Compo sought for benefit delays
A Masterton nurse wants compensation after her carer’s benefit was unpaid for months forcing her to move into a relative’s garage.
Raewyn Terekia was living in Lower Hutt when she quit her $80,000 a year job to care for her adult daughter.
Though she qualified for a supported living payment, no money came through and she lost her rental.
She spent a nightmare few months in early 2018 moving from one temporary accommodation to another.
Terekia said her daughter’s mental and emotional wellbeing declined when the very ministry they went to for help failed them.
By the end of February 2018, they were forced out of their home when Terekia couldn’t make the rent. From there, they stayed in a room at her son’s place in Levin. That situation was unsustainable, and mother and daughter ended up in a one-bedroom flat in the Hutt.
Still with no money and unable to retain the flat, they went to Terekia’s hometown of Masterton, where her cousin put them up in a shed.
In April that year, the Ministry of Social Development began the benefit payments and back paid the grants that she should have been receiving since December.
Ministry officials have now fronted up saying they got it wrong and should have done better.
Acting regional commissioner Jamie Robinson admitted this was not the type of experience they wanted people to have. ‘‘We are disappointed in the level of service provided to Mrs Terekia and her family.’’
She received a letter from Ministry of Social Development regional manager in November last year ‘‘sincerely apologising’’ for what she had been put through.
Robinson told Stuff the ministry was working with Terekia to ‘‘better understand the implications the situation has had on her and her family to see what we can do to help’’.
‘‘This has included considering further financial assistance.’’
Terekia said the upheaval continued to take a big toll on her and her family both mentally and financially.
She was given an advance payment from Work and Income of $2350 to get into a tenancy in Masterton but now MSD wanted her to pay that back.
Terekia said she was in that situation through no fault of her own and the ministry should waive this money owing and reimburse her for a raft of other costs.
Her husband Barney Terekia said she fell through the cracks of the ministry’s internal administration and no-one understood what it was like for her and her daughter.
‘‘How do you explain the trauma you would go through if you ended up living in a garage with nothing and a sick daughter? You can’t fathom that sort of thing.
‘‘If they (MSD) had stuck to their own guidelines, she would have never have been put through this stress.’’