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Tenants lose in benefits fiasco
By Saba Salman Last updated at 00:00am on 03.08.00The Victims
Sue Gardner is justifiably proud of the neatly kept two-bedroom Marylebone flat which she shares with her 12-year-old son.
Mrs Gardner's paintings are framed on the wall and she and her son have decorated the flat in bright colours. It is the first place they have called home for a long time.
Having spent almost 13 years in a violent marriage, she finally plucked up courage to leave with her son - whom she wishes to remain nameless - fleeing the family home for a series of refuges and moving four times in 18 months.
The 38-year-old got divorced, took a social health course at the University of Westminster, won a place at South Bank University for a degree in social work and successfully applied to a housing association for the two-bedroom rented flat.
Weekly housing benefit of £82.85 enables the pair to pay their rent. But having overcome domestic violence, homelessness and a difficult divorce, she is now around £2,000 in rent arrears - through no fault of her own - and the prospect of eviction is horrifying.
She owes the money to her landlord, St Marylebone Housing Association, because of delays in housing benefit payments from Westminster council.
"The most frustrating thing is that you have no control over what's going on," said Mrs Gardner.
"Forms I sent to the benefits department went missing and no one could tell me when I would be able to pay my rent."
Mrs Gardner said she was given various reasons for the delay, from computer problems at the benefits service run by the council's contractor, Capita, to staff being overwhelmed by claims.
"Most people who are on benefits don't have the best of lives anyway," she said. "Why should people lose their homes when they've done nothing wrong?"
Because the housing association knows that she is a model tenant, it is supporting her battle with Capita. But if the arrears are not cleared soon, St Marylebone will have to issue a notice to quit, and then an eviction order. Ironically, eviction orders are often the only way of forcing benefit departments to clear overdue payments - by which time the landlord has wasted around £1,000 on a court case.
Retired librarian Nan Nikoloff, who rents a one-bedroom flat in St John's Wood from a private landlord, likens her experience with the system to "a Kafkaesque nightmare". The 71-year-old widow owed £3,000 in rent and, fearing eviction, used her overdraft facility to pay off the arrears.
Mrs Nikoloff said her claim was not new and she has been on benefits which go some way to paying her £175-a-week rent following her husband Nikola's death 10 years ago: "It's not as if my circumstances changed," she said.
"But they kept asking for information I had already given them to prove my tenancy."
"Years ago, my bank gave me an overdraft facility which I've never used and which they wouldn't give me now, so I just went into debt to pay my rent."
Mrs Nikoloff said that only the intervention of local Labour MP Karen Buck led Capita a few weeks ago to pay her what she was owed.
Kim Roberts, who rents a St Marylebone flat on the Wilcove Estate in Marylebone, is owed £1,690 in benefits. Miss Roberts, who rents a two-bedroom flat with her £88.95 a week benefit, has a six-month-old baby and a son of six who has behavioural problems.
"Every time I called Capita, I would be told that they were trying to sort the problem out," she said. "I know they're swamped with claims, but while you're trying to keep a roof over your head, you've also got to deal with a child and a small baby." She is still awaiting payment.
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