A disabled campaigner has told MPs how she was thrown out of a shelter and forced to sleep in her college library after she was unfairly sanctioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Jen Fidai described yesterday (Wednesday)* how she spent nearly a year with no benefits after being wrongly sanctioned while studying for her A-levels in 2012, and was forced to leave the temporary accommodation where she had been staying.
She had to rely on friends for somewhere to sleep, or even the library at the sixth form college where she was studying, which also provided her with food during the day.
She had been sanctioned for failing to tell the jobcentre that she would not be attending a meeting, even though she was in full-time education at the time and had told them both in person and by phone that she would not be able to attend.
It later emerged that she had been placed on the wrong benefit and should not have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance.
Fidai (pictured), who is now chief executive of the LGBT mental health charity Rainbow Head, told the Commons work and pensions select committee that she had tried to explain the situation to the jobcentre “but they wouldn’t listen”.
She told Disability News Service later: “I left home shortly after starting sixth form college, and sofa surfed with friends and classmates for a little while.
“When I couldn’t find anywhere to stay, I’d sleep in the library at college during free periods and lunch, and then ride the night buses so that I kept moving.”
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/d ... -are-told/
