This is the third article in a series with a housing officer who talks about the realities of providing housing services at councils in austerity across London and Greater London councils.* There’s a transcript from the interview at the end of this post.
In this article, the officer talks about two issues that should enrage everyone:
1) the grossly unfair intentional homelessness decisions that some councils make
2) the contempt for benefit claimants and homeless people that drives some intentional homelessness decisions and some frontline officers generally. I and others have certainly seen that in the past few years.
The officer in this article says that some housing officers have completely bought into the government line that benefit claimants are scroungers and deadbeats. This won’t be news to some people, but it needs pointing out for those who don’t realise. Some officers are very fair and helpful (I’ve certainly seen that), but some are not. In austerity, government disdain for benefit claimants can trickle down to officers who are supposed to be providing support services for benefit claimants. Trickle down may not work too well when it comes to sharing wealth with everyone, but it works very well indeed when it comes to sharing disdain.
Says the officer:
“Individual [council] managers will be pushing this [finding people intentionally homeless]. [They’ll be] saying, “let’s look at this… they’re [tenants] expected to pay this [rent] shortfall now. This is why we have benefit caps and LHA rates.”
“They have this idea that these people are sort of scrounging cunts – they should be paying their shortfall and if they don’t, we need to find them intentionally homeless…”
and:
“Since 2010, you’ve got all the benefit porn on TV – this whole idea of unemployment and benefit claimants being scroungers and getting the blame for having to bail the bankers out… and that is coming into housing as well.”
Some of the “bullshit” intentional homelessness decisions that this officer has overturned at the review stage include an intentional homelessness finding against a woman who left a flat and the local area to get away from a man who’d raped her, and an intentional homelessness decision made in the case of a woman who was evicted for rent arrears after her abusive husband left and stopped paying rent.
Intentional homelessness decisions can have nasty repercussions. When a council decides that people have made themselves homeless intentionally, the council doesn’t help those people sort their homelessness problems out long term. It holds those people responsible for their homelessness.
I realise that’s a simple take, but simple is fine in this context. That is how people on the rough end experience intentional homelessness. I realise that the Homelessness Reduction Act should improve support to an extent, but I’m not talking about acts, or the rules that staff should follow in this post. I’m talking about the ways people can behave at a point in history when whole societies are encouraged to write benefit claimants off. I’m talking about officer mindsets in austerity. I’m talking about the contempt behind some decisions – the institutional contempt which can permeate minds and organisations at a time when political derision of claimants is rife.
The officer in this article says that this institutional contempt is notable in councils where there aren’t many local law centres or local welfare rights advisers to hold councils to account for housing and intentional homelessness decisions which are unfair and plain wrong.
Says the officer:
“[There was one council in Greater London] – when I went there to work, the council was getting away with murder.
Then… some solicitor joined the local Citizens’ Advice… she was shit hot. They [the council] didn’t know what hit them.
[The CAB] were getting [people coming in with bad] homelessness decisions [made by the council]. The solicitor was going back [to the council] and going, “what the hell are you doing?…I’m going to JR [Judicial Review] you and take you to court if you don’t do something.”
They [the council] were just like running around like their arses were on fire going, “we don’t know what to do now.”
“[The council saw these challenges to its poor housing decisions] like a total affront – like, “this is disgusting. Why should people be allowed to be covered by the law..?” [The council] saw it as like [the solicitor’s] fault… “Who does she think she is, upholding the law…?”
The officer also says that some staff can be needlessly picky when they check through people’s bank statements to decide whether or not people can afford a rent shortfall. Officers even sometimes quibble about the amount people spend on food.
This officer says that some staff will say that people could cut their food costs if they used foodbanks:
“I’ve heard people [in the office] say this – “they don’t need to spend money on food, they can go to a foodbank…”
At one council office, officers were encouraged to tell people with rent shortfalls to buy cheaper food:
“We were told to tell people they could cut their spending by getting a really cheap weekly shop at some supermarkets like Lidl,” and stuff like this.
…it’s penny pinching….it is like this whole attitude around austerity – you are on benefits, you are expected to be cutting back, you are expected to be living on nothing…and if you don’t pay your rent, we’re going to look at every fucking penny you spend and see whether you’re intentionally homeless…
It really isn’t legal and I can’t see a review officer upholding it, to be honest…”
You get the picture.
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Here are longer transcript excerpts from the interview with the officer [paragraphs are not in order of interview].
I did not ask councils for statements this time (I did in the earlier articles with this officer) because so few of them answer and I am sick of that. Any council which wants to make a statement on this article can leave a comment:
On welfare reform, benefit and LHA caps, rent shortfalls and people falling into rent arrears and eviction:
“Since you’ve got the benefit caps and the LHA rates, or the rents are going higher than LHA rates, so the gaps [shortfalls between housing benefit and full rents] get bigger and bigger. So you get loads of people getting evicted because of arrears..
The landlords are saying, “I’m just going to evict this person, because it is not affordable for them any more.” They [the tenants] are not intentionally homeless because of that. That’s not their fault.
If [the landlord] is saying, “there’s arrears and this person hasn’t paid… they’re meant to be paying £30 topup a week on top of their housing benefit and they haven’t, then obviously you have to look through all the figures and how much housing benefit they get – how much they’re spending, how much their income is, how much they’re forking out and whether or not that £30 a week was affordable or not. Basically… if you’re on say £73 a week ESA [sic – JSA] – and you’ve got to pay out £30 a week of that on rent and you’ve got to pay out on your council tax, your gas and blah blah…that’s not going to be affordable, is it.
>>
[An example of an incorrect intentional homeless decision] There was a woman in [borough name removed]. [She was in] private rented accommodation. Her husband was working and he was paying the rent out of his wages, because he was earning enough. Then, there was a domestic violence incident. There was an injunction and [he was] told to leave.
He goes and she makes a claim for housing benefit, because she can’t pay the rent. Housing Benefit didn’t pay anything. Housing Benefit said that her husband should be paying the rent even though he was gone and there was domestic violence and all that – so he should be paying the rent. The rent never got paid. She gets evicted and somebody made an intentionally homeless decision on it.
So [as the review officer], I made some enquiries – which was brilliant [not]. You try to ring up [the housing benefit department at this particular council]. You can’t speak to anybody. You have to email. This housing benefit officer emailed me back with his name.
So I ring up saying, “can I speak to this guy,” and they say, “No, they don’t have phones in Housing Benefit.” I was like, “what – no phones at all?” and they’re like, “Nah, you can’t speak to anyone. You have to email them.” It’s like – really?
Anyway – I spoke to them and got the story. It turned out she’s made a claim for housing benefit. [The council is] like, “why can’t the husband pay the rent?”
I’m like, “because he’s left. I don’t know where he is and he’s had an injunction against him because of domestic violence.”
Apparently, the housing benefit officer said, “oh yeah. That’s what everybody says,” and just kind of refused to agree the housing benefit claim.
It’s complete bullshit. Even the social workers I talked to at [this council] said, “yeah, we was involved.” Children’s services was involved, because they always get involved in domestic violence issues with children…
I said, “well – Housing Benefit seems to think that everybody just tries this.” They were like – “this is disgusting.” So – you make a couple of phone calls and you realise that the whole intentional homeless thing is just a load of bollocks. All they are doing is not..understanding the housing benefit decision… the housing benefit officer is an idiot. They’re just going, “well, the housing benefit officer decided that you’re not entitled to housing benefit, so I’m just going to agree with that.”
Homelessness officers – you get some fucking idiots in there, yeah, but they’re masterminds compared to some of the people in Housing Benefit. Some of these cases are just mad…
I had one case in [another borough]. This woman was living in [another part of the country]. She’d been raped. She moved to another part of the region. Then a couple of years later, she was out and she saw this guy who raped her. There was no police prosecution or anything.
She sees this guy again and he sort of recognised her and made comments and stuff like this so obviously she’s scared. So, she comes down to [a Greater London borough] because she’s got friends living there.
Somebody made her intentionally homeless. I said, “why? She got raped and all this.” They are like, “well, I overheard her friend say, “yeah, you’ll be all right. You’ll come down here and you’ll live near me.”
And I was like – “well, wouldn’t you [say that]? You know – your friend’s been raped and she’s scared that this rapist is living near her. You wouldn’t say, “Oh, go and live far away from me,” would you? You would say, “come over here and live near me.”
People just don’t get this. They [officers] just jump on this and say, “see – that just means that [the homeless person] just tried to leave the place,” and “it’s all contrived.”
They’re looking at these people who come in as homeless as sort of subhuman – “you’re all shit. You don’t deserve to live near friends or family or whatever…it’s not your right.”
It’s like the Haile in Waltham Forest case. Basically, this case law – this woman was living in a hostel, like a single person’s hostel, like a YMCA sort of place. She got pregnant and you weren’t allowed to have babies in the hostel and so she would have been evicted.
So, she left the hostel and went to the council.
Waltham Forest said, “you’re intentionally homeless, because you didn’t have to leave that hostel. You left of your own accord. You could have stayed for a lot longer.”
It went to court and they said, “no, she can’t be intentionally homeless, because it was pretty obvious that the accommodation wouldn’t be available to her once she’d had the baby.”
…and this threw everybody into a panic as well, because before then, a lot of councils were making decisions on this. You get an eviction notice and people leave accommodation after a section 21 or whatever. Then, they find they should have stayed there until the eviction notice – but if you note the landlord was actually selling the property, then the property would never be available. You can’t really say they’re intentionally homeless.
We had another case like this – where people left after the section 21 notice expired. The council said, “well, you could have stayed until the eviction notice and so you’re intentionally homeless.”
When it came to me as a review, I spoke to them [the family]. I said, “didn’t anybody tell you that you could stay until the eviction notice?” They said, “no nobody told us that.”
There’s no notes that anybody told them that, nothing specific. It’s like okay – well, you’re not intentionally homeless then, are you. They [council officers] expected somebody just to know that.”
>>
“…but a lot of these [council officers], they’re just obsessed with intentional homelessness…
When you’re doing a case like this, you generally start by doing an income and expenditure form – so you’re asking how much [the tenant] is receiving and how much money they’re taking in, how much money they’re spending and all different things…
…and it’s like the obvious one [that officers pick on] is, “Oh, they’ve got Sky TV. They don’t need that. They’re paying £20 a week on Sky TV, or a mobile phone, so they don’t need that.” They [officers] don’t think… when you start reviewing cases and you go over all this, it’s a bit unfair to say somebody can’t have a mobile phone, or Sky TV…
…the thing is that [people] have contracts for these things. You sign up for Virgin Media or something… you’ve got like a year-long contract, so you sign off for this and after a couple of months, your housing benefit gets reduced, or your rent goes up, or you lose your job, or you have less [work] hours or something, and it suddenly becomes less affordable. You’ve still got a year’s contract to pay on this Virgin Media. Same with mobile phones. If you signed up for some contract, then you’ve still got to pay it. If you don’t, then you can get in more trouble.
>>
“I’ve heard people [in the office] say this – “they [tenants in arrears] don’t need to spend money on food. They can go to a foodbank…” I’ve seen that coming up – people saying they [tenants who are struggling to pay rent] could go to a foodbank [to cut costs], or they could turn the heating off and use more blankets or something…”
It is bullshit… this is why review officers will kick it back. You know [that homeless people] have been through a horrible, stressful time… they’ve lost one house and they’ve been told, “you’re intentionally homeless,” so when it gets to the review stage and you’re actually looking at the law, you can’t really say, “you can actually go to a foodbank to get your food.” What food is in the foodbank? How do you know what’s there? When is it open? You go there and there might only be dog food there.
We were told to tell people they could cut their spending by getting a really cheap weekly shop at some supermarkets like Lidl, and stuff like this.
…it’s penny pinching….it is like this whole attitude around austerity – you are on benefits, you are expected to be cutting back, you are expected to be living on nothing…and if you don’t pay your rent, we’re going to look at every fucking penny you spend and see whether you’re intentionally homeless…
It really isn’t legal and I can’t see a review officer upholding it, to be honest…
>> You get loads of agency temps like it…[who are passionate about finding people intentionally homeless].
They seem to think…that it [finding people intentionally homeless] makes them good at their job – like “I’m a hired gun, so I can come in and make intentionally homeless decisions.”
There was [a temp] I worked with who was obsessed with intentional homelessness. All you could hear every day was, “this person is IH, this person is IH, I’m making this person IH…” The level of excitement that come with it…[but] half the cases were being chucked back at [this temp] when it got to the review stage.
Then [the temp would say] “why are they not upholding it [the intentional homelessness decisions] with the reviews? Why are they throwing the review cases back?”
Well – it’s because your decisions are shit. That’s why.
I don’t know [what happens] with cases where people haven’t found a solicitor [to appeal an intentional homelessness decision]. Not every area in London has a load of solicitors that are taking on more work.
If I see people, I tell them to go to a solicitor at least and get them to deal with it…but [not everyone will know to how to challenge a council decision]. An ordinary person being told that they’re intentionally homeless is just going to think – What do I do now?
When you’re looking at intentional homelessness… what you find, every council I’ve worked in is there is staff that are absolutely obsessed with it. This is the thing with intentional homelessness. It’s not like the council have a policy where they really want to find people intentionally homeless, or anything. They don’t want to house people generally, so anything that doesn’t involve housing somebody is good for them, but it is generally different members of staff [who make intentional homelessness decisions] and they are obsessed with it… especially if they’re evangelical Christians [laughs] but it’s true…
Someone I worked with in [a Greater London council] – everyone who came into the council [to make a homelessness application], this officer is like, “they’re intentionally homeless, they’re intentionally homeless, they’re intentionally homeless.” I ended up taking on a load of their cases, because they were so behind in their cases, because they were so intent on finding everybody intentionally homeless…
They don’t even want to look at the other elements of [someone’s housing problems]. A lot of it is just about rent arrears. Probably about seven out of ten possible intentional homelessness cases… comes down to rent arrears…
You can’t find somebody intentionally homeless if the property wasn’t going to continue to be available… they would have been homeless anyway, even if they paid the rent and everything. So it is completely irrelevant.
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Earlier articles with this officer:
The end result of all the ideological austerity and moral outrage against the poor.
This lip-curling contempt for people whose only crime is that they don’t have any money.
These things can be a mess. I think the contempt you can get around the place will last a long while. That goes deep.
yes I agree; and it is at the core of everything, such a catch 22.
I wish we could just get back to social security as a concept. Where there is a basic safety-net for everyone in society if they fall on hard times. Without all this attitude of whose fault it is.
Good to see that there are still compassionate people like this housing officer.
Who are trying their best to help the homeless, even if the system is against them.
Yes and this is the thing. Some people are decent and they didn’t get into these kinds of roles to act like wankers. Problem is – when you need to use these services and jobcentre services, it just comes down to luck who you get. It shouldn’t be like that. God knows how many people get a letter from their council telling them the council doesn’t have a housing duty, and then just leave it there because they don’t know what to do or who to ask and there isn’t anyone around to say. I get that the reduction act ought to improve things at the start at least, but it doesn’t change mindsets and it doesn’t change eligibility as I understand it
I’ve seen with my own.eyes how domestic abuse victims are treated.
The people who are supposed to support you don’t straight away you feel them treating you like scum. I had a support worker(what a joke) she didn’t support me at all. She told me there was no help out there for me. She didn’t even offer charity numbers what can help. All she did was tell childrens services lies. She was awful nobody liked her. I was told straight away by advisor who knew the worker to basically tell her nothing ask her for nothing. I remember when I got a grant to set up home again after 25yrs of starting again from scratch. I was awarded £2600 the worker was so angry she actually clinched her teeth. I told her that I got told what to apply for my domestic abuse helpline. I also told her I’d been intouch with some charities who were supplying my white goods and furniture and that id put furniture in my new home for £1500 bristish heart foundation. Carpet was expensive and for the whole house. I was so careful with every penny made it all count.
But the housing benefits took 14 weeks to come through by which time I’d already had my court date through. I spoke to housing they kept promising to sort it. Id never claimed benefits before ever so didn’t know how it all worked. I was been made homeless again, I was told I could stay while bailiffs came or leave now. I was heartbroken I had no where to go. I ended up going back to my ex after spending weeks staying in hostels with my son. After seeing a stabbing and son so badly effected I talked to my.partner and went back. I had no choice . The system set me up to fail. I’d just moved back in and I got a letter saying my housing benefit come through., I just sat and cried. When your in abusive relationship it takes so much courage to leave. Your promised help and support, but there is actually nothing. I saw children walking around in nightwear for days they’d got nothing fled in the night. I saw them at job mum buying food for them all out of a £5food voucher. The food came to 2.30 more I saw her putting pasta back and bread it broke my heart I reached in my.purse and give her my.last coins. That poor lady and her children had nothing apart from the clothes on her back. I asked who her advisor and support worker was? She told me it was the same worker I’d had. I begged her to ring this number for help. What people fail to understand is for emergency accommodation the rent is£260 plus gas and electricity. But the standard of accommodation is terrible they are so dirty the mattresses are disgusting. When my family saw were I was living they cried.. when I told them how much it was a week my parents hit the roof. The council’s charge the government all that money for a dump, its all a con the system is so corrupt.
What I saw I’ll never forget., what I went through I’ll never forget. Its scared me for life. I don’t have much but I’d do anything to help another person in need. They have the wrong people working to help these people. They employ hard hearted people who simply don’t care. The CARE gone totally . All they care about is there monthly salary.that they do nothing for. I understand they see a lot of suffering. But every case should be treated like it was there first case and bend over backwards to help them. I don’t know how they can sleep at night. Christmas morning this year I know my thoughts will be with the thousands of uc claimants and disabled and domestic abuse victims.
This world is all about money and I hate that fact.
What happened to love and compassion. It makes me sick when the government talk about god bless us !!! What a load of rubbish, because true Christians and Muslims wouldn’t treat God’s people like they do . We are all creations of god it tells us in the bible to love one another . Lol there is so much hate!! Why??? Its all about money and funding. I think we all should help one another the world would be a better place..
My Christmas wish is that thing’s change soon. Otherwise we’ll lose our humanity. I hope for a Christmas miracle for us all.
I think Armageddon is coming. That would be a Christmas miracle! Merry Christmas.
For a start off, you can’t just go to most foodbanks, you have to be referred. And all this penny-pinching about what people spend their Benefits on is leading us down a very disturbing path, one which fat Tory bastard Alec Shelbrooke has been very eager to pursue for quite some time. There are various companies falling over themselves to get a slice of the pie, & various interested bods secretly lobbying for a so-called “GovCoin”, a sort of virtual crypto-currency that Benefits might be paid in. This would give financial companies like Capita or Maximus total control over what you can buy & in which stores. You wouldnt be allowed to buy a bar of chocolate or a bottle of cider for example, just what they deem to be essentials, & you may find that you can only buy the cheapest bargain bread or bog roll, etc. Totalitarianism. There is already a petition against “GovCoin” on Change.org & various articles/blogs about it. It would be a Tory wet dream. Maybe even Labour would agree with it “in principle”.
Very true Trev, its a disgusting invasion of people’s privacy to tell them what they can spend the benefit money on. Who do they think they are ?
Trev, this way they make money coming and going. Take the money off the unemployed with cuts, and then get profits paying private companies for training courses, giving free hours of workfare, and controlling where they spend their giro and on what.
Yes it’s all a big scam, a stitch up. “it’s a rat trap, and you’ve been caught”, sang Bob Geldorf all those years ago. Some people may think it can never happen, it’s all too far-fetched, too much like some futuristicmovie,but it is real! They want to use emerging technology to control us, and get their handson even more of the wealth. We must oppose their evil plans before it’s too late. Those of us old enough to remember signing on in the 70s never would have believed Jobcentres & JSA would ever exist, let alone Universal Credit or the ‘Nudge Unit’, but they bloody well DO exist now! So you only have to wonder at what is round the corner & heading our way, & the answer is GovCoin.
And Robot Work Coaches, drug-testing, psychological treatment and computer generated sanctions.
There seems to be a deliberate policy of removing access to advice and help in all these areas.In housing, in unemployment benefit and for the disabled.
Citizen’s Advice Bureaus closing, libraries closing, jobcentres closing.
You can’t get legal aid anymore to fight things in the court.
Every gain the Working Class have made over the last century is being undone by the Tories, and Labour have sat there & watched them.
Ain’t that the truth.
I am an ex-Labour Party member, now long-rooted in the Green Party.
To be fair to my friend and former-comrade John McDonnell, he has a long history of chairing meetings for Winvisible (Women with visible and invisible disabilities) in the House of Commons and I know that he has given a lot of support to his local foodbank.
Apparently acknowledging John McDonnell’s devotion to serving Hayes & Harlington Constituency’s most vulnerable consituents, one Tory MP said in a House of Commons debate regarding the so-called ‘Health and Work Bill’: “Some may want to wade through vomit, like John McDonnell”.
Clearly, John McDonnell MP is no Blairite!
Miliband’s lot let us down , abstaining fromvoting againstTorywelfarevandalism, RachelReeves vowing to be tougheron Benefits than the Tories,Labour HQtelling me thattthey fully supported the use ofBenefit Sanctions,LiamByrne using same rhetoric as Tories about “scroungeres & skivers”. We might stand a chance with Corbyn & McDonnell but they need to be moreon the attack & also condemn UniversalCredit outright, not say it needs a bit offixing,eetc.Scrap it altogether.
I have seen council employees first hand abuse a persons rights, to subject vulnerable people to danger bully and used scare tactics to get what they want.
I had been summoned to the magistrates court because two departments of the council did not talk to each other, While I was waiting in this big room with everyone else a council official pulled a big table into the middle of the room placed her files on it with the help of two other council men and said ” all those who do not want a criminal record and wish to pay the outstanding amounts make a queue at this table. After the shock wore off a bit a queue started to form with most of the people who were there some with children in tears.
The Council official then asked the first persons name, where they lived and then read from the file how much he owed. He said he could only pay half it was all he had to keep his family for the next week, she said it was not enough and that he would have to pay the rest within the next month he said it would mean he could not feed his family and it would stop him paying other bills which would force even more financial hardship on his young family. The Council official told him it was not her problem and he either agreed or she would see him in the court room He agreed saying it would be harder to find another job with a record.
He was then passed to the other Council officials “for processing” The next up was a young woman with a toddler. The file was found, the official asked her name, where she lived, if she lived with anyone which she said she lived in a single bedsit alone, how much she earned. The interrogation progressed how much was she going to pay she said all she had was less than half the amount owing but nothing for the rest of the week. The official said I will take that then, I shouldn’t think with your looks you are going to go hungry if you play your cards right. With that I had had enough. I stood up – How dare you. Those files on that table are confidential for a start. You are abusing these peoples rights. You have told this whole room the debts owing are criminal in fact they are civil you lied to intimidate knowing it was likely they would believe what you said. The first person you dealt with has rights you cannot force financial hardship for the basic necessities of life food, medication, clothing bed linen etc. What you did not tell him that he could pay in instalments which DID NOT impact on those basics. once he offered to pay whether it was one pound a week you under the law HAVE to accept it. a Court will not cause a person especially a child to go hungry.
Further you have subjected this young woman to open abuse and danger you have told this whole room her name where she lives that she lives alone. Also you have inferred that she may be available for prostitution.
I then offered to be a McKenzie friend to anyone there either at “the table ” or in court. Needless to say where I spent the rest of the day.
The Officials first question to me was “who are you and why are you here” I explained that they had invited me and my file was on her desk. Once it was established to a hushed room that I owed nothing to the Council but they in fact owed compensation for their negligent administration by way of a days pay and travel costs. The officials were furious and considered moving the cases they had to another day but one bright spark who was quick on the uptake asked for his travel costs. I wonder how many other “tables” of abuse there are. When a summons or legal action is issued I believe it is the responsibility of the issuing council, government department or debt collector to advise those people of their rights under the law. Justice is only available to those who can afford it so it is morally demanded that a person is TOTALLY informed of his/her situation
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organised conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, no person or property will be safe. – Martin Luther King
That is absolutely disgusting. Who the hell do they think they are? People should not be treated in that appalling way. The Tories have turned us back to Victorian times.
They liked Victorian times, when the poor knew their place, and went around in fear of the wealthy and powerful.
We should be going forwards, not backwards.
Towards a better society, better for most people not just the wealthy. Why are some people so selfish ?
Often because they have always had everything given to them on a silver spoon. Have always had money, and can’t understand
poor people.
In the end this is down to Labour. Are they going to go for it and try and change things or not ? Like Universal Credit, no good blathering on about fixing it. Scrap it and say so from the off. We’re back to two party politics since the Libdems shot themselves in the foot, so now its all on Labour.
Too right, all this intentional homeless crap needs to be stopped. Unless you want to start tripping over families sleeping on the pavement. Labour need to get in there on Universal Credit, on homelessness, on disabled rights, the work capability tests, all of it. Not making a few half hearted points at debating time, but doing something about it.
Labour can’t do anything about it – they’re not the Government. They need to get into power and in order to do so they have to maintain a balancing act – a lot of people still believe the appalling rhetoric that now surrounds benefit claimants. They will change things but they have to get into power first. The Tories have passed a lot of very sneaky. nasty and ill-thought out legislation that is slowly being uncovered i.e. two years ago they passed a ruling that said doctors did not have to certify expected deaths but that district nurses and paramedics could also do so. What they didn’t do was state exactly who should certify the death. I was told recently that Nursing and Care Homes are having to beg paramedics to come out and certify death as doctors and nurses are refusing to do so. Some people are being left lying there for hours and hours while staff spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get someone to pronounce death. This may not seem relevant to the discussion but the sheer incompetence of this government and the chaos they are creating will do for them.
But you overlook the fact Bev that Labour have done nothing about any of this for years. Miliband was useless. If Labour want to be considered a serious opposition party they need to come out in defence of the people they were founded to protect. Not spend the time looking round the corner to see if its safe to come out before they say anything.
Too true – the tanks are on the lawn now. Its going to be really difficult to change some of these things.
A few years more of Tories in power and there won’t be any welfare state to save.
Then anyone without money will be completely stuffed.
That’s probably true. The Tories won’t be in power for ever though, & the way forward is to lobby for a unconditional Universal Basic Income.
We’re already stuffed. I’d say they’ve done it already.
It’s an existential question, of philosophy, that strikes at the very heart of the Labour Party. Most of their MP’s gave up any real connection to the working-class when they went to Oxford. And they certainly did when presented with a 74K slaray and expenses. Whereas the land-owning monied class who back the Tories have always been the same, and know exactly who they are, and what they stand for.
The whole homeless situation needs to be looked at. With Universal Credit there are going to be more evictions, and more landlords that won’t take tenants on Universal Credit. Its wrong that someone could be called intentionally homeless if they have not paid their rent because of benefit delays.
Also there needs to a strict level of arrears before someone can get evicted.
So they can’t just evict for missing a few weeks rent.
People are homeless if they dont have a home. That’s all there should be to it. If people never pay rent ever and are repeatedly evicted then they need help and guidance from people who understand the fairly basic psychodynamics at work. The overwhelming majority of people are not doing this though and just need to be housed, no questions asked.
Rent controls, social housing, higher band tax increases and landlord taxes. More money for council housing inspectors so fines can be levied on neglectful and abusive lanflords. Above all, no homeless person is subject to blame for their unwanted circumstance.
It’s all totally possible.
Thanks, Kate.
I am reminded of the time I had to reapply for Housing Benefit in LB Camden BEFORE 2010 General Election.
Among my savings I had noted £6 Premium Bonds from the 1970’s. The bureaucrat interviewing me told me that I was not supposed to have such savings and should sell them.
What difference would that have made in terms of my finances? Moreover, what a stigmatising thing to say!
I don’t hear much about us single people who get laughed at by council officers and told to go sleep rough.
So how has this contempt taken hold of these councils? I’ve heard reports that people believe poor people don’t vote. The government is more afraid of the EU than of British poor people. Having attended private school, I would say part of it is the fact young people grow up in families who think it’s ok to laugh at poor people, if only to try to scare their little princesses out of making bad choices.
We should all get a home. What’s wrong with that?
If you go to council, please secretly record or wear a wire.
There’s a guy with a wheelchair living in a tent on my local high street.
My God.
yep, I can believe it . There is a guy in my town centre, homeless, begging on the streets, in a wheelchair, one leg, sleeps in cardboard boxes behind the market.
I had to show a council officer my bank statement for something housing related (can’t remember exactly what), and he noticed a couple of purchases at the Co-op. He told me that I shouldn’t be shopping at the Co-op in “your financial state”. I explained that I went there to get unsweetened soy milk, because the Tesco doesn’t stock it. He had a go at me for being terrible at budgeting: “You don’t need soy milk! I know you used to make a lot of money, but you’re poor now. You have to reduce your expectations!” I explained that I’m lactose intolerant, so I need to substitute soy milk for cow milk. He said, “In what?!” Me: Cereal, porridge, coffee, tea, to drink when my reflux acts up, etc. He huffed a bunch and looked both angry and embarrassed. Hah.
He has no right to talk down to you like that. You know more about budgeting than he does. Your choices are right because they’re your choices. People living on the street go to Costa Coffee, buy weed, buy alcohol, buy dog food…and they have every right to. He has no right to tell you which supermarket to go to. In your case, you bought soy milk. If he thinks that’s a luxury, he has no brain. The rich are swimming in money while some busybody at the council tells you off for buying milk. These councils have become an outlet for the sadists and bullies of the world to unleash their venom upon every unsuspecting person who passes in front of their desk. I hope he jumps off a bridge. May God unleash the fires of hell upon him.
Thanks. I was sitting there in disbelief!
Next, the council will tell you off for buying loo roll, so you’ll have to wipe your arse on your latest PIP report.
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