I write to comment on "Still in limbo" (Letters, May 1), which highlighted the plight of a poor young woman not helped by her local council but forced by them in to rent arrears and the threat of homelessness.

I was made homeless by Arun District Council and can therefore sympathise. Far too much bad management still goes on within councils to allow such circumstances.

I lost a distinguished career because of a crippling illness and became registered as disabled and solely dependent on state benefits as a result.

Although in rented accommodation, I was unable to meet rental increases out of my benefit payments.

My efforts to find better, affordable accommodation came to nothing because landlords no longer wish to rent out to those on benefits.

I spent a whole year of pleading with the council to address what happened when my next rental would exceed the benefits, leaving me unable to stay in my home, yet without anywhere else to live.

It is council policy to wait, withholding information to the point of blatant aggression if staff are pushed for help, until eviction is threatened.

Then you fulfil the council's "homeless" criteria and qualify for assistance, of a sort. I had been bedridden for long periods and was still ill.

I think it is deplorable I should have been subjected to so much additional distress. Until I had to admit to my landlord that no further monies could be found, I had made steady progress into recovery.

That appalling, stressful period that led into homelessness set me right back and I will now be all the longer living on state benefits until I can hope once again to resume employment.

Other people reduced to the same sort of circumstances must, en masse, be costing the country millions.

Other measures could have been employed to help me by my local council, information that is not made readily available to the public.

When councils complain of stretched budgets and lost revenues, how stupid is it to actually cost the country more, instead of helping people out of misfortune and back into employment?

I can only hope councillors read this and take a moment to examine how council policies might be improved. Restricted information and personnel who refuse to be co-operative with the general public should be priority for reassessment.

And landlords, rather than tarring everyone with the same brush, please consider there are many respectable people living on benefits not by deliberate design but by reduced circumstances, who just need to be given a chance to restore their lives.

-Name and address supplied