Life inside the ‘Biscuit Tin’ as we affectionately refer to ourselves is always busy. The emails fly in thick and fast asking for help, with some cases really quite challenging for the person concerned to deal with. This first case was one of those.
A young man, still in his late teens has been living street homeless for some time. He has extreme mental health issues, including paranoia which impacts every inch of his life. He is unable to travel on public transport, worries about everything to the point where he is constantly sweating; is fearful of men; often doesn’t eat for days or take care of himself. He is now in some accommodation but it’s a private tenancy and due to his age not covered by housing benefit. Our agents are desperately trying to support him, both going forwards and to stay in the accommodation he is in currently. We agreed to send over £150 to allow him to buy some food and make some contribution to his bills.
A single dad of two teenagers that have moved from a one-bedroomed flat to a three-bedroomed house. They have very little furniture and all the rooms need carpeting, which is not something we can really help with. The father and his son are sleeping on airbeds on the floor which is not ideal. We agreed to send the family £150 to use as they see fit. Our agents emailed us back to let us know how delighted the family were that we had agreed to help them.
We sent £50 to a single mum whose son desperately wanted to be part of a football after school club but she couldn’t afford to send him or let him sign up as she was unable to afford to buy his kit.
A man who struggles with mental health issues, so much so that he shuts himself away and won’t engage with anyone. He is in receipt of Universal Credit, but has deductions levied against his amounts paid, and is currently sanctioned as he is unable to complete the tasks assigned to him, due to his lack of engagement. The well-being team are now working with him and helping to support him with his bills, etc. We agreed to send him £80 to help him out with some of these.
Finally, we received a panicked request for help from one of our agents for a man she had with her. He wasn’t due a benefits payment until the 27th of this month and had no food, nor money for gas or electricity. We agreed to send over a small amount to help him out in the short term.