Benefit changes could be the death of people like me..

Photo: Darren Robinson

THE future looks bleak for many people in the same situation as David.

A MAN forced to give up work through ill health claims Government benefit changes could kill people like him.

Rules which came into force earlier this month mean David Lee, from Werneth, is now being charged for the extra bedroom he doesn’t use.

The 60 year old worked for 42 years, but will now have to find almost £100 extra a month as a loser in the benefits shake-up.

Single Mr Lee, who has heart problems, diabetes, arthritis and admits he is a “very, very, depressed man” — left work as a mental health worker three years ago.

As of this month he must find an extra £15 a week in bedroom tax — £780.52 a year — for his two-bedroom home in Grange Avenue, plus £36 a month towards council tax.

To do so he will have to dip into the only money he has saved — which was for his funeral.

Mr Lee says he had left his home only a handful of times in the past six months because he has little disposable money.

“This Government is taking nearly a quarter of the money I receive in one evil swoop: it was just over £400 a month; now £96 has been taken off me.

“When I left work three years ago I had £5,000 in savings. In the past 12 months £2,000 has gone - none of it blown on holidays or anything like that. I have had to go into these savings to live.

“It is so cruel, what the Government is doing. It is trying to kill us off bit by bit. I won’t last long the way all this is going — the stress is too much.”

Mr Lee won’t get his early retirement pension until he is 63, so faces three more years of “day-to-day struggle”.

Television and telephone are becoming luxuries now, because there is nothing else I can get. My food shopping is coming out of my savings and the little money I have left over from benefits.

“I fear for the day when it all runs out.”

Nearly 17,000 households across Oldham will be affected by the abolition of the full council tax benefit which took effect this month — leaving claimants having to find up to £250 extra a year.

Residents who currently receive 100 per cent discount on their council tax will have to pay up to 25 per cent of their bill under the new Council Tax Support Scheme drawn up by Oldham Council.

Great Places - Davd Lee’s landlord - revealed 1,900 of its tenants face difficult decisions over the arrival of bedroom tax.

Chief executive Stephen Porter said: “We completely sympathise with the position David finds himself in.”