Can’t use a computer, or read or write very well? Tough. No benefits for you.

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Kate B

A few thoughts on Damian Hinds’ claims that jobcentres aren’t needed because more and more people claim benefits online, because I feel like having a rant on this one.

This line from government – “people don’t need face-to-face services because they can easily access benefits on the internet,” makes me absolutely furious. It is deceitful. Very.

The truth is there’s a whole group of people who can’t – and so don’t – use computers at all. They are entirely unable to make or manage online accounts of any description. They find completing online forms impossible. In my direct experience, quite a few people struggle to read and write as well.

I am constantly struck by the number of people I meet in the course of my work who have serious literacy difficulties. We all know the problem exists, but it is still unsettling when you experience the real-life extent of it. I’m better at picking up on this than I was. Some people tell you about their about their literacy struggles directly. Others speak about the problem in a sort of code. People will ask you to read and/or fill in forms for them – they’ll speak while you write. Others will say that they can’t fill in a form, or look a webpage right then, because they forgot to bring their glasses. That happens quite a lot. You start to get the drift when you meet with people on different occasions and realise they say the same sort of thing every time.

One thing is for sure – you have a much-reduced chance of claiming benefits online, or managing a web-based jobsearch if you struggle to read, write, or use a computer and have nobody to ask for assistance.

God knows I’ve seen that plenty of times. Readers of this site will know that I’ve documented people’s computer and written literacy problems in the past few years as they’ve tried to make benefit claims, or carry out the DWP’s exacting jobsearch requirements online.

Filling in job applications can be challenging enough. Here’s a Morrison’s job application form filled in by Eddie*, a man in his 50s with learning and literacy difficulties who worked as a kitchen assistant for years and wanted another job, but was not likely to find one given his age and declining health. I wrote the words Eddie wanted in his application on my notepad. He wrote them on the application form like this:

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How the Universal Credit bureaucracy can screw your chance of paying rent

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Kate B

This story will give you an idea of some of the reasons why people can end up with rent arrears when they’re trying to set up a Universal Credit claim.

It should also give you an idea why some jobcentre meetings drive me to the brink.

So.

I recently attended a meeting at Croydon jobcentre with a woman who has been trying to sort out the housing component of her Universal Credit claim for several months (I’ve posted a short transcript from the meeting below).

You’ll see from the transcript that the meeting was ludicrous.

The problem was paperwork, as it often is.

The jobcentre had told the woman to bring in her tenancy agreement and bank statements to make her Universal Credit housing component claim. The woman did exactly that. She had all her papers ready to go. We were expecting plain sailing from there. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite what we got.

The jobcentre adviser began by accepting the woman’s tenancy agreement and bank statements.

Then, the adviser suddenly decided that the jobcentre couldn’t accept the papers. The whole thing was utterly bizarre.

The problem was that the name of the rent recipient on the bank statements did not match the landlord’s name on the tenancy agreement.

The explanation for this was simple. The names were different because the rent was paid to the letting agent who managed the property for the landlord. The agent’s name appeared on the bank statements. The landlord’s name appeared on the tenancy agreement. This happens from time to time. I’m pretty sure that it’s happened to me in the past. There was another small problem – the agents hadn’t written the monthly rent total on the tenancy agreement.

None of this seemed a major obstacle to start. The jobcentre adviser could see from the bank statements that rent was being paid each month – a point the adviser happily conceded at first.

“I’m going to accept [the bank statements], because you’ve got a standing order… you wouldn’t be paying the money for any other reason.” (The woman who was applying for the housing component has been paying the rent with the help of a friend. That was the only way she could stay housed and avoid arrears. She’d waited weeks for her UC to begin, as people must).

Then suddenly, the adviser decided that the jobcentre wouldn’t accept the papers after all.

“We can’t progress the housing payment until all the documents are in order. They are not in order at the moment.”

“This says…[a different name for the landlord]. No, this is not going to be good enough.”

“I’m really sorry about all of this, but this isn’t ….the details you provide us have to be precise and they have to agree with what’s on here.”

“I’m going to have to make you another appointment.”

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Doesn’t matter if you’re ex prison or drink or use or what the hell. Everyone deserves housing

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Kate B

A bit about how quickly people end up back on the streets, homeless:

Yesterday, I planned to meet James, 50 and Vance, 43 – two Oldham guys I’ve been spending time with over the last couple of months. Both James and Vance have been in and out of street homelessness over the years. We’ve talked a lot about that.

Vance was finally placed in a flat in Oldham last year. He invited James to move in one day when he found James trying to sleep on the concrete landing outside Vance’s flat.

“He [James] was sleeping outside on the landing. I can’t see that, because I’ve been homeless meself…I did if for years meself. I slept on the streets, but I got sick of sleeping on the streets, so I bought a tent. I lived in a tent for five year. It is very cold and wet… and with snow. You can’t sleep.”

That arrangement went well until very recently.

The first thing I noticed was the guys didn’t show up for the Tuesday lunch we meet at in Oldham’s Salt Cellar building. Fair enough, I thought. Maybe they’d had a few drinks. The rules about turning out for lunch after a couple of cans are strict at some lunch places. You hear about people being asked to leave.

Maybe it was something else. I called James to see if he was in anywhere in town. He answered. He wasn’t in town. He sounded stressed. He said that some guys had thrown him out of Vance’s place very late a few nights back – not Vance, but some other people who hung around. He said they’d hit him and told him to leave and so he’d left. He was staying with someone else for a few days, but this was not a permanent arrangement.

“I’ll be back to being on the street again,” he said. He sounded panicky, as well he might. It’s cold out at the moment and always raining.

I asked James if he’d been to First Choice Homes to tell them about his problem and to see if they could find him anywhere to stay. He said that he had and nothing had come of it. I said I’d go with him later this week. He sounded reluctant. He said that he’d get nothing. Generally, he gives bureaucracies a wide berth these days. I’ve written about some of the reasons for that.

Anyway. There we were.

I have conversations like this from time to time. It’s difficult to offer answers, not least because there aren’t any. I can say this, though – conversations like this one are the reason why I will never get on board with notions of deserving or undeserving social security recipients. The fact is that everyone deserves shelter. In particular, everyone deserves shelter at a time of crisis. It doesn’t matter what a person has “done” in life to arrive at the sort of situation described here. All that matters right then is that a person is in this sort of situation. Nothing else is relevant. You have a bloke in his 50s on the phone who knows that he is on his way to sit out in the rain. Only a sociopath would interrupt him to say that he had it coming. Theresa May et al ought to take a few of these calls and see if they feel like passing judgement right then, at the actual point that someone is headed onto the street. No doubt they would.

“I stay away from my flat to avoid the bailiffs” – the joys of being hunted down for council tax

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Kate B

Happy New Year, all.

Am kicking things off with a story about council tax, people who can’t afford to pay it, bailiffs who keep bashing on doors to demand money that people continue not to have and the almost-unusable council systems that people must use to try and sort things out.

Happy days.

Just before Christmas, I rang Redbridge council on behalf of a young woman who lived in Redbridge a couple of years ago. She was moved there from another borough to escape domestic violence. She lives in another borough now.

To get down to it: the councils in all three of the boroughs that this young woman has lived in over recent years have chased her – through the courts and with bailiffs – for council tax that she can’t pay.

This situation regularly spiralled out of control last year. The demands for money kept coming. Bailiff and court costs increased (and continue to do so). The bailiffs turned up. Towards the end of last year, visits from bailiffs became a regular feature in this young woman’s life. “I hide in the bedroom when they come…or I try not to be at home,” she told me. Imagine that. She spent the Christmas break staying away from her flat to avoid bailiffs. God only knows how many people live this way.

Point is – the thing is futile. It so often is. This young woman has repayment plans, but has run into trouble with these for the simple reason that she has no money. This is the key point to keep in mind. If people have no money, they have no money. Harassment by councils and bailiffs doesn’t change this basic fact. Neither does it magically improve people’s incomes. Councils can demand council tax and bailiffs can hammer on people’s doors, but we all keep finding ourselves back at the beginning. People who don’t have money can’t pay money out. They certainly can’t pay debts which increase out of sight with court and bailiff costs (there’s something called a compliance stage fee of £75 whacked onto this young woman’s paperwork. God knows what that is). They fall behind in payment plans, especially when things go wrong. This young woman signed up for Universal Credit, but waited weeks for money, as people do. She missed her council debt repayments. A friend gave the bailiffs some money before Christmas to put them off, but they’re back. You wonder how it’s all going to end.

Sometimes, I like to ask councils how they think it’s all going to end. Just before Christmas, I rang Redbridge’s council tax department to talk about this sort of situation in a general sense. Mainly, I wanted to see if there was room for a civilised or imaginative (don’t laugh) discussion about options for people who don’’t pay because they can’t pay, etc – options other than repayment plans they can’t meet, threats, bailiffs and jail for non-payment of council tax, that was.

The (very) short answer to this was No. I called Redbridge. The officer who answered that day wasn’t great (although we will give the council a few points for answering the phone at all. I didn’t spend ages in a queue, which was refreshing). Certainly, there wasn’t a lot of thinking outside the box going on.

I wanted to know if the council would be open to a constructive discussion about people who couldn’t meet council tax payments, or repayment plans that had been set up – people who were at the end of the line and harassed by bailiffs. I was trying to find out if there was any flexibility around at all. You can demand money from people all you like, but there comes a time where it’s obvious that payment is not a starter. What’s the big plan after that? Do you send bailiffs round every day? Do you chuck parents with young children in jail?

The officer said something along the lines of No, we couldn’t talk about options in a general way. The young woman would have to call the bailiffs to put them off. The problem was not with the council. The problem was with the bailiffs. I explained that this woman was terrified of the bailiffs and didn’t want to call them any more. The officer said “she’ll have to.” I said something like “hang on.”

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