Bedroom Tax campaigner goes to Supreme Court!

Manchester tenant Meryvn Drage  (57) of Bradford Court in Moston, has appealed against the Bedroom Tax.

His case has been taken all the way to the highest court in Britain, the supreme Court (House of Lords). A date for this hearing has yet to be set.

 

Meryvn is being represented by the Public Law Defenders. His is a test case. The outcome will have an effect all the other appeals against the Bedroom Tax. That is the reason so many other appeals have been held up. 

Solicitor Ann McMurdie, from Public Law Defenders will give an update on the challenges to the Bedroom Tax in the Courts.

Like many who have been hit by the Bedroom Tax, Mervyn has a number of mental health conditions. To be forced to move away from his home would have a detrimental effect on his life and his health.

Mervyn has joined marches and protest against the Bedroom Tax since its introduction in April 2013.

The legal speak for his appeal is:

'The Claimant is a 56 year old sole tenant of a three bedroom flat initially allocated to him in 1994 when it was hard to let. He has a number of physical and mental health problems including depression, anxiety and OCD together with persecutory delusions from time to time. His condition is aggravated by stress and changes of routine and his disability means that it would be unreasonable to move or share occupation of his flat.'

Tory Bedroom Tax eviction widow forced to sleep with COWS!

We are publishing below an article by Nick Dorman, which appeared in the Sunday People on 27 September 2014:

"A widow who is going blind was forced to live in a field with cattle after she was evicted from her home of 30 years ­because she couldn’t ­pay a £210 Bedroom Tax bill.

Carol Sutherland, 56, covered herself with a plastic sheet and hay in a ­desperate bid to keep dry and warm, writes Nick Dorman in the Sunday People. She had to dig a hole under a hedge to use as a toilet.
And her weight plunged to 6½st as she struggled to survive after being kicked out of her two-bed council flat.

The scandal is yet another example of the misery caused by a tax the Sunday People has been campaigning to have scrapped since it became law in 2012. Its latest victim Carol said: “I’d lived in my lovely flat for 30 years and even though I didn’t have much, I had a roof over my head and my dignity.

“When I was in the field I could not believe it had come to that. I cried so much I didn’t have any tears left.”
Bailiffs booted Carol out after she told a housing officer she couldn’t ­afford the £11.35-a-week spare-room penalty imposed as part of Tory Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare shake-up.

Carol had been struggling to get by on a widow’s pension of just £90 a month since a heart attack killed her husband Peter in 2001. Her rent and council tax were covered for her by public money.
But everything else – including power bills – was funded from her pitiful £3-a-day pension.

Carol’s plight meant she was eligible for further housing ­benefits and employment ­support allowance.
But she insisted she didn’t know about them because no one had ever mentioned them to her.
Carol (pictured) who gave up trying to have children after a string of miscarriages – said: “Things went pear-shaped after my husband died and I started losing my sight with cataracts.
“I just about managed on his pension without claiming ­anything else.
“When I started getting letters from the council I couldn’t read them. I asked them to send the details in bigger print – but they never did.

“So I ignored them until a housing officer turned up and told me I was in arrears with bedroom tax payments.
“I told him I couldn’t afford it and the next thing I knew the bailiffs were at the door.”
Carol, who has depression, claimed she was given an hour to pack up her possessions as the flat in Waddington, Lincs, was cleared in April.
She said: “I was in such a state I couldn’t find the only picture I have of my mum and dad.

“I had to tell the bailiffs I couldn’t afford to pay for any of my stuff to go into storage so they might as well take it all – which they did.”

She gave a neighbour her pet canary and went to stay with a friend, having lost touch with her own family.

But a week later she moved out, spent a night in a bus-shelter, then built her rudimentary camp in a cow-field. Carol said: “My friend would have lost her housing benefits if I’d carried on staying with her so I decided the field was my only solution.”

The decision was not as bizarre as it sounds because as the daughter of an agricultural labourer she had grown up on a farm helping with animals as well as planting and picking crops.

Recalling her time living rough, Carol said: “I’d walk round the village by day and at night I’d go to the field and bed down under the plastic.

“When I needed the loo I’d dig a hole in a hedgerow and I didn’t bother combing my hair or washing.” She added: “You don’t think it’s mad when you’re as low as I was then.”

Carol was finally rescued by worried Waddington friends who took her to the church of St Mary-le-Wigford in nearby Lincoln, the base of a charity helping the vulnerable.

City councillor Jackie Kirk, who helps to run the project, found Carol a bed at a shelter for the homeless.

Jackie said: “Carol is a remarkably brave woman. She worked all her life and after her husband died she was eligible for Employment Support Allowance and Discretionary Housing Payments. “

But as many vulnerable people discover too late, if you don’t know you’re entitled and don’t ­apply you end up as a victim of the system.”

And Carol said: “I’d like David Cameron to spend a day with me so he could see the impact his government’s Bedroom Tax has on people like me who already live below the poverty line."

Bedroom Tax Campaign

JOIN Bed Tax and Benefit campaigns across Britain - Sat 7 June 12-5pm Manchester Central Hall, Oldham St M1 1JQ - map here and driving/parking infohere
Get the latest information and help decide what we do next to resist the unworkable and unjustified attacks on benefits, scapegoating tenants, disabled people and any one of us bringing up children, sick or out of work.

Plan for day and speakers12- 1pm Opening session with Scottish Anti Bed Tax Fed, Alec McFadden TUC North West, Roger Lewis Disabled People Against Cuts, ManchesterPeoples Assembly, PCS union, and others - and reports, discussion on latest progress

Break and networking

2pm - two workshops
1. How to challenge Bed Tax and beat evictions - with Ben Taylor Solicitor. Carol Laidlaw, Joe Halewood (welfare writes and Liverpool Reclaim), River and others also taking part, with legal and campaign advice and reports
2. Fighting Benefit Sanctions and Workfare - Boycott Workfare, claimaint and anti poverty campaigns and Martin Cavanagh PCS union DWP

4-5pm Beat the Bedroom Tax - what next?
Proposals include: A Charter to build support and put pressure on politicians; a banner and bloc on 21st June Peoples Assembly protest (London); Pickle the Bedroom Tax protest @ CIH conference 26 June (Manchester); a DWP protest day.

More info:
See http://antibedroomtax.org.uk/ and on Facebook: The Anti-Bedroom Tax and Benefit Justice Federation for updates and links on latest campaign victories, legal challenges and reports:
Beating Bedroom Tax in Court - Guardian
Four ways to win an appeal - Jamie of Cardiff Anti Bed Tax
Win Discretionary Housing Payment - challenging refusal of claim
and a Guide to Beating JSA sanctions

Benefit Justice & Bedroom Tax

ANTI Bedroom tax and benefit cuts campaigners across England and Wales are meeting 7 June in Manchesterto decide our next steps to beat the Bedroom Tax and benefit cuts:

Speakers/sessions:

Scottish Bed Tax Federation, Owen Jones and MP Linda Riordan (who voted against the Welfare cap) invited; DPAC and trade union speakers; plus legal session on how to stop evictions, and on benefit sanctions and workfare.

Make sure you're there, and your group sends people to hear what's happening across Britain and decide what we do next. We need plans to keep politicians under pressure on Bedroom Tax and benefit cuts in the election year.

What you can do now:
* Send suggestions and proposals for the event * let us know who's coming *ask unions and others to help pay for travel *bring photos and reports

Anti Bedroom Tax and Benefit Justice national meeting:
7 June 12-5pm Central Hall Oldham St Manchester M1 1JQ. 

Eileen Short

Anti Bedroom Tax and Benefit Justice Federation (England and Wales)

Elderly dying mum forced to move because of Tory 'Bedroom Tax'!

An 82-year-old sick pensioner, who has less than a year to live, is facing eviction from her three-bedroom home because she cannot afford to pay her Tory Bedroom Tax.

Mary Bennett, a widow from Runcorn, Cheshire, has been told that she must leave the home that she has lived in for the past 20 years because she cannot afford to pay the £14 a week tax. The widow, who’s dying wish was to die at home, suffers from a cardiac condition and dementia. Over the past 20 years, she has spent £10,000 on disability adaptations to her home.

Although pensioners are normally exempt from the Bedroom Tax, Mrs Bennett cannot claim the OAP exemption because her son Alan Clark, 47, is her live-in carer. Mr. Clark gave up his job as a hotel manager, to look after his mother. A discretionary grant from Halton Council has paid the short-fall in Mrs Bennett’s housing benefit since she fell into arrears, but she will be forced to move from her home, when this expires in March.

Alan told the Daily Mirror that though he plans to move his mother to a smaller rented house where his sister lives, he fears that the ‘upheaval could unsettle his ill mother’ and added: “How dare they take away a dying woman’s wish for the sake of £14 a week. It is a travesty.”

A council spokesman told the newspaper: “Discretionary housing payment cannot exceed March 31 in any given year as the council receives annual fund allocation from Government. Until this grant is known any awards cannot be made into the next financial year.”

Since the introduction of the Bedroom Tax in April, thousands of families have been pushed into homelessness and a spiralling cycle of debt as they struggle to pay the tax. According to a recent study, more than half of households hit by the Bedroom Tax have been unable to pay their full rent.

While the Tory government imposes punitive taxation like the Bedroom Tax on hard-up families, it is making the British taxpayer foot a £1 million legal bill so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, can go into battle with Brussels to defend banker’s mega-bonuses. The chancellor has filed a complaint against the European Union (EU) over its plans to cap bonuses, even though this measure has the support of the EU’s twenty-six other European Finance Ministers. 

New Charter Housing call on police to evict Bedroom Tax protestors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday 21st September 2013 'Tameside Stop the Bedroom Tax & the Cuts' engaged in a peaceful protest demonstrating against the scandalous Bedroom Tax outside the Headquarters of New Charter Housing Trust Limited in Ashton-under-Lyne. The company are by far the biggest social landlord in Tameside, and being the biggest, they ought to be leading the fight against the Bedroom Tax, working alongside tenants in opposition to it which they have signally failed to do so far.

 

On  Saturday, New Charter held their annual 'jewel in the crown' Resident Showcase event. This was an ideal opportunity to reach out to tenants especially the 1,700 New Charter tenants that are affected by the Bedroom Tax. New Charter say they are opposed to the Bedroom Tax, but seem unwilling to join with tenants to oppose it? Actions speak louder than words!  New Charter haven't shown any real opposition to the Bedroom Tax even though housing boss, Ian Munro, declared it to be 'unfair and incompetent'. They have also declined to reclassify bedrooms to circumvent the tax in order to help tenants to remain in their homes and are pursuing legal action, against their tenants for Bedroom Tax arrears. 

 

The protestors  arrived outside the front entrance of New Charter H.Q. at 10:30 and set themselves up without obstructing entry. Shortly after tenants began to arrive, New Charter staff came out in force to form a  'cordon sanitaire', with three or four of them standing in a line with their backs towards the protestors trying to confine them to the wall area thereby blocking access to passing tenants. As tenants were guided into the building, they were told to ignore the protestors. 

 

New Charter staff initially refused to take any leaflets but one was seen to snatch a copy at the side entrance, which he tore in half as he angrily scrunched it up. As a protestor with his megaphone, called on New Charter to adopt a Bedroom Tax no evictions policy, a prominent New Charter tenant representative, Belinda Jeffrey, was seen to give  'the finger' to protestors from inside the building.  It is also understood that one female tenant, who was attending the event, asked if she could use the megaphone, then called  the protestors 'wankers'!  

An hour into the protest, the police arrived after being summoned by New Charter. The Bedroom Tax protestors were told that there had been a report that people had felt harassed and intimidated. After being reassured by protestors that this was  peaceful demonstration on the International Day of Peace,  the officer left, much to the chagrin of New Charter Housing staff.

 

The very purpose of the annual Residents Showcase event is for tenants to SHOWCASE what THEY are doing for tenants and the wider community as long as this doesn't involve campaigning against the Bedroom Tax, or treading on New Charter's big corns.

 

Steve (Starlord) Fisher, a protest organiser, told NV blog:  

 

"We had a very successful day and great fun was had by all. We had a wonderful time and would like to thank New Charter for the kindness they  have so far shown to everyone affected by this atrocious Bedroom Tax, brought-in by this wretched Tory-led government that is cutting taxes for the rich while introducing punitive taxation, for the most vulnerable people in society.

 

While it is excellent news to hear that Labour if elected, have pledged to repeal the Bedroom Tax, social landlords and council's, should in the meantime adopt a no evictions policy and cease pressuring tenants to leave their homes to move to smaller properties. We expect Tameside Labour to come off the fence and support the campaign against this iniquitous tax. We will also continue to protest and work in the best interests of tenants."  

Warning to Housing Association Staff

Potential Threat from Bedroom Tax Protestors

A Merseyside housing association is advising office staff not to display their uniforms or name badges outside work hours due to fears for their safety from bedroom tax protestors. 

First Ark, the parent company of Knowsley Housing Trust, which owns around 14,000 homes, issued the warning to nearly 500 staff in an internal newsletter last week. 

The message follows months of protests in the region about the bedroom tax, under which working-age social housing tenants with a spare bedroom have their benefit reduced.

A number of campaigners have held protests outside the offices of housing associations which they deem to be ‘complicit’ in the tax due to their need to collect rent. 

A spokesperson for KHT, which has around 3,000 tenants affected by the bedroom tax, said: ‘Due to the number of protests there have been in the region about the bedroom tax and the intensity of feeling around evictions, we have advised staff to take extra precautions to minimise risk if they are wearing KHT uniforms or badges outside work hours.’

He added that front line staff have received training to deal with ‘confrontational situations’ because of the nature of their jobs which office staff have not had.

Other Merseyside landlords, including Halton Housing Trust, Liverpool Mutual Homes and One Vision Housing, have no plans to follow KHT’s lead. 

Hugh Owen, director of policy and communications at Riverside, said he has not been aware of ‘bedroom tax-related threats’ against its staff and said Riverside has no plans to issue a warning. But he added: ‘I know employees are finding encounters with tenants more difficult because of the distressing circumstances people are finding themselves in.’ 

Joanna Walker, spokesperson for lone worker safety charity Suzy Lamplugh Trust backed KHT’s move. She said: ‘It makes sense for workers to keep the aggression to a minimum by taking name badges off.’

Man cuts throat with knife in protest over bedroom tax!

The following report which we are publishing in full, by Oliver Cray, is taken from the Runcorn and  Widnes Weekly News.

A MAN cut his throat with a knife in a Runcorn benefits advice office during an outburst about the bedroom tax.

An eyewitness, who asked not be identified, heard the middle-aged man say he was ‘sick of all this sh*t’ then watched him drag a blade through skin from his ear down to his throat on each side of his neck.

The wounds left him and the floor spattered with blood, the witness said.

Staff hit an emergency alarm during the incident.

It happened at about 2pm on Monday, at Halton Direct Link in Halton Lea shopping centre.
Cheshire police officers have spoken to the man, who suffered ‘minor injuries’, about his wellbeing.

No criminal offences were reported.

Halton Borough Council said he was receiving support following the incident, as are Link staff.
The witness, who was waiting in line to see an adviser, said no other residents reacted to the outburst but that staff seemed ‘a little bit shocked’.

He said: “From what I could see, the bloke had gone to see an adviser".

"He was upset about the bedroom tax and wasn’t getting through and he started to cut his throat on both sides and threw the knife on the floor and he had blood coming from his neck.There was a lot of blood but it hadn’t come out of his artery, he wasn’t gushing out blood. He went through the side of his neck from his ear to the front. It would have needed medical attention. Everyone was just sat about normal waiting to go and see the adviser. I was in the queue. Nobody did nothing.”

A Halton Council spokesman said: “We are aware of this incident. The person concerned is receiving appropriate support and we are supporting our staff who witnessed the incident.”