Quite often Advisors find they go above and beyond to serve our clients. I initially saw SG as a walk-in client at the beginning of December. She was homeless, her English was faltering but it sounded as though she had sought assistance from one housing charity but they had not successfully housed her and now she was on the streets in the cold. She was suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which meant that although she knew of places where she could receive meals as a homeless person, many foods aggravated her condition so that she often had a bloated stomach – that was the case when I saw her. She said her GP had advised her not to work and she needed to apply for PIP (Personal Independence Payment) because of her illness but she did not have an address.
I registered her for mail permission so that she could use Manna as her address, gave her the number to telephone for PIP application form and I sent her to view a prospective property. She was approved for the property then followed negotiations between the Agents and I, plus a flurry of increasingly frantic emails from them as the days passed until the initial move-in costs were supplied via Manna and SG was able to move in, two weeks after our initial interview.
Days of silence passed as I tried to establish that SG had moved in and before I could collect a copy of the Tenancy agreement to provide accountability to our funder – delays in submitting this could have consequences for future applications so I was beginning to feel as nervous after the Tenancy start date as I had done in the days prior to it!
One day SG responded to my missed call, in distress. The property had a blood-stained mattress, a broken window, no heating, and a defective electric switch to power the shower. She said that she had used her clothes to try to exclude the draft to no avail and it had been as cold inside as outside. She had been to the Estate Agents only to be referred back to the Landlord. If this was to be the way of things then she did not like the property anymore. My heart sank at all this. We were also in the Christmas period so this felt particularly sad. I invited her in for an interview the next day – New Year’s Eve.
When she arrived, I found the details of the maintenance agents and called them. It was the first they had heard of all this. Their Manager told her how to report repairs in future and made arrangements for contractors to come out to deal with the heating and electric socket as priority issues. They would attempt to repair the broken window but if this was not possible it would have to wait until the new year. SG said she was so cold she wondered if there was a duvet she could have and a jacket. She complained that she had used most of her remaining funds to come down by train to see me. She added that there was no fridge in the flat and she had borrowed pots and pans.
I added £10 to her Oyster card and gave her £40 worth of Aldi vouchers. I spoke to a colleague who found a duvet and a jacket for SG and she was very grateful. Normally clothing items are given out on Mondays, but an exception was made due to the severity of her situation. The Maintenance Manager called back advising that two contractors would be attending her property that afternoon. She left Manna in considerably higher spirits than she had when she arrived. It certainly looked as if the New Year was off to a better start than her Christmas had been!