Seniors: Have any of you tried to obtain help from your local authority with aids to keep you safe?

Why not take out a funeral plan with Age UK or some such

organisation.? Pay the lump sum for the funeral costs up front.

That way you halve your savings and become eligible for the

mobility aids?

Most people do not seem to tell the truth about their finances

anyway, that is why so many are claiming benefits.

Those of us who do tell the truth, are the one's getting the least

and we have worked all our lives, or until illness made it impossible

to do so.

EDITED to Add:-

In this area (Buckinghamshire) you apply to

the Dept of Occupational Therapy part of Social

Services, and they accept a GP's letter as a statement

which qualifies the elderly person for aids to mobility.

Then once they have seen that your finances put you

in the qualification bracket, they contract someone

to do the work for you, and that department pays for it.

Unless you can get such things done absolutely free (means tested as you say) then it is often cheaper to arrange and pay for it yourself. These employees of organisations all have to be paid somehow as well as the contractor when they arrive so if you can just find an odd job man who can put put brackets and grab handles etc. (or a relative) then it's a much better option. They might not come with 'written' guarantees though but few would refuse to come back and correct things because their work survives on friends recommending them to each other.

I recently checked in a shop which specialises in mobility appliances, right through the range from expensive automatic beds to basic grab handles and was surprised how much cheaper it would be to buy from there and then find a person to install them than to just accept a quote from organisations who claim to be looking after the needs of the elderly.

I was quoted (by an organisation) £450 for two metal handrails to go either side of 6 concrete steps. I was able to buy two chrome handrails of the length I needed for £64 and then pay for them to be fitted (£15). The chrome ones are advertised for internal use but are strong and it was my choice to have them for outdoors. I'm sure they'll last years and the worst that could happen to them will be that the chrome might, eventually, come off (and then they could be sanded and painted I'm sure). Smaller grab handle sizes were available for just a few pounds each but I just need, at the moment, help to get up those outside steps.

"There's more than one way to skin a cat" they say.

Wow , thats a good story.

Sort of makes you realise, how ridiculous it is for an "older" person to pay top dollar, for basic home maintenance to install hand rails and and grab handles for mobility.

Totally agree its a cost, which the government should take on.

Handrails and mobility rails, should be covered by the goverment. Especially since said citizen has been paying taxes their whole lives.

Also, i wonder if every tax paying able bodied citizen would sacrifice one dollar a week from their wage, to fund said project. Because i would imagine that would generate millions of dollars statewide.

This generates the funding.

Then you get bidders to come in and bid for the contract to install the handrails at the cheapest price, without sacrificing quality.

Part of their bid would include price ,and timeframe how long it would take them to install said product in "older" persons home. This timeframe would be incorporated into the contract, and said bidder held liable for breach of timeframe.

Once all that is done and there is a sucessful bidder. Then had rails and grab handles are installed in every old persons home (no offense) state wide.

Taking the burden off the older person to pay for it.

Said politician who actually executes the idea, ad makes it happen, gets the vote of all the older people in the next election.

My suggestion - if $5,000 of that money in the bank, is for your funeral - put it into a funeral fund. Then you'll only have $5,000 in the bank and you'll get all the help you need.

I had a similar situation, being a little bit over the cut-off point to get government help. I now have a fat envelope of money in my underwear drawer, and I get all the help I need. You have to think laterally sometimes.

take the money out of the bank and hide it then go to the council for help , when they ask you how much money you have in the bank you can say none ! BAM you have aid