Vulnerable care home resident faces eviction amid funding row

A pensioner with severe learning disabilities who was a victim of one of the most notorious care home abuse scandals of recent years faces eviction over a dispute about who pays for the costs of his state-funded care.

- Patrick Butler

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 had 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 said: "It would be cruel and inhuman to evict Hughie. He would be traumatised after what he has been through, and so would we. He would be totally bewildered and upset, and would withdraw inside himself."