In a particularly pernicious move on the part of the government, the law has been changed to allow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to share universal credit claimants’ personal data with social landlords, councils and charities. The information that can be shared includes not only details of benefits, but also of debts, computer literacy and, most alarming of all, medical records.

The change, which comes into force on 13 February, is apparently to enable organisations to provide financial advice and support to stop tenants falling into rent arrears. Personally, I find it hard not to see it as part of a wider government agenda to dehumanise benefit claimants and deny them the most basic rights of privacy and dignity the rest of us take for granted. The move also demonstrates a startling (if unsurprising) degree of ignorance about the realities of living in social housing. Let me tell you a story.

I have a flood coming through my ceiling. It’s not a terrible flood – say a washing-up bowl full of water every couple of days – but it’s a flood and it’s not getting better and it needs to be dealt with. The flat above mine is no longer social housing. It was purchased under right to buy and has passed through several pairs of hands, most recently to an overseas investor. My flat is owned by the council but managed by an organisation set up to operate private finance initiative (PFI) projects in the borough. It contracts out the repairs to a private firm, which may contract them out again, as it did in my case. This makes communication rather complicated.

When the plumber I had been promised failed to arrive in the 8am-1pm appointment slot, the person I spoke to on the phone was unable to tell me even the name of the company whose van I should look out for. A plumber appeared at 6.30pm to inform me that there was nothing he could do without accessing the flat above (a point I had made when I reported the problem) and he would write a report to that effect.

A week passed. The flood got worse. I rang the management organisation that put me through to the repairs contractor that had contracted out the job to the firm employing the plumber who came to my flat. It was unable to tell me anything; no one seemed able to find the report and no one appeared to have any idea which of the many parties now involved was responsible for deciding the next step.

Meanwhile my flood continues. It is now at a washing-up bowl a day. To be honest, were the leak inside my flat, I would by now have paid to fix it myself. I shouldn’t have to; I pay my rent and I live on a low income. But I would, and I have, as have many others – even those living on benefits – rather than attempting to navigate the labyrinthine nightmare of an underfunded and undervalued social housing system.

So I have to confess that the government’s decision to release my most personal and private information into this leaky and ill-defined collection of loosely connected pipes (you’ll forgive the plumbing metaphor) does not inspire confidence. As recently as 2013, Islington council was forced to pay substantial compensation after names, addresses and telephone numbers of 51 people who had complained about antisocial behaviour were inadvertently attached to an email and sent to the people about whom they had complained.

Six families had to be rehoused. Just three months later they managed to publish personal details including the sexual preference, ethnicity, religion and mental health problems of more than 2,000 residents on the website What Do They Know? The government insists the move is needed, that it will help social tenants like me. Frankly, that’s the sort of help I could very well do without.