Story by me in Inside Housing this week:
Councils have a number of homelessness duties – but their decisions can be difficult to scrutinise.
Now, an anonymous council officer explains what is really happening.
Story by me in Inside Housing this week:
Councils have a number of homelessness duties – but their decisions can be difficult to scrutinise.
Now, an anonymous council officer explains what is really happening.
Kate, unfortunately most of us won’t be able to read this no doubt very important article, as you have to register and it requires a work e-mail address as well as other identifying details. Also, I seem to remember Inside Housing, (once a fair to decent and radical social housing publication, (I’m talking about the 90s when I read it every week) and a magazine that is now struggling to represent anything that isn’t neo-liberal, (I guess your articles must be the foil Kate) has now got a pay wall. I know that older articles can be accessed, but I don’t know what IH’s policy towards that is. I earlier read an article originally posted on IH on 21 June this year, so maybe articles more than a month old are freely accessible? Just about enough time that most information is pretty much ‘old news’ and of limited value.
Is there any way you could post the article here, or would that infringe Copyright?
I’m not actually sure what the details are Padi so will see if I can find out when I get back.
I had the same experience. I clicked on the link to read the full story, but it just said I need to log in or register to read on.
Personally, I have trouble reading news on the internet anyway because the adverts cause my phone to crash. They make newspapers take so long to load on my computer that I give up trying. I used to be able to read the Guardian on my phone, but even that keeps crashing and closing on me now.
I’ve been stung a few times on the internet. I tried to pay for an app so I didn’t have to see the adverts, but the app kept crashing on my phone. There was no redress, no refund, no consumer protection. So I am very reluctant to pay for digital things now.
The trouble is Alison, is that the hardware requirements of many sites now exceed the capacities of any but the most recent phones. Rather than buy apps that claim to do away with adverts, why not just use a browser such as Firefox where you can add adblock extensions, as well as cookie killers that clear all the cookies from your device as soon as you close the browser. An adblocker could seriously reduce the load on your phone.
Even quite powerful desktop computers struggle with those news sites that are overloaded with advertising.
Not very helpful I’m afraid, but apart from using adblockers, which sometimes means that you can’t use the site, the only way around this problem would be to buy a newer phone with a more recent version of Android on it. Whilst ebay has no end of decently specced Chinese mobile phones at around the £100 mark, it’s still rather a lot if you have little money, and would only buy a little time before you’d be back to square one as sites become even more loaded with scripts and advertising. It’s made more frustrating in that most of the apps on, for example, the Google PlayStore are usually designed to run on devices running the latest versions of Android. If your device runs a version that is more than a couple of versions older than the current, they won’t work and can crash the app on your phone.
The older versions of the software are still available on different respositories, but they demand technical skills (to install) that are a little beyond the capabilities of anyone but those tending towards geekery, and even that is no guarantee that the app will work as the site you’re trying to access may well have changed it’s security protocols so older versions of apps may well no longer work.
Firefox won’t run on my phone. I think it was not compatible for some reason.
I can’t use most apps because I don’t have an Apple or Android operating system. (In my view, this is an anti-competitive practice, but there’s little regulation and we’re all expected to use this tech anyway.) Saved web pages can be useful. It takes a lot of data to install an app anyway.
I use the computer on public wifi to do things I can’t do on my phone, but I give up on most online newspapers because the adverts take so long to load.
In my experience, it’s not worth spending good money on the latest technology. My friend upgraded to Windows10 but then had to buy it 6 months later because her computer kept threatening to stop working! My computer is not compatible with Windows 10, but Windows 7 seems to be better anyway.
People give me their old phones when they upgrade.
Rather than upgrade to something like Windows 10, (which will nag to pay the licence fee after a while) why not consider installing one of the Linux based operating systems? They can be installed quite easily alongside Windows 7, or can be run just from a USB stick without installing. Linux based operating systems offer greater security out of the box than Windows, and are, crucially free of cost in most instances.
If you’re running Windows 7 on your laptop, you can install Firefox, and add all the security extensions and adblockers, so at least you’d be able to use it when accessing public wifi. Using an adblocker you’d be surprised how quickly news sites will load. If you use the Opera browser you’d also be able to use the free VPN that’s included, which would make your browsing on public connections that bit more secure too.
You’re correct in saying that it’s not often worthwhile spending money on the latest tech, unless you have a solid use case – I’ve just upgraded my PC as I needed harwdare that is compatible with the graphics card I bought,(I run an Open Simulator based virtual world on a home server, and need a decent-ish graphics card to make best use of the graphical capabilities of that), but I’ll be repurposing the old hardware to be an upgrade from my current virtual world server and also as a media centre and NAS server.
Thanks for these suggestions, Padi.
I have been running mythtv with duel DVB tuners on my home network for well over 10 years great media centre for recording pausing live TV and skips commercial adverts, mainly use it to stream music to all my devices.
Ditched propitiatory software 20 odd years ago and only use open source now.
Great example of how a community can work together to create something that is essentially free better than it’s commercial counterpart.
Very true Kate. A totally ridiculous situation to put people into regarding housing.
It’s just another example of the famous Tory ‘hostile environment’.
No real concern about all this I notice from the government.
You’re right, Jeff. They are evil and incompetent, and they have lost control. I wonder where this will take us.
It is suprising how many of these ‘hostile environments’ have been created.
For benefit claimants, the disabled, the homeless, immigrants, adult and child social care etc. In every area there have been massive cuts, and a deliberate attempt to make it difficult for people to access the limited provision that remains.
It is as if a reluctant state is deliberately trying to make things as difficult as possible for these people. Whose circumstances mean that they must try to get help.
Even from a system that now seems not to care very much at all.
On the subject of homelessness, the young homeless man (Gareth) who has been living beneath a bridge on the edge of my town has been told to move following a complaint to the Council by a local businessman who thinks that he is making the place look untidy and giving a bad impression of the town. This businessman owns a cafe situated in the crypt of the Parish Church. I don’t know if he has any connection with the church itself other than renting the premises but his attitude is certainly unChristian. He would have done better to criticize this evil Government who’s brutal policies have exacerbated homelessness. Gareth told me that he has dropped out of the Benefits system after being Sanctioned for two years :
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/homeless-man-told-leave-home-15480282
Perhaps the Paris Church could evict the cafe and turn the crypt into temporary accommodation for homeless people.