As I continue to meet with people who are dealing with fallout from public sector cuts and recession around the country, I’m posting transcripts from interviews here (between longer articles and testimonies that are appearing at False Economy and elsewhere).

This is a transcript of an interview with a Weymouth woman who is a recovering alcoholic and was homeless. She works as a homelessness officer now. Her role is voluntary and she is still on benefits. In these excerpts from a recorded interview, she talks about mental illness, alcoholism, the abuse that people with mental health problems encounter and life in social groups and families which rely on benefits. I don’t expect that this transcript will generate much sympathy, although it should. Cameron can yell “scrounger” as loudly as he likes, but these are still real lives:

“I’ve been through just about every trauma in my life… I’ve been an alcoholic and raped and abused in all shapes and forms. I didn’t think I could go any lower. Human nature says there ain’t nothing lower…

“I was doing well. I had a home and I had a fiancé. I had a business. Life was good, relatively. Then I got scammed by some advertising companies, so my business started to suffer and I changed my priorities to concentrate on my partner who was also very disabled….not having the brain cells at the time to understand that if I concentrated on the business, I might have a bit more money to concentrate on him. Then, my housing benefit got mucked up. They stop and start the benefits on a whim – they do that.

“Then on the ninth of May, I found myself out on the street and I’m like – hang on. I don’t quite understand where this has gone. My landlord decided that he wanted me out. He didn’t care if they (the housing benefit office) would pay [the rent] or if they’d backpay when they sorted it all out – [he just said] “I want you out. I want my rent.” I owed something like £1200 in rent, which was only about three or four months rent. He wasn’t having it. He would have got it all back – but this is what social landlords are frightened of, you know [not getting their rent] , and then about 8 o’clock on the 9th of May in the evening, I suddenly found myself unexplainably out on the streets. My partner said – “Nah, that’s it,” [and he’s] gone. [So] what do I do? So after several suicide attempts, I just spent until December as a homeless person. It’s not good…

“I just spent my days wandering about. I remember one evening being sat on a bench in town and I had dark jeans on and I had white socks, because that’s all I had. When I was put on the streets, I had a couple of changes of clothes and underwear and that is all I had, plus the clothes I stood up in… I had dark jeans on and white socks and some lads come out of the nearby pub and just started cussing me. “Oh – love the socks. They’re real stylish” [she starts to cry here] and I’m thinking – “why are you doing this? You don’t know me. I’ve been sat here quietly trying not to bawl my eyes out….and just getting abused.”

“I was as guilty as a young puppy. I would see a scruffy… I hate the word “tramp”. It’s an old fashioned word, but I’d see these dirty, homeless guys, drinking or whatever they were doing and I thought there was nothing that could make me go there. I think that was my first mistake, because the minute you say that you’re not going to end up there, you can be pretty sure you’re on the slide down….I think the Lord allowed me to be on the streets for as long as I was, because I had to learn how to be humble.

“[I don’t think people understand the lack of confidence]…now, [people without housing] come to me and say “We’re not getting our benefits. We need to phone the council to see if we can get on their [housing] list” and I say “okay, phone them up -you just pick the phone up and make a phone call.” [They will say] “Can you do it for me?” and that’s when I found out that [for a lot of people] it’s not just a case of picking up the phone and making a phone call.

“I do believe that if you want to learn about life, then spend an unknown indefinite time on the streets. All these stupid, idiotic studies that politicians do – you know, “I spent a week on job seekers’ allowance.” Anyone can tolerate a week if you know that it will end, but being out there and never knowing whether that this is your last day…

On benefits

“I did have some issues with [getting my] benefits, but at the moment, I’m all right. They’ve taken me off incapacity benefit and got me onto ESA, but if that is going to be limited… [For other people] it’s just a nightmare. It seems that in Weymouth, benefits get stopped on a whim. My brother – his benefits get stopped just about every month. Then he gets into a place where he’s got to get crisis loans. Then if you’ve had about £1100 in crisis loans, you’re not entitled to any more. Then what do you live on?

“[Pawn-shop places]… [people] take something [there] that they’ve got, or that they’ve lifted and even then, it’s only five or ten quid that they’ve got. Then, they’ve got to buy [whatever they pawned] back at street value. My brother has done it several times and I’ve given him such a bollocking for it. I said – you don’t do that. If you’re stuck, talk to me. I’m on benefits and I haven’t got a lot to spare, but we’ll working something out…

“What really winds me up… is these stupid [Atos work capability assessment] medicals that people get sent to. You’ve got to go to them and prove you’re not well. My brother collapsed halfway through his medical. He couldn’t remember three words that were said to him at the beginning of the interview. His benefits got stopped, because he’s “fit for work.”

“I’m not racist. I like to think I’m a reasonably good christian. I’ve written to politicians and I’ve said – you’re sending £30m a year overseas, or £30bn overseas a year on foreign aid and Yes – the catastrophes that go on over there are horrendous. People shouldn’t have to fight oppression. You shouldn’t have to have your home swept away by nature and have to fend for yourself. I understand all that side of it, but I don’t understand – if you’re sending £30bn overseas, why can’t they send £28bn and leave the other £2bn here to deal with our own poverty? That small amount would make such a difference to this poverty in this country.

“[Dealing with social housing social landlords – it’s impossible. I’ve got three landlords that I can use [to help people into housing] and two I can use regularly. They’re at all various stages of good, bad and indifferent landlords. I do work really hard to vet the tenants – to make sure I’m putting the right tenant with the right landlord, but yeah, it’s hard. I need more landlords, I really do… I know the issues that they have – [they worry that because] people [social housing tenants] aren’t paying [rent] out of their own pockets, there is always a danger that they won’t look after the place properly and if they’ve got addictions or mental health problems that just increases the burden. Housing benefit is always [being] mucking about – you know, they pay three months in arrears and all that sort of stuff.  [The thing is] it’s guaranteed money [for social landlords]. It may not be there every week as they want it, but it’s guaranteed money.