Sometimes the crops don't fail
I had quite a stressful day at the CAB last week, was quietly working on casework when I was asked to see an emergency case. What this meant in practice is that the guy had walked in and told reception that he and his wife were homeless and sleeping rough and he didn't know what to do.
So I talked to him and got all the details, and then the fun started because when you are homeless in the UK and want to be housed, you go to your local council and they have a certain duty of care to check that you count as homeless according to their criteria (and whether you fall into their remit) and to do something about it. He had been to our local council and filled in some forms and given them various details and paperwork but they'd been curiously lethargic about wanting to act on it. Cue a big argument in the CAB backroom about whether the council were being deliberately slow and what we should do about it.
I was standing there feeling a bit in over my head while the more experienced advisers gave me varying conflicting instructions since I haven't worked on any homeless cases yet and all I knew was what was on the computer about it.
In the end, I:
1. gave him the number for the social fund crisis loans (you can get a loan from the fund for various emergency cases, which includes for a deposit on private rented accomodation if you can prove that you would otherwise be homeless)
2. phoned the council
3. phoned the council again after my supervisor noted that I'd forgotten to ask them something
4. wrote a letter to the council which I gave to the client to show them (basically quoting chapter and verse of the housing act and reminding them of their duty)
5. sent client off to go back to the housing centre at the council, and give them the letter and the rest of his paperwork
6. told him which benefits he was entitled to and sent him off to go claim them afterwards. (Err, I mean I advised him that it might be a good idea :P )
I was fairly exhausted by the end of the day. Then I came in this week and found that ... he'd rung us on the Thursday to say that the council were going to house he and his wife and had found them interrim accomodation.
So ... sometimes it all works.
So I talked to him and got all the details, and then the fun started because when you are homeless in the UK and want to be housed, you go to your local council and they have a certain duty of care to check that you count as homeless according to their criteria (and whether you fall into their remit) and to do something about it. He had been to our local council and filled in some forms and given them various details and paperwork but they'd been curiously lethargic about wanting to act on it. Cue a big argument in the CAB backroom about whether the council were being deliberately slow and what we should do about it.
I was standing there feeling a bit in over my head while the more experienced advisers gave me varying conflicting instructions since I haven't worked on any homeless cases yet and all I knew was what was on the computer about it.
In the end, I:
1. gave him the number for the social fund crisis loans (you can get a loan from the fund for various emergency cases, which includes for a deposit on private rented accomodation if you can prove that you would otherwise be homeless)
2. phoned the council
3. phoned the council again after my supervisor noted that I'd forgotten to ask them something
4. wrote a letter to the council which I gave to the client to show them (basically quoting chapter and verse of the housing act and reminding them of their duty)
5. sent client off to go back to the housing centre at the council, and give them the letter and the rest of his paperwork
6. told him which benefits he was entitled to and sent him off to go claim them afterwards. (Err, I mean I advised him that it might be a good idea :P )
I was fairly exhausted by the end of the day. Then I came in this week and found that ... he'd rung us on the Thursday to say that the council were going to house he and his wife and had found them interrim accomodation.
So ... sometimes it all works.