Pensioner with severe learning disabilities could face eviction over care costs dispute
Hugh Kirsch’s case one of wave of evictions of vulnerable residents caused by crisis in adult social care funding
A pensioner with severe learning disabilities who was a victim of one of the most notorious care home abuse scandals of recent years has been told he faces eviction over a dispute about who pays for the costs of his state-funded care.
The family of Hugh Kirsch, 66, said they had been warned he would have to leave his supported home because the council that funds his care refused to increase fees in line with costs and his care provider could no longer afford to subsidise the price.
The case is one of a growing wave of evictions of vulnerable residents caused by the crisis in adult social care funding in which hundreds of contract disputes erupt between cash-strapped councils and financially struggling care providers.
Kirsch’s sister Oona Herzberg said he was “trapped in the crosshairs of funding issues that have nothing to do with him”, and urged his funder, Haringey council, to fulfil its responsibilities to meet his care needs.
She told the Guardian: “It would be cruel and inhuman to evict Hughie. He would be traumatised after what he has been though, and so would we. He would be totally bewildered and upset, and would withdraw inside himself.”
Kirsch, who is non-verbal and needs one-to-one care, survived a regime of abuse at his previous residential home, run by the National Autistic Society, in which he and fellow residents were repeatedly taunted, bullied and humiliated by a “gang of controlling male staff”.
…
Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/21/pensioner-severe-learning-disabilities-face-eviction-care-costs-dispute
