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I am glad to hear that Ms Hovell was so quickly housed after you highlighted her case in the paper (Single mum ends wait', March 7).

However there are others, like me, in situations that are far less easy to res-olve, and where even helpful councillors have been unable to do anything.

I am on benefits, raising four children, two of whom are now doing very well in Hertswood School, and two are still being home-schooled.

We should have a four-bedroom house, because the law says my 16-year-old has the right to her own room.

There are scarcely any four-bed council houses, and no-one is building any. Because I only registered two years ago, I hardly have any points in the system.

I am in a private let, and blessed with a decent landlord who was happy to give us a long-term tenancy, who hasn't put the rent up in the four years we've lived here.

To move here the rent had to be accepted by the Rent Office so I would be assured of it being fully covered by housing benefit.

Yet for more than two years now my full' housing benefit doesn't cover it. The shortfall is more than £60 a month.

Sifting through the endlessly repeated information I have received both from the council and the Rent Office, I have finally discovered what is wrong. It is a calculation called the Local Reference Rent.

Basically the Rent Office looks at the rents for equivalent properties in a particular area and takes the highest and lowest, work out the mid-figure, and set that as the highest amount the council can allocate in housing benefit.

It has stated that the low monthly figure for a three-bed terraced property like mine in this area is £750 and the high figure is £1,025.

I defy anyone to find me a three-bed house advertised within 20 miles of here for less than £230 a week.

Is there anyone out there with a four-bed house (two doubles, two singles) with a bit of a garden and a decent family-sized kitchen who is happy to receive a regular (if low) rent and accept us as long-term tenants?

If not, I envisage us at worst losing our home, or at best finally getting housed in a decent low-rent house when my children are grown and don't need it nearly as much as they do now.

And I am sure we are not the only ones in this situation.

Moira Hendrickx

Borehamwood

8:54am Friday 14th March 2008

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