A RESPECTED journalist claims she was left homeless after council staff cut her benefits when they Googled her name and saw she had written articles for The Guardian.
Penny Anderson believes a decision by Glasgow City Council to halt her payments was influenced by ‘misleading’ online checks, despite being eligible for financial help.
She says the loss of months of benefit last year led to her being evicted from her flat in Glasgow.
The benefits Ms Anderson was entitled to – five months of payments – were eventually paid out last week to her landlord, more than a year after it was stopped and “too late,” she says, to prevent her becoming homeless.
Ms Anderson, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and is a former welfare rights advisor, writes for the Guardian on a freelance basis and is also an artist. She believes the decision to cut here benefit may also have been influenced by an exhibition she curated in Glasgow, which she says was unpaid but was listed online.
A letter sent by the council’s finance department say her benefits were stopped because she failed to supply a tax return form and that the council then based its decision on the income detail she had supplied as well as, “information widely available on the internet”.
She said: “Glasgow City Council are claiming I didn’t submit information, when my claim was stopped because of online ‘information’ they discovered.
“This is against Google policy, stupid, misleading and just plain wrong.
“Even when I supplied written evidence of what, if anything Women’s Library and The Guardian paid me, housing benefit, when eventually they conceded after 13 months, still delayed paying me, by which time my landlord considered I couldn’t afford the rent, and gave me notice.
“Even on the face of written evidence it took over one year to pay it back.
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: “Naturally, we’re glad this matter has been resolved. Benefits are means tested. What a claimant does for a living is irrelevant.
“It’s what they earn that determines if they are eligible for benefits.
“It’s important that people experiencing difficulties get in contact at the earliest opportunity so that we can help them.”
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