Did you try to help them to take responsibility for budgeting or was it a lost cause? Someone who I know worked on the council emergency out of hours phone line. She would get demands for someone to come immediately to make a minor repair and if she said 'No, it's not an emergency' would get abuse and demands for her name.
Sheila, most tenants were fine. We reckoned we spent 90% of our time on less than 10% of residents. A lot of that was trying to resolve neighbour issues. We did try and help with budgeting, with form filling, or by signposting to debt specialists and credit unions. When there were rent collectors, arrears were less of a problem, but the job became quite unsafe, (a female rent collector was murdered by a tenant in Rotherham in the 1990s) plus more people had access to other methods of payment.
When I first started as a housing officer tenants could get new sink and bath plugs and toilet seats within the repairs budget. Most didn't bother and just bought their own, but some must have had market stalls selling the things! Luckily the council saw sense eventually. I'd have to try and get people to tidy up their gardens, and it seemed like sod's law that those in the corner houses were the worst.
Later I worked for a while in another council's one stop shop, dealing with all sorts of issues from homeless assessments to planning enquiries and blue badge applications. Front line of the council - great target for abuse. Threats, name calling, spat at, shouted and sworn at. All in a day's work.
Some cases were difficult, vulnerable people with few of the tools we need to deal with the world. We even had staff collections for bus fares, or bought someone a sandwich if it was obvious they needed it.