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Being Made Homeless, Stress Making Diabetes Unstable, no system to help.

Hi. I am a well controlled T1 but I know what it feels like to be unstable! Also, I am a specialist housing consultant with a PhD in housing tenure options for vulnerable people and I can tell you, quite emphatically, that the council has a DUTY to house you! They MUST, and there is a wealth of case law on this, find you suitable alternative accommodation which caters for the health needs of you all. Further, for a number of year now, if they only have bed and breakfast type services, they CANNOT put you in there for more than a few weeks before offering you permanent housing. Even further, you can insist of social services doing an assessment of need under the auspices of the NHS and Community Care Act, to discover what needs your children have, after that they MUST pay to have these needs met. I don't often post on here and even less often do what I'm going to do now which is to give you my email address and ask you to contact me and I can give you some confidential help! Send me a PM.



Edited to remove email addresss.
 
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It sounds like people are trying to help and advise with your housing. So I will try to hep with the diabetes.
I have recently been through a few situations where my stress was so high that diabetes went crazy and I also have an autistic son.
I worked on the basis f lowering my basal rate and then if it went high dealing with it with the short acting. I found this was safer. I was so stressed I could hardly eat either and was maybe having half a piece of bread and 1 potato etc a day so blood sugars were terrible.
Glucotabs are great to carry round and if you have no pockets then have a bum bag for this period of time. The best is Lucozade and also keep some cereal bars in the bag then you do not need to ask your son for help.
Spend some time taking hypos through with him and teaching him to give you licozade and not to walk away so it becomes a routine.
There is a dvd about hypos which may help.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/1217...ICEP3.0.0-L&ff14=122&viphx=1&ops=true&ff13=80
I also had a hypo alarm when I was pregnant so maybe something like this will help and maybe your dsn can arrange a loan of something or gcm etc as this is a safety need at present that should be funded. Gp through the hospital not the GP.
my blood test meter has a time alarm on it so maybe change metes and set an alarm hourly to ensure you don't miss a test for a while..

It is easy to say but from a stress point of view some small and simple steps are to just take a walk and go and sit and look at a pretty view.
small steps but each one will help.
cant beat jolly old Lucozade.
Important that you don't go too high so maybe get a small bottle and measure out suingle doses or the swing back will cause problems
 
In regards to stress, some coping techniques I have found helpful are to concentrate on your breathing and just sit somewhere quiet and focus on just simply breathing and focusing on the breath as you inhale and exhale, it is a quick calming technique. Walking in a park or green area is also a good calming technique? Hope you have a positive outcome in all of this x
 
My sons diabetic doctor at the clinic wrote a letter (free of charge) in support of us re our housing situation, we were desperate last year from September onwards for a council house, due to unforseen circumstances. Our GP wrote a letter of support on the medical side also re the effects of our situation on my sons health, education, well being etc. (that cost me £40) both letters to the council. The council do seem to very ridged with their rules but you are an exceptional case and you must be priority on their housing list, minimum of no 2 on the housing list if not no1. You are in a immensely difficult situation. I eventually got a house I bid on. I'm sure though that you ought to be offered a house as a priority because you are a priority.

Citizens Advice would be very very helpful in a situation like this. Your priority is a stable home where you can all live alongside keeping yourself well, once you have a house, everything else will start to fall back into place. You cannot be let down anymore. You have rights and are not receiving enough serious help, keep going and I'm sure you will have taken up Onchy's offer by now he/she is so right council do have a duty to house you somewhere suitable. Have you been into see the council?

I know how utterly stressful all this is, it's terrible and debilitating. it's no wonder your diabetic control is as up and down so much, too much bodily stress and this wants hammering home to all concerned as it is affecting your role needed as primary carer to your sons, they need to be made to pay attention to how seriously this is affecting your personal health and the knock on effect it is having on your role as primary carer, your doctor ought to be involved in contacting the council or writing you a letter of support and your diabetic doctor at the clinic they need asking for letters urgently to back up what you are saying to council and everybody about the effect on your health, you are the priority here because you are the primary carer for your sons! A lot of people don't understand the seriousness of Type 1 diabetes and that it is a chronic condition which has to be managed carefully and that includes the council and everyone else! You have to tell them, make them see that their non action re helping you with a home is making you worse.

Wish you the best of luck, keep going, keep us updated
 
Thank you so much for your advice. The problem is the council is on a different planet. It seems I can't break through this barrier where reassessment only happens if there is something wrong with the house i.e. too few bedrooms, mould.

Any health problem that is not directy caused by the house doesn't seem to count AT ALL. It doesn't make sense to me.., but Shelter's legal side have said that the council can do this.

I agree totally with you, but like I said, housing is on a different planet.

Definitely been to housing.., twice.
 
Yes, but there is something happening with your house the landlord is selling it and has given you notice of this. You cannot rent privately because there is nothing in your area available and also private renting is very hard to get unless you have a job and you cannot have a job because you are a full time carer, I assume you are in receipt of carers allowance, and it is essential you stay in your area for the needs and requirements of your sons and you have no money other than the benefits you receive, what have the council got to say about that? And have you asked them what they want you to do when you end up on the street with your sons? they have to provide emergency accommodation if that happens, God forbid.
Have you taken in to the council your notice from the landlord?

If you haven't already you must make an appointment to see Citizens advice asap, take your son/s along with you and all paperwork.

I'm afraid you will have to go see everybody and anybody about this until you crack this and I'm afraid you will have to do all the leg work and all the phone calls and all the enquiries even though it's really hard (if you are not already, keep a note of all phone calls, what you said and date and time and who you spoke to) unless there is someone who can really jump on the case on your behalf, Citizens Advice would I think. You have to be a bit like a dog with a bone because the council will just keep on filing you away and will not come forwards to you. You have to state your case continually and keep adding to it every time you think of something new. And surely your mental and physical health and well being are a big part of this to the council, are they aware of all your physical and mental problems and those of your sons and how badly affected you will all be if you end up with out home?

Onchy on this thread with a PhD in housing tenure options for vulnerable people has quite clearly said council have a duty to house you, phone the council about being a vulnerable family get them to post you there rules/policys on their duty of care to vulnerable people, hope you've messaged Onchy.

Keep going, dog with a bone
 
Yes I have taken my S21 to Housing. They are not refusing me emergency accommodation. They are refusing to up our priority based on medical/mental health needs so we can actually bid successfully on a house.., they say I have to make a case to make sure we aren't sent to one room shared lettings but I have no assurance that suddenly the medical/mental needs that don't up our housing priority will ensure we won't be sent to one room shared lettings as emergency accommodation.

I am NOT saying the council won't provide emergency housing.., I AM saying I doubt its going to be even vaguely suitable. I AM saying there seems to be nothing I can do. The council seems to be able to set their own policy.., and decide what they will and won't accept. I don't know how there is no protection for people in my situation, but that seems to be the way it is.

I have already printed out the councils housing policy document.., its a lot more detailed than what's on the web (but you have to know where it is to find it, I got l lucky when doing some research, just happened to put in the right term).

Both of my sons have problems sleeping, problems with boundaries (older son is three times the size of younger son and I do have to be careful that when older son is not feeling so good, my younger son doesn't make him violent, not either son's fault), both sons need quiet places where they can destress.., - not gonna be available in one room. Shared lettings with shared facilities could be quite difficult for them. With my older son NEET, its going to be harder, he will have nowhere to go. Time in a refuge showed what happens then. We had to leave, no choice. But this time I won't have anywhere else to go. I don't have anything but bad feelings about this. I can't say how I feel. To be honest I am less than one step from giving up. There is just no sense to this system unless you are a politician trying to cut costs who views carers purely as an unwanted expense.

I am also aware that after 12 weeks I could be offered another private rental, and unless I can prove I can't afford it, I then face the LL problems I have now. And moving in a year, whole process starting up again if I moved to a place with a fixed term of one year. At the moment the council seem to be accepting I can't afford private rentals. Private rentals are £200 more than LHA in this area.

Because I am depressed, and am finding it difficult coping, i was referred to community mental health. This is a team of social workers. Including a guy who helped with housing. That led to a big fall in trust on my part in anything. The housing guy told me to relax, he'd make sure i was given housing. He told me he 'had gone to panel, got an agreement for me to be given 'B' banding which would be a guarantee of housing when bidding. Housing say there were no panels at the time he said he'd attended one. He told me I'd be in housing by end of July. But by end of June he phoned to say I needed a possession order (at that stage LL hadn't even given me a possession order but I kept talking to him about this as I was wondering how I could be being told so many different things). After that I went back to my social worker and said how could this be happening. I walked out in shock at the way he talked to me. When I asked a supervisor to read my notes, it seems as if all my notes said I would never be rehoused without a S21.., but face to face this housing guy was quite different. I was treated like I'd made the conversations up even though when he said I would be rehoused by July, there was a student there as well. I hadn't. Honestly I hadn't. I still don't understand how this debacle could happen. I know it stretches the imagination. I stopped allowing the LL's to do viewings based on what this housing guy said because it caused me such a lot of pain getting the house 'show room ready'. I thought I was going to be offered social housing soon. When I talked about the stress caused by the housing process.., he seemed to understand and be able to do something about it. Obviously I was wrong to believe this. He never even went to panel. I am still Band D. The highest band when bidding I can hope for is C.., after I am deemed homeless and a bailiffs warrant has been served (the housing guy wasn't even right about the procedure in his final phone call when he said I would be changed to band B when I had a possession order, the council only ups priority when you have a bailliffs warrant and you have days to move out).

Onchy (thank you) did refer to NHS and Community Care Act, I'm not sure, but I think it is under that I had a carers assessment. I have a carers support worker, through Carers First who are appointed to do the assessments in my area. She's recommended me to two charities that don't work in the area I live in. She was the one that suggested to my son's social worker that maybe SS's could pay for him to have a support worker 3 hours a week as respite. So she did help. Now she just says 'sorry its so tough, I don't know what I can do'. It wasn't a magic wand.

There's so many agencies involved, IASK (who are going to help me with my younger son as his school are brickwalling me as far as his support needs are concerned) but they also told me a couple of wrong things. You get hopeful then find out its not going to help because of some clause or other. My son's social worker who is trying her best but can't help with education, housing, who won't see the big picture.., carers support worker who has now given up, long email chains with both of my son's education places.., going no where, Shelter who tell me there's nothing I can do about the housing situation except argue for not shared lettings emergency accommodation. And I am trying to keep the house clean, do blood sugars hourly and stop peaks and spikes in my blood sugars, get food, cook it, look after my two sons, deal with an ex who is like a child at times, pack up, do research, communicate with all these people, write emails, etc etc. I'm exhausted and out of options. And worse, none of it has done much good, certainly iwth housing.., I'm just more aware of how there's no where to turn.

I feel like I've tried everything I can think of, chased after everything I've found as a possibility, but people are playing games with me. I Know how it looks, I know I must seem to be crazy. But I am saying honestly what has happened.

Sorry about the really long post. I needed to explain things a bit more. I think I am a gonna. I think my sons are going to end up in care. I don't want it that way but I don't have anything left to fight with. And it seems like there is no way of changing the procedure based on need that the council won't listen to. Its bad.
 
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Sounds to me the housing guy didn't know as much about the ins and outs of the housing system as he led you to believe, which is a dam shame and as you say a debacle, he's wasted a lot of your time and likely deliberately made you feel you have made conversations up to save his own face. I doubt the emergency housing will be suitable too. Hopefully though if that happened you wouldn't be there too long before you found something else.


Try Citizens Advice asap. And you don't seem crazy at all, you are in a very tough situation trying to deal with many issues.
 
Thank you so very much for all your help. It was so kind of you. But I really do think there's a lot of reading on here and I'm wasting your time. I've put you out enough

Thank you again x x x
 
You're not wasting anyone's time. I haven't had housing problems, but I do know how overwhelming it is when you have so much to do. The constant stress eats away at you, and it's worse if you have diabetes because you can't even have a break from that to concentrate on everything else.

Please continue to post if you need to. Sometimes just explaining can help relieve a tiny bit of pressure.

The CAB have been suggested - have you tried them? They can be good. Also, does the National Autistic Society have any help or advice?
 
I used to be a homelessness officer until recently , so I would advise you to collect all of the information you have regarding your health and your children's disabilities . Ask consultants , doctors or other professionals who deal with you to support your homeless application . I assume that you have presented as homeless ? Ask the homelessness officer who is dealing with you if you need to complete a medical assessment form ( might not be called that or they might just accept letters from professionals) . If you are threatened with homelessness then the local authority must take a homeless application from you and have to make a decision about this . If they agree that you are eligible for assistance, homeless, in priority need , not homeless intentionally and with a local connection with the borough in which you have presented then they have accepted a full duty to you and must rehouse you . I can only say that I did consider health issues and learning disabilities when deciding on whether it was a good idea to offer temporary accommodation or just house direct but it might be that where you live there is no possibility of bypassing the temp accommodation bit. I can fully understand why you need social housing as with 2 autistic children you clearly need stability . I know it is all very stressful for you so try to get professionals to support you and keep on asking the homeless officer about progress . Don't pester , be polite ( I'm sure you are in any case ), and if you don't understand what they are saying due to the legalese that is sometimes used ask them to explain again., speak to your local councillor or MP and ask them to write to the council . Have jut read your last post and I think you need to write and appeal the decision that you cannot be given more priority . Sorry it doesn't say anything new but you do need to keep on plugging away
 
deannatrois said:
Thank you so very much for all your help. It was so kind of you. But I really do think there's a lot of reading on here and I'm wasting your time. I've put you out enough

Thank you again x x x
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I had problems with housing some time ago and the housing officer told me I could die in a ditch for all she cared, when I told my doctor he sent me to see the medical social worker (different to normal social workers, and she had me rehoused in under a week.
 
I also meant to say that asking for a review of a decision means that a more senior officer than the one who made the original decision has to be involved . It DOES work sometimes , especially if maladministration might have taken place .
 
Hello, I feel very sorry to hear about your numerous problems. I am a Mental health practitioner and deal with such complex issues at work daily. Phone your local council Social Services ACCESS Team and ask for an emergency assessment by the Social Care team. Show them your first post here if you do not have the strength to tell your story as from what I've read so far you may not. You are not the only one at risk here but 2 other vulnerable people and one still a child.

Alternatively ask a friend or relative of yours to phone the local council and raise a Safeguarding vulnerable Adults Alert with you as the Vulnerable Adult. That will trigger an urgent SVA investigation by the Local Council. Your problems may be resolved in the process.

I sincerely wish you the best outcome.

Note: the Access team may have a different name in your locality.
 
A housing crisis can be one of the most stressful situations you ever face but, and I can say I'm living proof of this, it's not insurmountable. You just have to be tenacious and think outside the box.

Firstly, does your local council have a guaranteed tenancy bond scheme? This is where the act as rent guarantor for private sector landlords. They can work with you on deposits and finding an approved provider in your area.

Secondly, if your landlord is evicting you due to sale of the property, you are classified as being at risk of being homeless. If it is imminent, say 28 days for example, and you can evidence his, your and your family are a priority and the local authority can provide you with temporary housing. As a family unit with additional needs such as autism, you can then use your higher banding allocation to apply for properties from the LA and housing associations writhin your area. The fact you require specialist treatment within your area for a medical problem may also help, as will a local link e.g residency of over 6 months.

Have you asked your local carers centre for support and guidance? They offer offer additional support services.

You may also find that there is a fast track applications lost such as Pinpoint express in the Manchester area where you can directly apply to let LA and HA properties. Not always the best, but a home is home. Also, once you have completed your probationary tenancy, you can ask for a transfer or exchange.

If the house is not the root of medical issues, think of the future. Athritis and complications of diabetes are progressive. Will your current set up be transferable or future proof? E.g are stairs as manageable as they once were? If the answer is a genuine no, then consider your current medical needs if applying for local authority or housing association stock and supplying medical evidence.

Ask for help from your housing officer to fill out the forms, Shelter or the CAB. It's time to call in all of those favours. If you do not push, they think it's not urgent. In their defence, they are so inundated, it is sadly they who scream loudest.

The paperwork is exhausting, but you mustn't give up.

Good luck!
 
 
Thank you Achaeopteryx. I had a quick look up on the net and I think safeguarding vulnerable adults is more for protecting adults who are vulnerable and being abused. I don't fit in that category. But it did make me think for a minute or two.
 
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deannatrois said:
Thank you Achaeopteryx. I had a quick look up on the net and I think safeguarding vulnerable adults is more for protecting adults who are vulnerable and being abused. I don't fit in that category. But it did make me think for a minute or two.
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You ARE vulnerable because of the extreme stress you are under, which is putting the safety and wellbeing of you and your children at risk. The poster who suggested this is a mental health professional and they know what they are talking about.
 
deannatrois said:
Thank you Achaeopteryx. I had a quick look up on the net and I think safeguarding vulnerable adults is more for protecting adults who are vulnerable and being abused. I don't fit in that category. But it did make me think for a minute or two.
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Hello again, the first thing I thought about this morning on waking was your problems. I don't normally post on this forum but your case (situation) seriously caught my attention.

What I've given you is the fastest route to solving your problems and with the least effort from you as you and your 2 children are not just at imminent risk of homelessness but you in particular are at immediate risk of death from your seriously uncontrolled and unmanageable diabetes.

Onchy with a PhD in housing tenure options in his post here, has informed you that your local council has a duty of care to you and your children under UK legislation as you are all vulnerable. Neglect is a form of abuse and in your case the Council is clearly neglecting it's duty of care to you and your children. The care act 2014 places a lot of duty on the Local Authority in this type of situations hence my earlier advice to you. Councils also have a legal duty to deal with SVA alerts almost immediately and put strategies or structures in place to protect the vulnerable party or parties in your case.

There are various forms of abuse. Get to know what these are.

You have asked for help. It's up to you if you would accept what is clearly a straight forward solution to you problems in yours and your children's interests.

Good luck
 
 
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