To twitter, then! – where Universal Credit director general Neil Couling (or the hapless minion who runs Neil’s twitter account) tells me that Universal Credit works brilliantly for people whose incomes vary.
People who are self-employed often earn different amounts from month to month. They must report their earnings each month. The DWP is meant to adjust their Universal Credit entitlements accordingly and pay people the Universal Credit that they’re owed.
Neil seems to think that this actually happens.
I’d asked twitter what should happen to a Universal Credit claim if people made money one month, but not much in the next two (I was trying to understand if Universal Credit claims stopped if people earned over certain amounts):
#UniversalCredit: if you have a variable income and, say, earn in one month enough not to be entitled to any money – you have to make a new UC claim if in the following two months you don’t earn enough?
It’s in effect a rapid reclaim process. Treated as continuous, simply reconfirming details (assuming nothing else has changed). Light touch, simple and quick
“Light touch, simple and quick” – like a 2 in 1 shampoo! Sounded absolutely fantastic.
Pity it’s tripe.
I say it is tripe, because I keep meeting self-employed people outside the jobcentre who tell me that trying to claim Universal Credit while on a variable income is a nightmare – a nightmare that they’ve given up trying to wake from.
They say that the DWP can’t calculate their entitlements correctly and/or never pay their Universal Credit entitlements on time. In fact, this was the reason that I asked twitter about Universal Credit and variable incomes in the first place. I was trying to work out wtf was meant to happen, so that I could compare that with the shambles that was actually happening.
In February, for example, I posted a discussion with a woman outside Stockport jobcentre who said that trying to claim her family’s Universal Credit entitlements each month was “a nightmare.”
She said that her self-employed husband declared his earnings to the DWP each month as instructed. The DWP had not once managed to calculate the amount of Universal Credit that the family was owed and pay the money on time.
She was not happy about this. At all:
“They [the DWP] never pay us on time… Me husband works for himself, so his earnings are up and down at the moment, so we have to declare them every month…even when he’s declared his earnings, they suspend our account, we still haven’t got paid a week later and then we still have to ring up [the DWP]…
“He declares them [his earnings] on the 16th of every month, because the payday is the 23rd. He declares them, which reopens our account, but then a week later, we should get paid – on the 23rd – but every month when it gets to the 23rd, we’re never paid, so I have to wait 40 minutes by ringing them up and getting through to them… and I’ve got a three year old and a two year old as well as the baby and it’s a nightmare.”
The note says that if she doesn’t attend a meeting that day, she’ll be thrown off the council homelessness list and evicted from her hostel room.
In an email last week, councillors said they and the mayor were horrified by the note and would investigate.
Apparently, the mayor repeated that concern at a council meeting last night.
That was all very well, but I want to know the outcome of that investigation. It’s been over a week.
How many people have received such letters?
Why is it that councils (and other so-called service providers such as the DWP, just btw) allow such contempt for people who are most in need to flourish?
Update 28 Feb: the council says that it is investigating this situation – to find out how someone living in one of its homelessness hostels came to receive such a letter.
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Original post:
Seriously.
I wrote a fortnight ago about Lukia, a woman with serious mental health difficulties who lives (if “lives” is the word) in a Newham homelessness hostel.
Lukia has previously been in the care of a mental health unit.
She is battling Newham council for permanent housing.
Lukia came home last week to find this note under her door:
The note says:
“You are request [sic] to come into the office in Victoria Street today by 3pm. Failure to do so will lead to you being removed from the homelessness list and you will be asked to leave your home.”
I post this to show you again the way that people with no clout are addressed by authorities.
Every contact is a threat.
People aren’t invited to meetings with council or hostel staff. They’re told to attend, or else.
The “or else” part can be the threat of being thrown off the homelessness list and out of a hostel room, as in this case.
It can be the threat of street homelessness and child removal. Whatever form the “or else” takes, these threats are heavy-handed, dangerous and unjustified.
It’s high time that councillors and MPs addressed this. A shortage of housing does not justify a shortage of decency and care.
Lukia, as I’ve written, has a history of serious mental health difficulties and of being placed in temporary accommodation so vile and substandard that she’s been moved out of it.
She feels that permanent accommodation is her only chance at the stability that might lead to an improvement in her health.
Threats of homelessness hardly help people achieve that.
Marsha is living in a homelessness hostel in Newham – in a one-room hellhole which she shares with her six-year-old daughter.
I reported this week that Marsha had written to the council to ask when she and her daughter would be placed in longer-term housing in Newham.
The two have been living in that stifling hostel room together for over a year.
Marsha is desperate for a place in Newham. She is at college. Her daughter is in school. Marsha relies on family for childcare and mental health support. Her mental health is deteriorating, because of her housing problems.
Marsha is being bullied by the council.
Like so many homeless mothers I and others speak with, Marsha fears that children’s services will remove her daughter if she pushes her case.
Certainly, social services have Marsha in their sights. When Marsha wrote to the council about her housing last week, she was suddenly dragged to two meetings with social services. She and her daughter – who is only six – were grilled about their health and wellbeing.
Now, there’s more.
After that story appeared and I emailed the mayor, Marsha got a call from housing options yesterday.
She was told that the council had one private-rented flat in Woolwich that she had to look at and accept. She was told that if she didn’t accept the flat, she’d be out on the streets. End of story.
That’s the way homeless people are spoken to.
Oven at the flat Marsha was shown
The flat was disgusting – cracked walls, filthy oven, broken locks, stained and squalid mattresses and grimy sinks and walls. I’ve posted photos through this article.
The agent who show Marsha the place said that he wouldn’t house his family members in it.
Homeless women, of course, are expected to be grateful for such places.
Mattress and bed in the flat Marsha was shown
Marsha called me in a terrible state. She has a choice: she can take her six-year-old child to live in this pigsty, or she can live on the side of the road. That’s not much of a choice in my book.
Marsha has become more and more distressed as this has gone on.
The bullying, the threats from and of social services and the upset and rotten housing that she must expose her child to are taking an obvious toll.
I’ve asked the mayor for a response to this. This is council aggression and bullying, pure and simple. The mayor better come back to me soon.
Broken walls and doors in the flat
I’ll tell you this – homeless women I’m speaking with say that they are inevitably treated like this – “do what you’re told and live in whatever hovel we send you to, and be grateful.”
It’s bad enough to know that your mental health is deteriorating because of this and because your kids are exposed to filthy living conditions and your distress.
It’s very bad to know that social services is watching you as that happens.
Readers of this site will know that I’ve recently been interviewing Marsha, a homeless 30-year-old Newham woman who lives with her six-year-old daughter in a single room in a Newham homelessness hostel.
The two have been stuck in this temporary accommodation for over a year.
Marsha and her daughter in their one-room temporary homelessness hostel accommodation
In the last article, Marsha talked about a concern that many homeless mothers raise. Mothers worry that council social services will try to remove their children because they are homeless. Doesn’t matter what the council can, or can’t, actually do. The threat hangs in the air and that is enough. I’ve written about this before.
In that recent article, Marsha said that Newham social services said they could take her daughter and place the child in care while Marsha “sorted herself out”:
“Social services is telling me – “oh, we can provide a home for your daughter, but not for you.”
“So I am scared.”
There’s been more since then.
On Tuesday morning, Marsha sent an email to her housing officer (Marsha copied me in). She asked for an update on her housing situation and whether she and her child could be moved to a better place than the awful hostel that they’re stuck in.
Marsha is in the dreadful limbo that so many women in poverty are.
She’s facing eviction from the homelessness hostel she’s in.
She’s studying at a local college to try and improve her chances of work and better-paid work.
She doesn’t want to have to move to a flat miles away in Tilbury (which is where the council wants her to go), because Marsha relies on her mother for mental health support and childcare while she studies. If Marsha loses that support, she’ll sink.
Marsha has no-one else to help with childcare while she studies. The jobcentre certainly won’t. Her adviser already threatened to sanction her Universal Credit for spending some of her time studying rather than all of her time looking for work.
So, Marsha sent that email to the council asking about her application for better housing. There’d been earlier emails, too, as well as the stories posted here.
Enter social services.
The next thing Marsha knew was that social services was all over her – and asking questions about her daughter’s health and wellbeing.
Marsha said she felt extremely threatened by this. A woman asks a council questions about her housing application – and suddenly, social services is on the phone demanding meetings and firing off all sorts of questions about the woman and her child’s welfare.
You have to wonder.
Marsha says that first, she was contacted by someone from the local multi-agency safeguarding hub – one of the hubs set up to track children who could be “vulnerable”:
“I literally had to explain myself and my housing situation all over again. He [the MASH officer] was really like getting a bit personal… asking me questions about my doctor, my daughter, my wellbeing, [the] school that she [my daughter] attends, her attendance… just a lot of personal stuff…”
So, there was that.
Then on Thursday last week, Marsha got a call from Newham children’s services, demanding that she attend an appointment with them that very afternoon:
“Another lady called from the social services…she said to me that she’s been given instructions from her manager to call me to arrange a meeting with herself.
I said, “what is it in regards to, because I just spoke to somebody else in the department within the social services and they are saying something different to me…”
“[She said] that she has to do an assessment with me and my daughter to do with my housing issues, and I have to come and see her and I should bring my daughter…
“I said to her – “I’m in college until 4.15pm. Then, I have to pick up my daughter.”
“She was like, “this is important and you have to come and see me. You kind of just have to find time, basically.”
“So I said to her, “okay, well, I’ll grab my daughter from school early and I’ll come and see you.”
“I was really uncomfortable…”
At the meeting, the social worker questioned Marsha and her daughter about Marsha and the child’s wellbeing:
“It is… the stuff they were asking me, Kate, had nothing to do with my housing situation. They were asking my daughter if she sleeps well, how does she play, who helps her with her homework… It’s not relevant.
“It’s almost like I’m being investigated… do you know what I mean… everyone knows that my issues is strictly around housing. I feel so uncomfortable.”
“I feel like the council is just trying to use tactics to force me into a situation…I feel like I’m being punished. I’m trying to get my voice heard and I’m speaking to people and I’m raising issues. I feel like it’s a tactical to make me go away – like they are thinking, “let’s get social services to call around.”
Marsha said the social worker told her that Marsha and her daughter would soon be evicted from their temporary accommodation. Marsha and her young daughter are facing street homelessness.
That was the first Marsha had heard about her impending eviction.
She said that the social worker was shocked to hear that the council’s housing team hadn’t told Marsha that eviction was nearing.
The bed Marsha shares with her daughter
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You see my point.
I talk to too many homeless mothers now who say they feel ever-threatened by social services.
They don’t know if councils can take their kids, but Can or Can’t is beside the point. The point is that the spectre of social services is raised at the drop of a hat. An implied threat is plenty good enough to shut homeless people up.
People worry about challenging a council offer of housing, or complaining about the dreadful state of temporary housing, or drawing attention to themselves by asking a council any questions about housing at all. I wonder how many homeless people are disenfranchised – bullied into silence – in this way.
Said Marsha:
“It’s the normal thing that I’ve been experiencing with council, with social services – bullying, threatening, saying that you have to do this now and you don’t have an option…she [the social worker] sat down yesterday and she said, “as you know there is no affordable housing, affordable properties [in Newham]… it’s just been like 18 months of ongoing like turmoil with them.”
Indeed.
I have more on this which I will publish this week.
The Newham council press office has blacklisted me and so won’t give a comment, but too bad for them. I’ll be emailing the mayor and the head of housing with this article and asking the council what the hell it is doing.
I’ve recently noticed a real increase in the number of people coming to my site on search terms re: how to claim benefits when homeless.
Am thinking this could indicate:
an increasing number of people who are homeless and in need of benefit help
an increasing number of people who can’t easily get the advice on homelessness and benefits that they need
Picking out search terms is hardly a formal measure of a trend, of course, and I’m not talking a mass of visits on these phrases, but I still feel like pointing them out.
Snapshot from this week:
can you use job centre as care of address
is there a way to apply for benefits when homeless
how to apply for benefits when im homeless
should dwp tell homeless people to use jobcentres as address
can the homeless claim benefits do the homeless get benefits
homeless people and job centre plus investigation
how much money can you get if you are homeless
benefits and homeless
can social services take your kids if you are homeless
This is an excerpt from a longer article I’m working on:
A fortnight ago, I visited Lukia – a woman with a history of severe depression. She has been in the care of a mental health unit.
For two years, Lukia has lived on an upper floor of a grim homelessness hostel in Newham. She was placed in the hostel by Newham council.
She dislikes living up so high, because she worries about jumping.
Lukia said:
“I’m living on the ninth floor, because… my daughter knows that I don’t go near the window… I always feel like I’m going to go down…”
I asked:
“Like you’re going to jump?”
“Yes, yes… feel like you’re jumping.” Lukia said.
Here’s the view from Lukia’s window:
Her hostel room is also distressing. It’s not really a room. It’s more a hallway with Lukia’s bed and belongings in it. There’s a small kitchen at one end of this hallway and the bed, and window, at the other.
The “room” is filled with suitcases, kitchen items and household belongings:
Why do we make people with serious mental health conditions live like this?
Lukia’s daughter lives in a similar hallway-type room next door, because her mother can’t live alone.
Lukia says the council has offered other temporary accommodation, but she worries about that. She was moved to this hostel from other temporary accommodation, because that accommodation was disgusting:
“They left me there in Romford Road – [that accommodation] was really filthy. We kept on cleaning. We couldn’t do anything. We would have to go through the environmental services… I said I’m not staying in the place. We were about five, six, seven families…. and said you cannot stay in this environment. They all had children. A woman wrote to them – the council – and said, “move these people as soon as possible.” Then, the following day they phoned us and said you have to move…”
What on earth are we doing?
I’d ask Newham Council for a comment on this – in particular, a comment on Lukia’s concerns about jumping and living in a room many stories up – but the council has blacklisted me. There we go.
This is a short audio from one of the many recent Stockport United Against Austerity leafleting sessions I’ve attended outside Stockport Jobcentre. We talk with people as they attend the jobcentre to sign on and so on.
In this audio, a woman says that trying to survive by claiming the family’s Universal Credit entitlements alongside her self-employed husband’s earnings has been “a nightmare.”
(The quotes below are a transcript for this audio)
The DWP is utterly incompetent. Every month, the DWP fails to record her husband’s income accurately, even though he declares his earnings from his self-employment each month. The family is literally never paid their Universal Credit entitlement on time. They risk debt each month because of it.
She says:
“They [the DWP] never pay us on time. I mean – me husband works for himself, so his earnings are up and down at the moment, so we have to declare them every month. And I tried to set up a working from home business – but even when he’s declared his earnings, they suspend our account, we still haven’t got paid a week later and then we still have to ring up [the DWP]…
“I’ve got direct debits coming out and I still have to ring them up. We still haven’t been paid… and I have to keep chasing them to get paid.
“Yeah – no, we never get paid on time.”
I ask:
“So, you’re trying to balance self employed earnings with getting Universal Credit?”
“He declares them [his earnings] on the 16th of every month, because the payday is the 23rd. He declares them, which reopens our account, but then a week later, we should get paid – on the 23rd – but every month when it gets to the 23rd, we’re never paid, so I have to wait 40 minutes by ringing them up and getting through to them… and I’ve got a three year old and a two year old as well as the baby and it’s a nightmare.
“And all my bills come out on the 24th and so I’ve got to chase it up to make sure that I get it…”
Remember this next time Amber puts out another advertisement which features another actor who claims that Universal Credit and the DWP smoothed his path into work and financial independence and a happy tomorrow, etc.
I spend a great deal of time speaking to people at jobcentres. I’ve literally NEVER seen or heard a real-life version of Amber’s ad, or even an approximation of it.
I have, however, seen and heard many people who’ve been trying to get work, improve their incomes and claim their Universal Credit entitlements, and who have reported abject DWP and Universal Credit failures like the one in this post.
I attend jobcentres a lot more often than Amber Rudd and I talk with real people there, too. I’d say that people who must use Universal Credit for real have a better grip on the facts than Amber.
Am transcribing interviews atm – here’s an excerpt from one.
I’m posting this to show again that homeless mothers who ask councils for housing help feel that councils are always threatening to remove their children.
I doubt the well-appointed classes know this fear.
The woman in this interview is Marsha, 30. Her daughter is five. They live together in a single room in a Newham homelessness hostel.
Marsha said that social services told her that they could take her daughter while Marsha “sorted herself out.”
Marsha said that social services frightened her badly with that statement. The council wouldn’t tell her where her daughter might be placed:
“… [they said] it could be anywhere – she’ll just be with, you know, an authorised adult who is eligible to care for her until you sort yourself out.”
Marsha and her daughter in the one room in their hostel
So many of the homeless mothers I talk with live in fear that their council will remove their kids.
They believe that asking councils for housing help is a risk for that reason.
Forget the council’s “we’ll give your child back when you’ve sorted yourself out,” line.
Women worry that they’ll never see their kids again once they’ve been taken into care.
They also know that they’re a long way away from sorting themselves out – from finding housing that is decent, secure and affordable. The only way to secure such housing really is to suddenly come into money. Nobody holds out much hope for that.
Marsha and her daughter were sofa-surfing when Marsha approached the council for housing help.
Marsha was desperate. She was even more desperate when she thought the council might take her daughter. Such are the fears that homeless mothers must deal with as a matter of course.
Said Marsha:
“Social services is telling me – “oh, we can provide a home for your daughter, but not for you.”
“So I am scared. Social services literally said that to me when I first went to social services…I was literally going to Belgrave Court [a homelessness hostel in Newham].
“They said to me that what we can do is we take [your daughter] and we can look after her for you until you sort yourself out and then you can come back and get her.”
“I said if you take [my daughter], can you tell me where she’s going to be?”
“They said – oh no, it could be anywhere. She’ll just be with, you know, an authorised adult who is eligible to care for her until you sort yourself out.”
“I said – “it’s in my child’s best interests for her to be with me. I’m the only person that she knows.”
I’d ask Newham council for comment on this, except that the council has blacklisted me. Too bad for the council. I have a lot more on this story.
Marsha is homeless and lives with her young daughter in one room in a temporary accommodation hostel in Newham. (I’ll publish her full story soon).
Marsha signs on for Universal Credit at Stratford jobcentre.
Marsha told me that she wants to study to become a nurse.
To get things underway, she recently signed up to study a module in health.
Marsha said that she thought her jobcentre adviser would be pleased with this initiative.
He was not. He was furious about it.
The jobcentre adviser told Marsha off for prioritising study ahead of jobsearch. She was threatened with sanctions for putting study ahead of her jobsearch activities.
Her jobcentre adviser told Marsha that finding work – any work at any pay – had to be her priority.
Study and increasing her chances of better-paid work were not DWP priorities for her.
“He said to me “they [the DWP] want you looking for work.”
I said to him: “how can I get a better job with more money to look after my daughter if I never get qualifications?”
Precisely.
Two things:
this is an excellent way for the DWP to make sure that people in Marsha’s situation never get out of such situations – that they’re kept in low paid, unskilled work and subject to Universal Credit conditions forever
it’s extraordinary that instead of encouraging her to study, the DWP would rather that Marsha spend her time on useless jobsearch exercises such as sitting in front of a computer applying online for hundreds of jobs that she’ll never hear about again. There is no greater waste of time for people than this – sending of hundreds of online job applications that are never responded to. Still, people are forced to do this in exchange for their benefits. I’ve written about this a lot.
This government is not interested in helping people achieve economic independence.
This government wants to make very sure that people who have nothing are kept in their place forever – desperate, stuck permanently in low-paid work and trapped by the state on Universal Credit, because they never earn enough to get clear.
