Who We Are
Management Committee
Executive Directors
- John Winteler (Chair) - retired Barrister / Manuel Bravo Project legal volunteer
- Steve Hoey - Canopy Housing
- Will Sutcliffe - BEACON Housing
Non Executive Committee Members
- Maggie Peel - Bradford Cathedral
- Mike Skelton - BIASAN
- Alison Cansdale - Cansdale Properties
Staff
- Anne Hebden - Asylum Seeker Housing Worker
- John Hebden - Refugee Housing Worker
- Olivier Nkunzimana - Refugee Housing Worker
- Neil Bishop - Development Manager
- Taru Simbanda - Relief Worker
- Zahida Ishaq - Relief Worker
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Registered charity no 1120729 // registered company no 6202999 |
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Housing Benefit Shared Accommodation Rate
Housing Benefit rates for people rented private sector accommodation are limited by Local Housing Allowance rates, set by each Local Authority area. The Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) is the maximum Housing Benefit rate for people living in ... shared accommodation. This rate currently creates a ceiling for Housing Benefit claims for all single people aged under 25. This means that claimants are restricted to the rate for a single room in a shared house, rather than the rate for a self-contained one bedroom property. This causes considerable problems for young people, with many unable to secure or sustain affordable accommodation and left facing shortfalls, arrears and homelessness.
From January 2012, the Government will apply this rate to all claimants under the age of 35. This will increase the potentially damaging effects of SAR to a much larger age group.
In July 2011, the Government announced two limited exemptions from the extension of the SAR, that is people who have lived in homeless hostels for at least 3 months (and who have a support plan) and ex-offenders who are assessed as posing a risk to others. We have to wait and see exactly how these exemptions will be applied in our area.
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John Hebden, 25/10/2011 |
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TV Licensing payment options - no options at all!
The Abigail Refugee Housing Project provides two kinds of houses - hostels, where the residents pay the project to pay the TV licence, and lettings where the residents are responsible for paying the TV licence themselves. However, with some of the lettings houses this has proved to be impossible and staff have resorted to doing the Leeds Half Marathon each year (no bad thing in itself) to overcome the Governments poor choice of licence payment options.
Let me explain ... there are 3 ways you can pay your license fee:
1. Pay for 12 months up front.
2. Pay be quarterly direct debit.
3. Pay using a payment card.
Options 1 and 2 simply don't work for people on benefits in temporary, shared housing.
With option 3 you have to pay 18 months fee in the first 12 months, making it also impractical for people in temporary, shared housing.
Last year I wrote to my MP, Rachel Reeves, to ask for her help with this. She pointed out that any changes in TV Licence payment options would require changes in legislation. Now, I didn't always concentrate in all my politics lectures at Uni, but I do remember someone saying that the job of an MP involved changing legislation. A response from Rachel to a futher letter from me suggested that, though sympathetic, she was unwilling to take up a new initiative on this point.
Currently (January 2011), our refugee lettings look like this ... 9 x 1 bed flats; 3 x 2 bed flats; 2 x 4 bed houses and 1 x 3 bed houses. We can't do everything, but we do feel some responsibility for the TV payments in the 4 and 3 bed houses, because the shared nature makes it extra difficult for the residents to come up with a meaningful method of paying for the TV licence. There are good reasons, linked to effective integration, as to why residents should have a TV.
So ... I was out again last Friday, running from my home near the cricket ground, up to Moortown Corner, around the ring road and back via Queenswood Drive. That's around 7 miles. The temparture had dropped below freezing by the time I'd finished, but I had Motown Chartbusters Vol 3 on the MP3 player, so it was not all bad!
Please email John, via the Abigail Housing web site, if you want to run the half marathon with me or would like to sponor me. The charity would happily pay your entry fee if you did want to run for us. By the way, I'm planning to start the race at the back of the pack this year, so I don't have to spend 2 hours of my life being overtaken by faster runners.
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John Hebden, 29/01/2011 |
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What would you do ... or, whose fault is it anyway?
Imagine that you work for a project that aims to help people who are homeless. More than that, imagine that you work for a project that aims to help people who who are homeless and who have no recourse to public funds.
You have plans to set up a new house. Some kind people have offered you a property and you have begun the process of looking for furniture to fill it with. You have no money to buy furniture, so you are appealling to friends and supporters for help. A few kind people / organisations have already responded and you can imagine having the house something like habitable in about a week.
You are in the project office on a Friday lunchtime and one of the men on your waiting list turns up for an interview. It transpires that he is already homeless. He has been staying with a friend but he has had to leave the house. He has nowhere to sleep tonight.
Your new house is potentially his house but it is not ready. In fact, you don't have any concrete offers of beds yet.
You ring around the other homeless organisations who could offer help to your client - one suggests you send your client along to see them at a given time.
One hour later your man returns to your project office - the organisation he went to cannot help. Your man is fairly desparate and you really want to help. The afternoon is getting late and you have plans to do some other urgent work at the end of the afternoon. What do you do? You are in an impossible situation.
Who's fault is it?
The client for coming to the UK with a weak asylum case / insufficient hard evidence?
The Home Office for being too rigorous in protecting our borders?
Other agenices, including those better resourced than yours, for being too restrictive in their criteria or simply not having enough beds?
Your fault for getting into this thing in the first place? After all, you have got good qualifications and some office skills. You could have got a simple office job, filing folders in alphabetical order and redirecting telephone calls.
Maybe it's God's fault for allowing the situation to arise in the first place ... bringing people in need to your door and not giving you the resources to offer any kind of solution ...?
Stay tuned to abigailhousing.org.uk and I'll tell you the outcome next week ... |
John Hebden, 15/01/2011 |
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