Like a house of cards
That is how I would describe the effect of losing DLA on me. My higher rate care is the cornerstone of all my benefits, without that I will lose my housing benefit, income support and almost half my income.
I am a disabled student, fighting to get a degree. I wrote about this fight in the Guardian last summer.
"Thank you for this article. I am hoping to graduate in 2012, 10 years after first setting out to get a degree. After being thrown off my third degree course at the end of the last academic year I decided to complain to the university, to highlight the mistreatment I felt I had experienced. It helped me to realise that it wasn't my fault that this had happened.
I have just finished my first year of yet another degree, and this time, at Sheffield Hallam, it's going well. I am studying education and disability studies, which is highly rewarding as it is equipping me to go on to help others who are struggling through the system. It is only by my sheer determination that I am still fighting to get my degree, because of the support and understanding that I have finally received from tutors on my course.
Lucia Coello-Lage
Sheffield Hallam Universiity" ( Link here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/01/education-letters-free-schools-disability-support)
As you can see I have already have an uphill struggle just to get my degree. If I lose either my income support or my DLA it means that I lose my housing benefit, and the ability to pay my rent. I am writing this on behalf of all the disabled students out there who are simply struggling to get through the course they are on. For me, the benefits system means I 'only' have to worry about my education. Any changes in the support I get from that benefits system will directly affect my course. I don't want to have to give up my degree because I can't afford it. Unfortunately, if any of these benefits changes come into force then that is exactly what will happen. University will simply become unaffordable. Thats how the proposed changes will affect me.
Originally posted as part of the One Month Before Heartbreak Campaign Jan, 2011
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