Category Archives: Women

We’ve shut your benefit claim with no warning at all – how the #DWP does #disability

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Righto.

You know how Labour INSISTS that disabled people and their families will be supported while Labour dismantles disability benefits?

Well, that’s bollocks. You knew that, but let’s pile it on.

In my most recent podcast episode, Niki, the mother of a disabled and autistic 7 year old, tells us the DWP recently closed her universal credit claim with NO warning.

Niki and I called the universal credit helpline to ask what was going on. I recorded that call and added it into the episode.

Universal credit kept telling us that Niki had to wait for the DWP to carry out a mandatory reconsideration to get her claim back. They happily admitted that that could “take ages.” No money to live on during that time, of course.

Also – the universal credit helpline officer kept telling Niki to check her online universal credit journal to see how the MR was going – problem being that Niki can’t get into her journal, because the DWP closed her claim. Still, universal credit kept saying and saying that Niki should check the progress of her mandatory reconsideration in her journal.

This went round and round and round until universal credit hung up on us. Charming.

This is Labour’s so-called “tailored support” for disabled people and their families. Brilliant, innit.

The benefits system actually causes serious mental health problems

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In my latest podcast episode, we take more piss out of Liz Kendall and Keir Starmer’s barely-watered-down plans to cut PIP and disability benefits.

We talk about the fact that one of the reasons that people claim PIP for mental health problems is that life is so difficult for so many people. Wages are low and rents are impossibly high, and people can’t cope. Hardly a surprise, is it.

Why don’t Kendall and Starmer focus on that?

 

We also talk about the fact that a lot of people can’t work because the support they need doesn’t exist.

I talk to Megi in the podcast. Megi is the mother of a profoundly disabled autistic 8-year-old. This girl is bladder and bowel incontinent, non verbal and has violent meltdowns every single day. She barely sleeps.

She is dangerous to herself and others. She can’t be left alone for a second, including through the night. Megi had to leave a good job to become her daughter’s fulltime carer. She now gets a measly £300-ish a month in carer’s allowance. Great.

Opportunity knocks! – if you have a home and front door, etc

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Happy New Year! Kind of!

Let’s start with some good news:

There’s this young child in London who lives in a crappy homelessness hostel BUT who has real singing talent, which at the moment is being nurtured. Last year, this little girl got a place on a music programme for children where she gets singing lessons, support and chances to perform.

This could take her great places – perhaps out of poverty and into a future with just a bit more hope, and maybe a housing option where she and mum don’t have to share a bed, or skirt ponds of wee in the hostel lift, or listen to endless shit from the council re: not being overcrowded and sucking it up by sticking an extra bed in the kitchen, etc. That’s the dream, anyway. It’s a warming dream in its way, at least from a middle-class angle – a Billy Elliot for the temporary accommodation age.

So, that’s the good news. The less good news is like many young children in poverty, this one will have to outperform a council that has perfected a modern art of its own – ie turning hope into landfill. And who knows? She may succeed! – though she’ll be coming from a long way behind and she’ll need a pretty big finish.

I say this, because late last week, their council sent J, the girl’s mother, a letter to say that J and her daughter will be chucked out of the hostel in the 2nd week of February. Happy New Year to you.

This letter struck J the two usual blows. It told J that she will be made homeless, because the council is ending its duty to help her. Then, it threw the sucker punch (you could almost hear the council winding an arm up for it), which is that social services had been instructed to turn its attentions to the little girl. They’re great, these letters – exactly the sort of thing you need through the hostel door when you’re already homeless, near breakdown and have nowhere to go in the middle of a terminal housing crisis.

The council did throw in a Sorry About This, Pal, line at the end of the letter: “We appreciate this decision is not the one you would have wished for and apologise if it has caused you any distress,” but I’m not totally sure this has squared things. J has still taken her letter badly. She thinks it means that social services will take her child away, because the child is facing street homelessness. She is also wondering if her fast-failing mental health will improve that much when she’s living in a doorway and desperately bidding for council places on a shaky wifi in some unstaffed library warmbank.

Government and councils seem to think this sort of scenario is character-building, although it could be time that they tried it. Given that J has never had secure housing in her adult life, her fear that she may be homeless forever is not wild imagining. It may also be why I’ve heard more crying than singing in J’s recent phone calls with me.

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Is the idea to find out how much cold poorer people can take?

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Got a bunch of pretty desperate whatsapp messages last night from N, the disabled single mother of 2 little kids whose housing problems I’ve been writing about for about a year. Happy anniversary to that, etc.

Last week, her council finally moved N and her kids from the cramped emergency homelessness hostel she’d been stuck in for 3 years into temporary accommodation. That sounded like good news at the time – except that now we find there’s no heating or hot water in the temporary place. The oven doesn’t work either, so not much chance of warming up a bit by gathering around that – probably not something to encourage a toddler and crawling baby to do anyway. The little ones may not be in the mood, of course, given that they are both now sick.

In recent days, there’s been plenty of snow and ice outside to make sure that the temperature is as perilously low as it can be. Innovation is key at these points – I’ve just been thinking that you could work up a bit of warmth by cuddling your phone close and reading about the middle classes tobogganing in Greenwich park.

N had hopes for this temporary accommodation, chief among which was having a place for a friend to stay next week to look after the kids while N has surgery on the arm that her abusive ex twisted in a rage. Blokes, eh. What can you do.

N says 2 appointments were made for someone to come and fix the heating, but nobody turned up for either. Maybe third time lucky? Or maybe not. I thinking that I won’t put money on it.

Update: An engineer has turned up and said there’s no electricity and/or the boiler isn’t connected to it. N says she is now back on the phone to the council, listening to hold music. So… that’s third time, but not 100% lucky?

And another update: A blog and an activist email to the council later, and the hot water and heating now work. All N needs to do now is find ways to pay for it..? One thing at a time.

Do migrants feel separation from family less or something

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One hypocrisy I really enjoy is this: how the great and good go full the berserker when war, or Trump or other name sociopaths separate families for the political #win, but sort of let it slide when it happens here.

This is particularly true when the families are very poor, or immigrants, or, naturally, very poor immigrants. The consensus seems to be that immigrants feel the pain of separation less.

Email text which says please help me I can't live alone anymore without anyone no friends no family no one is very difficult

Certainly, the rest of the world feels their pain less.

In the past month or so, I’ve been speaking regularly with C, who is a woman in her 30s.

In her life, C has made two of our era’s bigger social mistakes. First one – she was born in Europe. She is Portuguese, but here. Gah. Second one – she’s a single mother. This is absolutely not her fault, but good luck marketing that. Main thing here is that C is suffering for her sins, so that at least will keep the jingoist crowd happy. Somebody’s getting something out of it, etc.

Actually, C is suffering for her landlord’s sins, but no doubt that also works. Two years ago, C was forced to ask Waltham Forest council for help, because she was homeless. The then-pregnant C had been renting a room from some chiseller who said he was the landlord, but was not. He was a tenant who sublet rooms to C and several other women, and, needless to say, paid their rent to himself.

The real landlord, of course, turned up one day in search of his rent. He wasn’t thrilled to find that his rent was all gone and that his place was being run as an unlicensed HMO by a robber. He chucked C and the other women out.

So far, so private rental sector.

Enter the calamity that is Waltham Forest council (I’ve had experience with Waltham Forest council’s treatment of homeless single mums, most of which I hope to forget).

Ever on the (often successful) prowl for ways to make a lousy situation worse, the council made the extraordinary decision to move C and her baby to a flat in very far-off Blackpool to live, presumably forever.

Even accounting for the possibility that nobody in Waltham Forest knew where Blackpool was, the council outdid itself sending C so far away from friends, family and her baby’s brother and father – an hours-long, massively overpriced return train journey “provided” by your choice of useless transport companies that at the moment couldn’t organise a trip to the shops.

Surely, the council could have found C a low-end flat in a neglected and downtrodden area closer to home? Councils used to like dumping homeless people in ratholes in towns like Slough and Colchester. What happened to those golden days? C didn’t actually demand to stay in London. She just wanted to be able to take the occasional trip there.

Placing C so far away isn’t even a cost-saving exercise, at least for the state. C was employed in London, but now must claim benefits by way of universal credit. As for landing a job in Blackpool – never say never, of course, but Blackpool has one of the highest unemployment rates around. C doesn’t know anybody, has no-one to help care for the baby and she is still learning English. She has also has serious depression now, because she is so isolated. Think we can safely say that she’ll be claiming universal credit for a while.

 

So, there we are. I doubt that C will be getting any big ideas about her human rights, or even being human, soon. Even dog rescue centres usually try to rehome dogs from the same family together, the understanding being is that dogs really feel these things.

You do find yourself wondering why this council practice of tearing people away from their families is still such a thing. No doubt it’s just part of the bigger game we’re playing – you know, the one where we’re trying to find out how much immigrants can take.

The screenshots are from some of C’s emails with the council over the last couple of years.

Good news: the council found a flat for you. Bad news: disabled people such as yourself can’t get to it

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Haven’t decided if this one is council pratfall or farce:

We return to N, the homeless, disabled, single mother of 2 and domestic violence alumna whose hopes of liberation from her one-room homelessness hostel hovel I’ve been writing about for nearly a year.

Given that absolutely nothing ever changes for N, I do think I’ll be writing about her situation for whatever timeframe constitutes forever these days – until we’re all taken out by the next cantering microbe, or the sun brings the incineration timetable forward, etc. Can’t say I want the world to end as a climate-blasted fireball, but on the bright side, that would break a few stalemates.

N has been stuck in that one shabby hostel room – beds, “living” area, personal belongings and the family all crammed in it – for 3 whole years. Councils leave homeless families in these dreadful places for aeons now. I think the basic government idea is that at some point during a family’s incarceration in them, one-room bedsit/cage hostel arrangements like N’s will evolve from emergency accommodation to coffin, thus ending a massively-underfunded council’s duty to that particular family and freeing up space for the next doomed group. You do hear people in these places say they’d prefer death to another day in their hutch.

Buggy wheels against a lift wall

Image: double buggy absolutely not going to fit in the lift

Unfortunately, N has longer to go in hers. She’s just had another good news-bad news week on the liberation front.

The good news was that her council said it had a flat for her to move into. The bad news was that she couldn’t get to it. It wasn’t on the ground floor and the lift was too narrow for her buggy, or her walking aid. She took the pictures that I’ve posted in this article.

N can’t walk without the buggy to lean on, or her walking aid.

A friend went upstairs and took pictures of the corridor-balcony outside the flat (see video). This balcony was very narrow indeed. There was no room for the buggy or walking aid there.

Councils are meant to check places out before offering them to homeless people, but as housing officers have told me, we’re long past the golden age when councils had staff, time and money for handy initiatives for homeless and/or homeless disabled people. The curtain has drawn on those slightly more favourable eras. Another few years and there’ll be nobody around who actually remembers them.

So – back to the hostel N goes, for another stint of winter captivity and watching her own mental health tank, etc. Such is housing in our glorious modern world. Not too many at the renting end are winning. Even people who aren’t homeless can’t find places to rent unless they hand all their money to a letting agent for superior position in the stampede.

Meanwhile – adequate government funding for councils for housing is a dream you can get tired of trying to have. Jeremy Hunt gears up for Austerity 2 and you find yourself struggling to feel it. More and more people will be asking councils for housing help as the renting and cost of living crises crack on. You kind of hope that people don’t know what awaits.

 

Homeless and being tortured by your council? Great, isn’t it.

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Today’s post is an update on N, a homeless disabled woman with an abusive ex partner and 2 little kids. I’ve been writing about N’s situation for most of this year – key takeaway being that I’ll need to write a lot more if we’re measuring success by the speed with which N’s council has pulled finger to help her.

N and her family have been stuck living in a single room in a London homelessness hostel for 3 years – beds, living area and things, belongings, and N and her kids all crammed into one room. You can imagine how agreeable these living arrangements are. Even if you really like your kids, you would probably decline an offer to spend eternity caged in one room with them.

Compounding N’s undesirable setup, though, is her council’s odd taste for mental torture. N was placed in the hostel by her council 3 years ago, because she was homeless. They should have at least moved her to a temporary place with an extra room or 2 a few months after that, but she is still in the hostel.

That means it has been years now – day in and day out, living in that room, with nothing ever changing. To be fair, the council did break up the monotony late last year when they sent the then-pregnant N a letter to tell her they were going to chuck her onto the streets – ie evict her, etc. We can probably agree that that bit wasn’t boring. The council was going to evict N, because she had balked at accepting a temporary housing offer. She did that because the place the council showed her wasn’t secure enough to keep an aggressive and pissed-off ex-partner out. The council said they’d evict her for turning the place down. Long story short: after a torrent of pointed activist emails cc’d to the mayor, the council decided to park the eviction idea and leave N and her kids (including newborn) in the hostel for the time being.

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Disabled? Your council has decided you’re not any more. Praise the lord! and find your own housing.

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Today we’re taking a brief break from DWP ballsups to talk about council ones.

Readers of this site may remember a story I posted earlier this year about N.

N is disabled, homeless and a mother to 2 very young children. She’s another domestic violence alumni – domestic violence being a problem that the world probably needs to get round to addressing with something closer to urgency. Bet plenty more more women get smacked over as massive energy bills land. Problems like that inevitably end up being our fault.

On with the story. Several years ago, N’s London council placed her in one of its notoriously bad homelessness hostels and there N has languished. She has one shabby room where she and her kids live (“live” is the romantic word for it), eat and sleep. These single rooms in this hostel are the sort of cramped, airless and often baking hot places that you’d be fined for leaving a dog in, but are entirely acceptable for poor families for years on end.

Still, hanging on even to this hovel has been a challenge for N – an unfair one, needless to say. At the end of last year, the council informed a then-pregnant N that she’d be evicted from the hostel, because she’d turned down a temporary flat the council had offered. N had good reason to turn the flat down – it was a ground floor place with a flimsy front door and an overgrown yard in which a pissed-off ex could lie in wait for the woman who’d dared to get a non-molestation order against him. N was too scared of her ex to tell the council any of this. So, she was still facing eviction when she gave birth. She was also whatsapping me and another housing activist about it from the delivery suite. Seemed a new low to me, but I can be slow to move with the times.

Anyway, we can probably put that unpleasantness behind us, because the council has since moved into a new field – miracle healing. Until now, as a lifelong atheist, I have tended to take the long view of this corner of the action, but maybe this will be the time when things finally take off.

Last week, an officer rang N (who is still languishing in the hostel) to say that N would have to accept a 2nd-storey flat with no lift if nothing else was available – this is even though N can’t climb stairs. Continue reading →

Do letting agents discriminate against benefit claimants up north or are they as shite as in London

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Well.

A month or so ago, I rang some East London letting agents to ask if they would let flats to N, a single mother who’d pay her rent with universal credit. I explained that N was homeless, living in an emergency hostel with her 2 very young children, and in need of a 2-bedroom flat in the local area.

Readers of this site will know that I had high hopes which were met a bit lower. It is illegal now for letting agents to refuse to take benefit claimants onto their books, but letting agents also know very well that their landlords would rather bulldoze a flat than see a benefit claimant in it. When a benefit claimant calls, they must achieve a delicate straddle.

Gives them a good stretch anyway. The London agents I called were enthusiastic – one almost bodily from the sounds of it – about tenants who claim benefits. They said that N absolutely could register at their agencies.

Things peaked about there, though. The feeling among these agents was that after N registered with them, her best option was absolutely to give up. Hand on heart, these agents said – they would never reject N themselves, but as for asking their landlords… well, probably not worth it even for the laugh, really. Landlords demanded rich guarantors and upscale tenants, and would generally only let a single mother into one of their flats to mop it. What could you do, etc, etc.

Which is not to say these London letting agents were totally out of helpful suggestions. Far from it. Sure, London and London landlords might be a stretch, but the dream didn’t have to end there. Wouldn’t N be perfectly suited to a gumtree landlord and a flat in one of those out-of-London, up-North hellholes where the standards and hope are as meagre as the gene pool? – one of those timeworn places where everyone’s still paid in salt or buttons.

As luck would have it, I live in a such a place myself and I am always buoyed by a London endorsement, so I sat down straight away to ring up some Stockport and Manchester letting agents.

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Do letting agents still discriminate against benefit claimants? Of course not! Well – kind of. Well – yes.

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One way to piss away a half-hour if you’ve stalled on your pandemic hobbies: ring a few letting agents and ask if they take registrations from people who claim benefits.

It is unlawful now for letting agents to discriminate against people who claim benefits – a ruling which presents awesome chances to get agents on the phone and listen to them try to get round it.

I did this on Friday afternoon on behalf of N, a homeless mother of 2 whose story I’ve been documenting. N is the woman who in earlier this year was trying to stop her council from evicting her and her 2 kids from their homelessness hostel even as she was in hospital giving birth to her second.

The good news is that the council seems to have parked the Let’s Evict A Woman And Newborn Into the Snow idea. Probably a good shout.

The less good news is that this returns N to the part in the Ask Your Council For Housing Help process where homeless people must impress council officers by performing useless self-help homefinding activities.

Chief among these, of course, is the inevitable council instruction to the homeless person to ring around local letting agents to find ones who accept benefit claimants onto their books and who have properties that claimants can afford. I imagine that current statistics show that benefit claimants have a better chance of winning a house than finding a private landlord who will rent them one, but through the motions we must go.

And went.

I rang 3 East London agents on Friday afternoon and am happy to report that there has been a degree of evolution since discrimination against benefit claimants became illegal. In the good old days – pre 2020 – letting agents would just tell you to piss off the second you said “benefits.” Things have advanced to the point where they start with an enthusiastic Yes, You Can Register! before they ask you fuck off to Gumtree.

Some ok chat between those points, though, and as I say, the approach to rejection has really improved. Letting agents have certainly learned to say the right thing before moving onto the reasons why they’ll have to do the wrong one (main reason: the landlords on their books say Absolutely Not to universal credit in as many words. They don’t say those actual words, because nobody is allowed to, but there’s more than one way to say No, as we’ll see. You do come away with a feeling that landlords would prefer to torch their property than see someone who receives universal credit on it).

But as I say – 10 points for agent attempts to find a line on this side of the law.

First agent I spoke to could not have sounded keener on the idea of signing up people who he knew his landlords would shoot him on sight for presenting.

“We do indeed!” he trilled when I asked if his agency accepted universal credit claimants onto its books. “In all honesty [I bet] – us, as a company, we got no problem…”

Sadly, what the company did have was a lengthy roster of landlords with a problem. In as many words, the agent conceded that he’d have a better chance of homing a carcass than someone who signed on. Landlords on agent books were just less likely to consider universal credit tenants, “for various reasons… [can’t get] insurances things on their mortgages, blah, blah, blah… but yeah.. happily take your details…”

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