Bellmen tell of Mrs. M.:

All beginnings are difficult

M. was accepted into the Inbalim program and during August 2016 we began working on M.’s goals and objectives when she was very pessimistic and rarely cooperated.

After several individual conversations, I realized that she was a single mother of 4 children (from the same father and never married) who dealt with her difficulties alone and without any help, in order to join the program.

Working to approve rental assistance

In all the conversations we had, M.’s burning issue was paying the rent. I found out that she doesn’t get rent assistance even though she’s eligible.

When I asked M., she said that due to an old debt of about NIS 1,700, she has not received assistance for nearly 11 years.

I made an appointment with M. at the offices of a company that provides services on behalf of the Ministry of Housing to those seeking rental assistance, waited for her for over an hour and a half, during which time I persuaded and coaxed her by phone to come because I was waiting only for her.

While talking to the clerk, M. kept muttering, “I can’t believe I’m here and I’m applying.” Until now, she had not had the strength to cope because she had tried several times to receive assistance in recent years, but her requests were rejected on the grounds that there was a debt, and her requests to spread the debt into installments in order to start receiving the assistance were also refused.

After a conversation with the company’s manager, I tasked M. with collecting the documents again and submitting them, while contacting her social worker at welfare and instructing her to write a social work report to support her request for rental assistance. In November, we received a reply that the request had been rejected due to the debt and that it was not possible to spread out the debt.

I went to the company’s offices again and asked the principal to write a request regarding the rejection of the application – in which I explained to the clerk from the Ministry of Housing that receiving rental assistance should not be tied to paying the debt without the possibility of paying the debt in installments from her entitlement. I noted there that had she received her first request from about 10 years ago, she would have already received over NIS 120,000 and would have been able to pay the debt. I also noted that if the request to deploy the debt and receive the assistance is rejected again, I will contact the State Comptroller with M. to examine the Ministry’s conduct.

The next morning, I received an excited phone call from the company’s manager, who said that she had received a response from the Ministry of Housing stating that M.’s old debt had been erased and that she was now in the process of receiving a certificate of eligibility for rental assistance and paying retroactive rent of 4 months.

It is impossible to describe the joy that the conversation caused me in general or M. in particular. Already after the conversation, there was an amazing change in M. If at the beginning of the escort she refused to receive family or employment counseling, she already contacted me and asked to start family counseling as soon as possible.

From rental assistance to public housing and employment support

Since I knew that M. met the criteria that entitle her to public housing, I decided not to give up and asked M. to write a letter requesting public housing. In order for her to gain strength, I sat down with her and let her write a personal letter from her, which we submitted with another social work report that supported the request.

Since then, about two months have passed in which representatives from the Housing Ministry visited her home to conduct an investigation.

M. continued with family counseling and started talking about her desire to move forward and start working because right now she feels mentally free.

M. received a referral to participate in “Circles for Employment” and is also a collaborator there.

M.’s financial lender managed to establish a trusting relationship with M. and his accompaniment contributed to her empowerment, and despite the difficulty he had at the beginning of working with M., he continued with determination and indeed we see results in her approach, cooperation and in general in her conduct.

On February 5, 2017, M.’s application was referred to the committee for discussion, and today at a good hour we received notice that her application was approved and that she is indeed entitled to public housing.

Until she finds an apartment that will suit M., she will receive increased rental assistance.

M.’s joy and the happiness heard in her speech was worth it all.

I explained to M. that we had another way to go and she asked for employment guidance in order to continue the process.

It seems that M. is now in a better place personally, full of strength and desire to move forward and therefore believes in herself and is willing to “work hard” in order to succeed.

It is evident that the removal of the main barrier, which was housing, contributed much to M. beyond the erasure of the debt and the assistance, the effect of this success was evident in all other areas and in M.’s continued accompaniment.