curious is that this morning I sent an article to the website on which I am a member of the editorial board. Will I be pouring pennies into my "business"?
Nah! Because I am doing it all for free. I am doing it all from the goodness of my own heart. I am doing it because it's easier not to be paid for what I love doing.
With Government making cuts upon cuts to local councils will our little website survive?
If it does, will I still be thrown back to the factories because my child is seven years old and I'm not picking up a wage?
My Back To Work interview should be coming up soon. I'll find out then....
The cost of bureaucracy
The CAB called me the other day to say that the £75 I earnt won't be taken off a week's worth of income support, forcing me to make a rapid reclaim. That's good news in a way.
However, I tumble head first into red tape that may very well squeeze the life out of me.
I must phone Work and Pensions, Housing Benefit and Tax Credits and tell them all "my circumstances have changed." It's a one off payment so my circumstances haven't changed at all really.
This £75 will be "floated". Divvied up over the year, my weekly 'earnings' comes to £1.44. I am allowed to earn £20 a week before benefits get taken off.
Declaring it should cost me nothing therefore. However, calls to W&P, HB and TC are not free. Nor the stamps when they send me forms to fill in and send back. Seen from the other side, their admin costs, for such a small one off sum, will be quite big in comparison.
Hardly seems worth declaring it really. I'm not quite sure what to do. Declare the one off to both our costs, or collect several one off's and declare the lot at the same time? If I do that though the machine might think I have an earning capacity more stable than I actually do.
Oh my symbolic husband does not want me freelancing. My symbolic husband is not encouraging me to go back to my old career, where I have experience and remaining skills.
My symbolic husband wants me back in the factory, scraping the minimum wage with no entitlement to holiday pay, time off sick or a pension.
Yes, I watched "Blood, Sweat and Luxuries" on BBC 3 last night. It reminded me of so much.
Is the future of my country the reality of the Third World?
Thai protestors have courage. Why can't they be listened to instead of gunned down?
However, I tumble head first into red tape that may very well squeeze the life out of me.
I must phone Work and Pensions, Housing Benefit and Tax Credits and tell them all "my circumstances have changed." It's a one off payment so my circumstances haven't changed at all really.
This £75 will be "floated". Divvied up over the year, my weekly 'earnings' comes to £1.44. I am allowed to earn £20 a week before benefits get taken off.
Declaring it should cost me nothing therefore. However, calls to W&P, HB and TC are not free. Nor the stamps when they send me forms to fill in and send back. Seen from the other side, their admin costs, for such a small one off sum, will be quite big in comparison.
Hardly seems worth declaring it really. I'm not quite sure what to do. Declare the one off to both our costs, or collect several one off's and declare the lot at the same time? If I do that though the machine might think I have an earning capacity more stable than I actually do.
Oh my symbolic husband does not want me freelancing. My symbolic husband is not encouraging me to go back to my old career, where I have experience and remaining skills.
My symbolic husband wants me back in the factory, scraping the minimum wage with no entitlement to holiday pay, time off sick or a pension.
Yes, I watched "Blood, Sweat and Luxuries" on BBC 3 last night. It reminded me of so much.
Is the future of my country the reality of the Third World?
Thai protestors have courage. Why can't they be listened to instead of gunned down?
Friday, 30 April 2010
The last of the TV debates
Housing! It made it!! Clegg you are my hero of the night for saying the C word... Council flats! Such a dirty word the other two didn't so much as mention it. Labour even tipping over to the Conservative ideology of owning a home. Aaargh, that's what started this bloody catastrophe in the first place.
Clegg also wins points for highlighting the loss of housing benefit when someone goes back to work. Well done Yellow Man!!
These two points have not been picked up by any paper I have picked up this morning.
Cameron wins no points from me for saying that those who can work and turn down work will have their benefits cut. The Guardian has an article in it today saying just how measly the £65 claimants get a week really is. I get a bit more obviously with the child tax credits.
Cameron gets no points for saying that those who have given nothing in their life time, haven't "saved", should get recourse to free care when they are pensioners. I'm not convinced Cameron knows what he is talking about.
Brown got drowned out some how. Cameron wins prizes for skirting the issue, what ever issue that might be; tax cuts, immigration, everything.
I have just returned from my meeting at the Citizen's Advice Bureau. I am allowed to keep £10.45 from the payment a paper has promised me. Whoopee doo. The £10 covers the electric for my metre but the 45p doesn't cover a pack of Match Attax for my son.
You wonder what's the point. Yup, I've lost sight again. Hello Black Dog.
Come on stiggers, I need a bright idea.....
Clegg also wins points for highlighting the loss of housing benefit when someone goes back to work. Well done Yellow Man!!
These two points have not been picked up by any paper I have picked up this morning.
Cameron wins no points from me for saying that those who can work and turn down work will have their benefits cut. The Guardian has an article in it today saying just how measly the £65 claimants get a week really is. I get a bit more obviously with the child tax credits.
Cameron gets no points for saying that those who have given nothing in their life time, haven't "saved", should get recourse to free care when they are pensioners. I'm not convinced Cameron knows what he is talking about.
Brown got drowned out some how. Cameron wins prizes for skirting the issue, what ever issue that might be; tax cuts, immigration, everything.
I have just returned from my meeting at the Citizen's Advice Bureau. I am allowed to keep £10.45 from the payment a paper has promised me. Whoopee doo. The £10 covers the electric for my metre but the 45p doesn't cover a pack of Match Attax for my son.
You wonder what's the point. Yup, I've lost sight again. Hello Black Dog.
Come on stiggers, I need a bright idea.....
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Rescue Remedy at the CAB
One should feel no fear as they enter the portals of the Citizen's Advice Bureau. They are there to help and advise and well, what with funding cuts an' all, thank God they still are! A real person, face to face, with me!
I went in to ask them for advice about earning a little bit of money. I earnt a few pennies the other week and I'm set to earn a few more next month. This earning lark is a little bit "bitty" and not "secure" like the smooth running of the system I'm caught in demands.
They've invited me in for a "better off calculation" next week. A one off payment shouldn't make much difference to my situation, they said, but a second payment...well that adds to the complexity of a subject already very complex. I tell you, so tempted not to deal with it and give all the cash to charidee. Still, if I told my shorthand tutor to take my cash and "start as you mean to go on", well I've got to bite the bullet too...
I told the woman who was helping me I received my tax credit form yesterday and should I send it off straight away? She said I should call Tax Aid, which I will do. They only offer telephone advice, she said, but may invite me in depending on the complexity of my case. She also suggested it might be in my best interests to go "self employed" for Child Tax Credit purposes, even though my earning power may well be short-lived.
Oooh, all this activity in this Stigmum's world! The woman said it was all "very exciting". It may well be it was that excitement which prompted that familiar pressure in my chest that demands a few drops of Rescue Remedy as I stood outside with everyone else. I have ideas and well, not to put too fine a point on them, the fear and the desire of their fruition scare me witless!
The housing meeting tonight. Will I be too scared to raise my voice? Maybe, maybe...
Stigmum, you're coming with me ok?
I went in to ask them for advice about earning a little bit of money. I earnt a few pennies the other week and I'm set to earn a few more next month. This earning lark is a little bit "bitty" and not "secure" like the smooth running of the system I'm caught in demands.
They've invited me in for a "better off calculation" next week. A one off payment shouldn't make much difference to my situation, they said, but a second payment...well that adds to the complexity of a subject already very complex. I tell you, so tempted not to deal with it and give all the cash to charidee. Still, if I told my shorthand tutor to take my cash and "start as you mean to go on", well I've got to bite the bullet too...
I told the woman who was helping me I received my tax credit form yesterday and should I send it off straight away? She said I should call Tax Aid, which I will do. They only offer telephone advice, she said, but may invite me in depending on the complexity of my case. She also suggested it might be in my best interests to go "self employed" for Child Tax Credit purposes, even though my earning power may well be short-lived.
Oooh, all this activity in this Stigmum's world! The woman said it was all "very exciting". It may well be it was that excitement which prompted that familiar pressure in my chest that demands a few drops of Rescue Remedy as I stood outside with everyone else. I have ideas and well, not to put too fine a point on them, the fear and the desire of their fruition scare me witless!
The housing meeting tonight. Will I be too scared to raise my voice? Maybe, maybe...
Stigmum, you're coming with me ok?
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