What’s pushing Charlotte and Jayson over the edge? £12 a week bedroom tax

It wouldn’t be much money to a politician. But to the Carmichaels, struggling with Charlotte’s severe spinal condition, it’s a supreme court case against the government



From their flat in Southport, Merseyside, with boxes of medical supplies stacked next to a single bed, Charlotte and Jayson Carmichael are taking on the government – and with it arguably the most loathed social security policy of this decade.

Charlotte, 43, has a severe spinal condition which leaves her partially confined to a specialist bed, and Jayson, 53 – her husband of 18 years – is her full-time carer. Sharing an ordinary double bed with Jayson would damage her permanent pressure sores, and their flat, partly adapted for Charlotte’s needs, is too small to put two singles in one room. Anyone who’s followed the news over the last three years can guess what I’m going to write next: in April 2013, along with hundreds of thousands of other tenants, the Carmichaels had their housing benefit cut by the bedroom tax. Because Charlotte’s carer is also her husband, Jayson’s bedroom – a room in which he sleeps every night – is classed as “spare” by the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Carmichaels lose £12 a week.

Next week, as part of a group of five families, the Carmichaels will go to the supreme court in a bid to prove the bedroom tax discriminates against disabled adults – a case that could have major ramifications for the entire system.
I’ve spoken to Jayson off and on since spring 2013: from the emergency application for discretionary housing payments (DHP) so he and Charlotte could pay the rent, to the almost two-year battle to get this month’s case to the supreme court. Meanwhile, the hospital appointments and the bills have kept coming.

Ask Jayson what’s kept him going and he’ll tell you, with a steadfast certainty, that it’s Charlotte – and “all the other disabled people” out there in their position. He’s hopeful, and lists successful legal challenges to the government for me as reassurance. But the stress is clear. “Month after month, there’s another hurdle,” he says. “Good news, then bad. It all takes its toll.”

“Sometimes I see him going off in his own little world … a depression,” Charlotte adds. “The bedroom tax is always there. It never goes away.”

In spring 2014, a local tribunal ruled the couple exempt from the policy (and reinstated their full housing benefit) – but three months later the DWP began an appeal. “It kicked the breath out of me,” Jayson says. “Now the DWP have paused the appeal until the supreme court decision.”


It’s not hard to see why Jayson describes their lives as being “stuck in limbo”. Charlotte’s mobility scooter blocks the flat’s hallway and boxes of incontinence pads and catheters are stacked in the front room. But because the bedroom tax means they’re only eligible for one-bed properties Jayson says their housing association won’t look for a bigger property for them. “We actually need more space,” he says. “But the DWP say we need less.”

He worries that if they lose the supreme court case the DWP will also win its appeal at the local tribunal – and he’ll have to start finding the extra rent again, and possibly arrears of about £1,500. Their only income is a mix of Charlotte’s sickness benefits and Jayson’s carer’s allowance.

“I don’t think we’d get a DHP this time,” he says. “The council says they’re cash-strapped. We applied for severe hardship pay for council tax when they dropped exemption for disabled people … We got help the first time but they turned us down last year.”

“With that debt … We could get evicted and God knows what will happen to us,” he says. “Charlotte could have to go into residential care. If we have one bedroom, how can I care for her?”

That’s the thing with the bedroom tax. To a government minister, a tenner or so a week doesn’t seem much. But for the people that the tax targets – social housing tenants, largely struggling with disabilities or ill health – it can be enough to push them over the edge.

I ask if they’ll make it to London next week for the court case – or, as Jayson puts it, “this last final attempt to get some justice”. As ever, they’re going to try. “Our solicitor says she’ll try to get legal aid for us for a Premier Inn and accessible taxis,” Jayson says. “Health allowing.”

Charlotte had an operation at Christmas, and she finds it hard to get out of the flat. “Things without the bedroom tax are bad enough,” she says. “I don’t want to be in this bed. None of this has been a choice.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/25/bedroom-tax-supreme-court-disabilities-supreme-court-government


That's bloody heart breaking.  This government is truly sick.

Bedroom tax is unfair and has been put into practice by scum anti British politicians to help house bleeding forunuz.
They are subduing, kicking us at every turn.