Yesterday, I spent another couple of hours at Oldham foodbank for more interviews with people who needed food parcels.
Here’s one of those interviews.
I spoke for a short time with a young woman.
She’d been abused by her partner, had left him and had been living in a refuge since July. Her kids were in care, I think (she was emotional and had struggled to speak at points). She said she was waiting to find out from the courts whether or not she’d “get my kids back.”
She had a Universal Credit claim, but hadn’t received any money since October. There was a problem, because she’d moved addresses to get away from the violent partner:
“I haven’t been paid for two months, because of a mixup in address – something to do with the address and all that… I suffered a domestic violence relationship, so I went into refuge.
[I am] trying to fight for my children in court. Don’t know if I’m going to bring the children back with me or not. All depends on whether I’m entitled to a three [unclear] or a one bedroom property.
That relationship. I lost everything.”
The foodbank volunteer asked her if she needed tampax. She said yes, so the volunteer made up a bag of sanitary items for her.
This woman’s mother was with her. She’d come along to do what she could. She was obviously concerned.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, because it becomes truer by the hour – we don’t have a safety net now. Social security hasn’t been reformed. It has been reduced to this rubble. People who need help most – help to stay alive, if you will – can’t access it. I meet more and more people whose circumstances should put them at the head of any queue. As things stand, they’re not in the queue at all. This is criminal.
I gave the woman and her mother my number. Maybe they’ll call.
Excerpts from the interview transcript:
“I’m ashamed of coming here, I don’t know why, but I’m ashamed… food, because I can’t afford to feed myself. Can’t afford to live let alone feed myself.
Haven’t had any money since October …Universal Credit. Can’t afford to go anywhere… if it involves money, I can’t do it
The foodbank volunteer came over with bags. “Not got any tampax in there… do you want…?”
“Yes, tampax please…”
“Haven’t been paid for two months, because of a mix up in address. Something to do with the address and all that, because the refuge I’m staying at. I suffered a domestic violence relationship, so I went into refuge…
Trying to fight for my children in court. Don’t know if I’m going to bring the children back with me or not… all depends on whether I’m entitled to a three [unclear] or a one bedroom property. That relationship… I lost everything.
Trying to fight for my kids… been in refuge since July… ex-partner isn’t the father. He’d hurt me by using the children and hurting me physically and emotionally. I was on Universal Credit with my ex and then I went onto a single claim, from where I lived… and now have made it into my own combination.
I don’t know my future until I get the result of what is happening with the children… haven’t got a clue, had no money for a month.”
I feel for that woman Kate,
she must be feeling really stressed and frustrated.
It beg’s the obvious question in my mind, “how can the government treat her like this?”
Yes. I am hardened to many things in some ways but that discussion got under my skin in a way – think it’s just this realisation that domestic violence is being removed from the list of major issues that people have to deal with… You know these things but seeing them is the jolt
I just signed a petition against planned cuts to women’s refuges. Here’s the link if anyone wants to sign:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-planned-changes-to-women-s-refuge-funding?bucket=email-blast-8_12_2017_
The safety net was cut to shreds by the Bullingdon boot boys & their maniac sidekick IDS. They turned the war against poverty into a war against the poor. They have quite deliberately wrecked our Social Security system in an attempt to turn us right back to Victorian times. It’s positively Dickensian. But it’s alright because Labour agree with them “in principle”. And still no Riots. If they tried this shit in France or Greece the country would be ablaze. My Council Tax was due yesterday and if I pay it I’ll be left with a fiver to last me til a week on Friday. So sick of this shit.
Wonder what is going on in the sense of response… another guy I spoke to yesterday at the foodbank just said nothing makes any difference. Maybe it’s that.
I don’t think anything is going on in response, at least that’s how it seems. People seemed resigned to the fact that this is how it is and we just have to endure it. Someone down at the foodbank where I volunteer also said he doesn’t think it will be any different if Labour get in. Thousands of people have already died and it doesn’t make headline news. Even the Anarchists seem to have admitted defeat.
Thats just exactly what they want Trev. Decent people to give up in despair, so they can completely destroy the whole idea of the welfare state. It has turned their stomachs since 1948.
People get used to it, shrug their shoulders.
Nothing they can do about it. Thats the danger, it all becomes normal. And then things getting worse all the time becomes normal too.
Hi, Kate
This ties in somewhat with what I was writing last night as personal testimony to share with a study group.
Income-interruptus and declining self-worth
Delays in payment of the so-called-‘Universal Credit’ have become a legend of our time, and I know from personal experience that benefit payment delays can be awfully demoralising. As well as the financial worries they bring on, they add to the stigma of feeling a burden as the claimant again becomes dependent upon friends and/or family for loans, if so blessed with such non-exploitative contacts to approach in times of particular need….
[© by Alan Wheatley
Much more there if you would like to see it]
Yes definitely – can you email it?
All the changes, and the vicious government campaign against benefit claimants over the past few years lie at the root of this sense of shock. Compassion fatigue, people start to get used to things that previously would have caused outrage. So much has been changed, and so much lost from what used to be called social security.
When you let an extremist invent a new benefit system, and when the political opposition looks the other way, this is what you get. A benefits system that sets out to punish and to deter benefit claimants. A system that is full of deliberate delay and administrative difficulty. Backed by a vile media campaign that sets out to stigmatise and dehumanise benefit claimants. Because the government know that if they can change people’s basic attitudes to social security, they can do away with most of it. Then they can use the money saved for tax breaks for business, and the wealthy in society.
It’s possible we are nearing peak cruelty now. Though with the Tories I wouldn’t bet on it. Unless the government is just going to come out and say ‘Thats it, we are not paying any more benefits, you can all get lost.’
Wait ’til they start paying Benefits in GovCOIN…
Or making all the benefits a repayable loan.
Poverty is not a personal failing. Work is not a medical cure for disability and terminal disease. The state has a moral obligation to provide a basic safety-net for everyone in society. Not play games over who is eligible for help, or try to persude them not to claim it.
As your most loyal and devoted servant, I would like to make an humble address
to Your Majesty. Please, pretty please, stop the roll-out of Universal Credit which has caused so much turmoil and strife within the lofty bounds of your gracious realm.
Pingback: In a refuge, domestic violence, no Universal Credit money since October. This government is vicious | Kate Belgrave – leftwingnobody
Indeed. I was just refused for PIP. 0 points. Apparently I have “no physical or mental restrictions”, could “walk more than 200m without resting”, and “showed no signs of anxiety at assessment”.
Chronic pain leaves me unable to walk very far most days, because if I do too much I have a back spasm, which are insanely painful and leave me partially or totally immobile. I had one when I went to the assessment, although it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t move. However, I couldn’t sit for more than a few minutes, couldn’t stand for more than 1.5ish minutes, and walked hunched over, and extremely slowly.
The entire building (a Tudor cottage from the period of Henry the 8th, wasn’t 200m long, so how the assessor established that I could walk more than 200m, I have no idea.
I was literally shaking with pain and anxiety. I hadn’t slept at all the night before due to anxiety, and actually found myself rocking back and forth at a couple of points. The assessor, a physiotherapist, was clearly unfamiliar with mental health conditions, and was so rushed that we didn’t get to discuss my self-harming
Argh. The decision-maker clearly didn’t read my meticulously written (mostly by a friend, as I can”t deal) application, and must have ignored my medical evidence.
This happens every time (this is the 7th) I apply for ESA, DLA, or PIP. I do mandatory reconsideration (once it actually worked), but usually it’s just a waste of time. I wait months for a tribunal, barely eating and getting severely stressed by finances, how I was treated, and the chance that the tribunal won’t decide in my favour this time. I go into hundreds or thousands of £:of debt to my Mum, my partners, my friends. I descend into a depressive episode, and often don’t leave my room for days, except to pee.
Here we go again. Each time I recover I don’t quite make it back to where I was before. At some point, I suspect I’ll need sectioning.
Thanks, DWP.
It is a national disgrace that anyone has to go through this wretched procedure. You have my entire sympathies. All of this is very wrong, As usual the DWP stand truth on its head and pretend that black is white, and right is wrong. But they are not fooling anyone with their cruelty, even though they and their government stooges think otherwise.
Thank you.
Meanwhile, Dewsbury Conservative Association have booked the function suite at the National Mining Museum (a former pit on the outskirts of Huddersfield/Wakefield) for their Christmas dinner, with guest speaker Esther McVey (aka Fester McVile)! Cheeky bastards.
Jesus what
it’s like Orgreave never happened, it was all just a bad dream…
Stop the press – just been announced the Museum have cancelled the event “over fears for staff safety”. P.S. it wasn’t a Xmas dinner, but an annual shindig, timed t o coincidewith anniversary of end of Miners strike!
Fester McVile, brilliant !
This is on the same basis an the Universal Credit ‘celebrations’ that have been happening in some Jobcentres as they introduce UC.
But then, who would have thought George Osbourne would be campaigning against child poverty in the Evening Standard ?
I know. These people MUST be trolling us from some universe that the rest of us can’t see.
Perhaps like Ebeneezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, George Osbourne has had a change of heart ? And like Scrooge, ‘ He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world .’ – Or maybe not.
There was just an item on Radio 4 ‘s You & Yours about the increasing use of Foodbanks & rising poverty in Britain. The DWP’s response was the usual line; reasons for foodbanks are complex, waiting time for UC has been reduced, loans are available..blah, blah. Theyre in denial, it’s just a blatant failure to recognize the truth.Our Social Security system is a shambles. The Government are unfit to rule. Winter has only just started to bite and thousands are probably going to die over the next 2 or 3 months. I’m only in my 50 s but I’m finding as I get older that every winter seems to last longer & is harder to get thru. Imagine if you’re homeless or sanctioned, no food, no heating, in this weather. ThisWinter is going to be the crisis point that might topplethis incompetent Tory government. Theyve got to go.
A lot of the problem is the media, and the way they keep backing up the government by putting positive spin on everything. And then covering up for them when their stupid ideas go wrong. Same with welfare, Brexit, and with the NHS.
How they have got away with all this is beyond me Trev. Don’t people care anymore? Sometimes it just seems as if there is no get up and go at all.
People are just numb with it all. As if they are just stuck in a stupid time in society, and there is nothing to do about it.
I don’t know Chas, we’ve all been driven down & it’s hard to riot or protest when you’re too busy doing jobsearch & havent eaten. In previous centuries there were Bread Riots etc. but the cops didnt have CCTV & Gait Recognition software, just cavalry with swords to mow you down on horses. Also though, I think society has become more fragmented, the lines are blurred between Working Class & Middle Class, the population is bigger, & people are distracted by technology, pubs have changed, either closed down or become trendy & gentrified, not the hot beds of Revolution where plots can be hatched. Times have changed I guess.
Labour need to get a grip on opposing all this. On Universal Credit, scrap it, not mess about with stop and fix. On disabilities, restore the Independent Living Allowance, or call it what you like, but put it back. And reverse all the cuts to disability benefits, like the 30% nonsense.
On housing and homelessness, commit to building social housing, and a legal framework for renters so that there is no more of this no fault eviction stuff. On the NHS do some thing to try and save it – you started it !
So true. I think Corbyn and his worthies have decided to not overdo it on anything from social security to Brexit, the theory being that Labour is best off sitting back and letting the Tories hang themselves. Problem with that is people need more and the Tories are still getting a lot of shit through, Universal Credit being a case in point.
thing is, our democracy has become a two party farce. You have to vote Labour if you want to get rid of the Tories, but when Labour do get in they don’t automatically undo everything the Tories have done. Like I bet they won’t scrap UC or abolish Sanctions. It’s a choice between utter bastards & useless bastards.
yep agreed. cunts or slightly watered down cunts. what a choice.
There’s no real enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn. Outside of Momentum and a few students. His own Labour MP’s are by and large not very keen on him as leader.
And if you look at the polls, there is no real public support for Jeremy Corbyn as a potential Prime Minister. The Tories are still doing remarkably well against him, even with all the problems they have had, which would have finished many previous governments. Jeremy Corbyn and his low-profile style are going to be the death of Labour once again, if they are not very careful.
Yeah they’re waiting. It’s not inspiring stuff. Corbyn’s pretty middle of the road, really. I doubt he’s going to leap out of a cake yelling Social Security For All. I have been wrong.
Then there’s Comrade McDonnell, keen fan of Chairman Mao – The Great Helmsman.With his own signed copy of the Little Red Book, as waved by so many Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Really appeals to the average British voter, not.
I don’t believe it. Had no heating all day, just found out its due to a gas leak under the floor & it’ll be a week before it’s fixed. It’s bloody freezing in here already! Landlady *might* be bringing me a oil radiator….ffs.
well the landlady never turned up with any temporary heater for me & hasn’t even been in touch. They don’t give a shit so long as they’re getting their rent. I got txt last night off a different firm of plumbers saying they’d be coming this morning , I got up early & waited in all morning but they never came. Got another txt at 12 saying theyll be coming at 9 am tomorrow. In the meantime I’ve got no heating. Nightmare. Now I have to go out to library to do my jobsearch, at least it’llbe warm in there.