UK- A man blames the bedroom tax for being forced to spend the entire winter in a tent.
Also, all his toes had to be amputated.
Mitchell Keenan, 32, was then rushed to hospital six weeks ago, and diagnosed with frostbite, after his family were said to have discovered his severely blackened toes.
He was forced to live in the tent with dad Keith after they were unable to keep up with bedroom tax payments. They were evicted from their four-bedroom home in Birch Green, Skelmersdale, Lancashire.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bedroom Tax:
The under-occupancy penalty (also known as the under occupation penalty, under-occupancy charge, under-occupation charge or size criteria)[2] is a reform contained in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 whereby social sector tenants with rooms deemed to be ‘spare’ face a reduction in Housing Benefit, resulting in them being obliged to fund this reduction from their incomes or face rent arrears and potential eviction by their landlord (be that the local authority or a housing association).
The under-occupancy penalty has been branded the Bedroom Tax by critics of the changes who argue the changes amount to a tax given the lack of social housing for affected tenants to downsize to. Supporters of the changes have referred to the unreformed system as a “spare room subsidy”[3] whereby tax-payers are said to be subsidising social housing tenants living in houses larger than their needs require.
In short, all this is very contentious, and probably would hurt someone one way or the other.
Keith, 62, was also diagnosed with dementia, malnourishment and scabies. Dawn Doyle,54, Keith’s sister, has claimed to have attempted to find shelter for the pair.
‘It’s absolutely outrageous what has happened to my brother and nephew’, she told the Liverpool Echo. ‘They lived in their home for thirty years and got into difficulty last year. They had their benefits sanctioned and things just spiralled out of control, they both have neurological conditions and disabilities and kept missing job interviews, so the problem got worse and worse.’
And after it apparently proved impossible for Dawn to provide the pair with shelter in her own home, she was forced to buy a tent for her brother and nephew, while also providing them with parcels from local food banks.
‘I felt awful that I couldn’t take them in, but I’m a single parent, with my own disabilities and I just knew I couldn’t cope’, she added. ‘Social Services said they couldn’t come and assess them because they were in a tent – it was just farcical. When we saw Mitchell’s toes we were horrified, that this can happen to people in the 21st century is disgusting.’
Mitchell has now been provided with temporary accommodation by West Lancashire Borough Council, while his dad has been taken in by a housing association.
‘The bedroom tax is an awful thing,’ Dawn said. ‘It’s affecting people’s lives all over the country and needs to be repealed’.
Source: Metro
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