Daily JSA sign on: more sadism for the hell of it from the DWP

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Kate B

This is a report about having to sign on every day for jobseekers’ allowance – an entirely pointless “process” that seems to be taking hold:

On Wednesday, the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group and I went to talk with JSA claimants at the North Kensington jobcentre.

Almost as soon as we got there, people brought a significant fact to our attention: the North Kensington jobcentre appears to have instigated a daily JSA sign on regime for some people. Daily sign on does, or at least is, pretty much what it says on the tin – it means that people must present themselves at their local jobcentre every single day of the week and sit and wait until they see an adviser for a brief time. Their attendance is noted and there’s a (very) quick catchup about people’s jobsearches. And that’s it.

Daily sign on was one of the platforms government’s ironically-named Help To Work platforms. The Help To Work scheme was launched in April to much fanfare (by government) and consternation (by reasonable people). I wonder if we’re seeing evidence now that it is underway, after a fashion. We’re certainly seeing evidence that people were right to dread it. The daily sign on exercise is nasty and utterly pointless – certainly as far as helping people into work goes. The three people who I talk about in this article reported that absolutely nothing happens at their daily signon appointments. I think we’ll say that again – absolutely nothing happens. JSA claimants must turn up at their jobcentre and have their attendance noted. One person reported a quick chat and check with a jobcentre adviser about jobs applied for – “and that’s ridiculous, because they can check everything that I am doing online,” he said. “They forced us to use [Universal] Jobmatch, so they can check everything already.”

When that’s done, the person is given a time for the next day’s appointment. After that, it’s all over until the next day. (A man I spoke to at length at the Clacton jobcentre recently reported exactly the same experience). Talk about an exercise in humiliation and futility – like people who must use the already-degrading JSA system needed another one.

People can’t use jobcentre phones to call employers (the man who described daily sign on process as “ridiculous” had got into trouble with security for demanding that the jobcentre let him use a phone to call prospective employers), no employers are rung on their behalf, no job interviews are arranged. I can well believe that – I’ve attended a few sign on appointments with people now and have seen how this system “works.” I don’t think I’ve been to one that has lasted more than ten minutes. Which means that daily sign on is not about finding people work. It’s about taking people by the scruff of the neck and keeping a very tight hold. It’s about letting people who are out of work know that their lives are no longer their own – that once people are unemployed, they’re not entitled to even a few hours’ peace of mind, or relief, from the DWP. It’s about disrupting people’s lives and making sure that they get up each day not knowing whether they’ll still have JSA at the end of it. It is depraved. Nobody we spoke to on Wednesday knew from day to day what time their sign on appointment would be. They were given a time for the next day’s appointment at the previous day’s appointment. That means people can’t plan their week, or even from day to day. They’re not allowed to plan their week. The subtext is that people who find themselves out of work have no lives – and, perhaps more to the point, are not entitled to lives. If you’re unemployed, you must forfeit your right to yourself. The people we spoke with were absolutely furious about it. I am too, just by the way. I think we’re very much at the point where the DWP should be forced to open the doors on all of this. This regime exists to deliver stress and panic, and nothing else. That needs to be fully revealed.

The first man we talked was in and out of work, as so many people we meet at jobcentres are. He was 46. He worked in marketing and business development – “anything. I will take it.” He found work himself and was hoping that a few leads he was following would pay off soon. His problem was that he could only get short-term contract work. I find that again and again.

The daily sign on (he’d just started) was angering him badly and very disruptive to his actual jobhunting: “it is so time-consuming and it doesn’t serve a purpose for me or them. It costs me and them time and money for me to be here every day.” Because of that, he’d asked the jobcentre if “it was possible for them to provide me with additional services while I’m here – where I can use the phone for basic things.” Using a phone for half-an-hour or so would mean his daily attendance wasn’t a complete waste of time. Unfortunately, this suggestion was not well-received. He raised his voice and management was called down. “The lady decided to that I was being awkward and she walked away and she calmed down.” That, he said, was ridiculous. “All I wanted was access to a phone. There’s nothing there. I don’t think I was being awkward asking them what provisions they have.” As I say, his actual appointment was a complete waste of time. “They went onto the computer to see whether I had done any jobsearches. But I said that I want them to provide a service.” Continue reading →

You must do your JSA jobsearch online, even though we know you can’t

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Kate B

Iain Duncan Smith, planner extraordinaire, aims to have the majority of Universal Credit claims made online. Here’s an example of someone who will be completely excluded from claiming because of that:

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about Eddie (name changed) and the problems that he was having with his online jobsearch. I’ve met twice with Eddie since then.

Eddie is a 51-year-old Kilburn man who has mild learning difficulties. He struggles to read and write. At the moment, he signs on for jobseeker’s allowance. He has worked for most of his life as a catering assistant in hotels, pubs and in kitchens, but was made redundant about four years ago. He has been unemployed ever since. He is very keen to get another job, but has not been able to find one. He wants someone to help liaise with potential employers on his behalf – to ring people who take staff on, put him forward as a candidate, promote him and his work history and to talk through any problems that employers may have with his literacy difficulties. Eddie has taken CVs into businesses all over Kilburn. He never gets called back.

The upshot of all of this is that Eddie must go to the jobcentre every fortnight to sign on and to show that he’s searched for at least 14 jobs. This post will show you how difficult and pointless this jobsearch exercise is for him. One of Eddie’s main problems is his struggle to read and write. He can write letters out if people tell him which ones to choose (for example, he asked me how to spell “Customer Service Advisor” when applying for one job, then wrote it as I spelled it out), but has trouble with more complex words. He also finds computers challenging. He doesn’t have a computer at home, which means that he rarely uses one. He wasn’t sure what a browser was when I took my laptop around to his flat to help him with his jobsearch (you’ll see some of this in the videos below).

Nonetheless, a couple of weeks ago, Eddie’s jobcentre adviser instructed him to choose and apply for at least three jobs online as part of his fortnightly quota. He was given this sheet of paper – you’ll see that it lists job ads and links:

Eddie was concerned about this because he was not at all sure how to tackle an online application. The jobcentre didn’t show him. His jobcentre adviser actually conceded this when I accompanied Eddie to his signon appointment last week. Eddie and I explained to the advisor that we’d worked through the online application process together. I’d typed his CV for him, because he didn’t have an electronic version and couldn’t submit an online job application without one. I ended up completing a couple of the online application forms as well (to Argos and Superdrug). The adviser, who seemed a reasonable person, at least on the face of it, was quick to say that she knew Eddie had literacy problems, that she had never sanctioned him and was unlikely to do so because she felt that he did his best to meet his jobsearch requirements.

The problem is, of course, that people can’t rely on a forgiving adviser. Advisers come and go, or take leave, or go off sick, or move to new jobs. New managers come in and apply target pressures. Jobcentres shut down and/or people are sent to different jobcentres to sign on. People can’t just rely on scoring a nice adviser. Sanctions are the ever-present threat. There is always the chance, too, that advisers behave in a more concilitory fashion when a JSA claimant brings an advocate along (“never attend anywhere official alone!” says the Kilburn Unemployed Workers’ Group. Indeed). None of that should matter. Effective and consistent support should be in place wherever you go. On this evidence, it isn’t. Continue reading →

I have to sign on every day. I was sanctioned for six weeks when I was homeless

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Kate B

More stories from the jobcentre:

To Clacton now – and a long conversation outside the jobcentre with Paul, who is 56. There is a transcript from that conversation below. Paul has mental health problems. He has been in and out of street homelessness for some years, in different parts of the country. “I’ve been travelling for about 35 years,” he says. His face is seamed and his teeth are broken. He says that he was sanctioned for six weeks about 18 months ago when he was homeless in Manchester. He was born and raised in Newcastle.

Now living in Clacton, he must sign on every day at the jobcentre. This daily-signon setup is utterly pointless. It won’t lead to work. It can’t. Nothing goes into it, or comes out of it. It’s a process for the hell of it. Paul says he goes into the jobcentre each day and waits around until jobcentre staff “check all that out and say “I’ll see you tomorrow” and tell me a time to come in tomorrow and that is it. It’s a pain in the arse. It’s pointless.” Indeed. So many of these jobcentre exercises now are meaningless: exercises to be gone through to meet a criteria, not a useful result. I’ll be posting more on this next week. “I don’t know what I got to come up every day for. I just say thank you very much and then go.”

During our discussion, Paul – like so many people I speak with now – says that Britain has reached a crisis point. He thinks that Britain has become weak. More specifically, he says the problem is that Britain is filled with immigrants who think that Britain is easy. So. I hear people say this sort of thing more and more now. It’s important to keep pointing this out – the extent to which this dislike of immigrants has taken hold. I used to hear it every now and then. These days, I hear it all the time. I hear it in plenty of places other than Clacton, too. I hear it in places where there’s not enough to go around – at jobcentres and from people who can’t find work, or housing. And it is hard to see how things will improve while a terrified political class devotes itself to keeping stride with Ukip, rather than, say, to addressing the housing crisis in a genuine way.

“Enoch Powell was right, you know,” Paul tells me. “It will spread like a cancer. He should have been prime minister. But lots of people are worried about it [immigration]. They are taking our things off us. We get in trouble for having our things – for having crucifixes in our rooms. [But they] are walking up the street with their face covered with a mask. [When you have a face veil on], I don’t know who you are or what you’re going to do. And they moan about people wearing crucifixes.”

So.

Says Paul:

“I have to sign on five days a week. Every day, I’m here at a different time and all. It’s twenty to two today and then I’ve got to go upstairs. They took me off the sick and all. I can move and all that, but my mind is sick. I got mental problems. They took me off the sick and said “you can work.” I can move about. I can have a conversation probably.

“I was on the sick because of the depression. I went for the medical and they took me off. That was in 2010 and they knocked me appeal out. So, I’ve got to come up here and jump through their hoops, which makes my depression worse. But if I don’t, they will stop my money. I have been sanctioned before for not getting [applying for] five jobs a week and I was on the streets at the time and all. I was living in a nightshelter – this was in Manchester. They sanctioned me, because I wasn’t applying for five jobs a week. My priority then was getting something to eat and somewhere to live. You know, instead of jobhunting. It’s somewhere to live, innit. I’m all right [for somewhere to live] at the moment. Continue reading →

A potential breach of conduct towards @FocusE15 mums by Robin Wales?

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Kate B

Update Thursday 23 October:

All a bit disappointing at the Standards Committee meeting this week. After waiting two hours for the committee to deliberate, the Focus E15 group was told that although the committee had come to a preliminary decision about Robin Wales’ behaviour towards the Focus E15 mothers at a recent mayoral event (see the video below), the committee wouldn’t be reporting that decision immediately “because we have asked for some further matters to be looked at….as there are some matters that need further clarification that have been brought to our attention.”

The committee wouldn’t say when the decision would be made public – only that it should be “this side of Christmas,” Which was frustrating, to say the very least. God only knows what further clarification is required. You can in the video below that the sequence of events is fairly clear. You do wonder how many times the committee needs to watch the video to get the picture.

The only real highlight of the evening came when a couple of the young people in the Focus E15 group took out a “We’re watching you, Robin Wales” banner. The revealing of this banner sent Security into meltdown. The young people were told to put the banner away immediately and some bloke rushed into the room saying “Who has got a banner? Has someone got a banner?” He seemed a bit frantic, for someone who’d heard news of a simple banner. It really was only a banner. When I left the room, I noticed there were coppers in the hall. Sigh.

Rock on democracy.

Update Tuesday 21 October – should find out tonight if Wales breached the code of conduct and what’ll happen to him if he did.

Newham standards advisory committee meeting
Tuesday 21 October
Newham Town Hall
East Ham E6
6.45pm

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Original post:

Tonight, the Newham council standards advisory committee met to further consider a misconduct complaint made recently against mayor Robin Wales. The committee decided that there had been a potential breach of the councillors’ code of conduct by Wales and that another hearing would be arranged to consider more evidence and decide on any action.

This makes for interesting times for the Focus E15 campaign. And for Wales.

The history of the complaint? – Wales lost his temper with the Focus E15 mothers at the mayor of Newham’s show in July. It was a family day, but Wales spat the dummy when the Focus E15 women asked him about social housing for families in the borough:

Not one of his better performances.

Said the standards committee this evening:

“The committee has agreed that there is a potential breach of the code of conduct. We will reconvene a subcommittee – which will be the entire standards committee invited to consider the complaint. At that subcommittee meeting, we will decide what, if any, further action there is after that. We have asked the independent investigator for some additional information ahead of the subcommittee meeting. We are looking to reconvene the subcommittee within the next two weeks.”

Stay tuned.

How about we send Robin Wales out of London. Who wants him. #FocusE15

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Kate B

From the Focus E15 campaign:

“Despite Newham Council’s attempt to evict us, we can today confirm that the E15 Open House occupation will continue until 7 October as planned.

We called Newham Council on the first day of the occupation to negotiate with us. The plan was never to stay indefinitely. They refused to speak to us. Instead they chose to use draconian and expensive legal procedures, threats and dirty tricks. They cut off our water and vandalized the water mains, served an unlawful court summons with only two hours notice and they have repeatedly misled the public.

If Newham had come to talk to us we could have agreed to leave within two weeks. Instead, they refused to enter into a dialogue. We would like to know how much taxpayers’ money has been spent on taking us to court, and how many people that money could have housed.

Our demands to the Council continue to be:

– Repopulate the Carpenters Estate with secure long term council tenancies now
– An immediate end to the decanting and evictions of existing residents
– No demolition of the estate
– The management of Carpenters Estate by the residents, for the residents, no third party or private management

This experience has shown us that there is a broad based movement for council housing in London. There are empty homes in every borough, every town and every city in the country. Focus E15 show us that there are simple, community based solutions to the housing crisis.

We will continue to fight displacement and evictions and to campaign for secure, council housing through direct action, mobilisation and legal means. See you on the streets, in the courtrooms and in our future actions.

This is the beginning of the end of the housing crisis.”

More articles on Focus E15:

Open Democracy article: Why is middle class feminism so disinterested in women hit by austerity? (interviews with the Focus E15 mothers on their campaign to date)

Newham council runs out of meeting to avoid Focus E15 mothers’ protest

Focus E15 mothers take their petition for social housing to Boris at City Hall

International women’s day…yeah, right

Focus E15 mothers’ battle for social housing: an update

Young mothers occupy Newham council housing offices to demand social housing

Rubbish, mice and mould – good enough for young mums without money

Put this on a banknote: young mothers without money abandoned by the political class

More work programme provider shamelessness…

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Kate B

Sharing this story, because I love it so much:

Angela Smith is a woman with a Master’s degree and a long history of working in policy and disability support. She also has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair to get around. I’ve been accompanying Angela to her compulsory fortnightly Wembley jobcentre signons and meetings with the Reed Partnership, her work programme provider in Harrow. We’ve shown how difficult London buses can be for disabled people to use. We’ve also shown how pointless those fortnightly meetings at the jobcentre and the work programme really are when it comes to finding work.

Anyway. Angela has a new job. She got it without any help whatsoever from the jobcentre or the Reed Parntership. She found the job advertisement, filled in the application form, went to the interview and got through.

She did the whole thing entirely by herself. But that hasn’t stopped the work programme provider from trying to claim the result for itself. I went with Angela to her final meeting there a couple of weeks ago and saw this in all its glory. Her work programme adviser – a pleasant enough woman – congratulated Angela on finding a job. Then she said something along the lines of: “look, I know we haven’t helped you get this job at all – but would you be prepared to be featured in our Success Stories poster campaign? We could get your photo done and get a poster made. That would be really good.” There were posters on the office walls of people working at various jobs and saying things like: “I’m now running a successful business.” Angela and I decided that they must have been a bit short on successful-placements-of-disabled-people-in-work stories so they’d figured they’d have hers. Pity they had nothing to do with it.

Why writing off the #FocusE15 campaign is dangerously lazy behaviour from Labour

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Kate B

A few thoughts and interviews:

I’ve spent some time in the last week talking to people in Stratford who are not involved in the Focus E15 campaign, but who also have housing problems. Some of the transcripts from those interviews are posted below and I have more to add. The views of these people are important. They will give you some insight into the extent not only of the housing problem in this part of the world, but of the fury those problems have generated. They will give you an idea of the mistake Labour makes in running from the Focus E15 campaign (as it did last night again at a Newham council meeting) and pretending that its current problem is merely a “bunch of trots,” or “agitators and hangers-on.”

As it happens, I hear chilling talk when I speak with different people about their housing and income problems. I hear anti-immigration talk. I hear concerns about racism from people who worry that they will be treated badly if they are moved from the places they live in now to areas where they feel they will not be welcome. (“My daughter-in-law was sent to Brentwood and they put her next to a lovely man,” one Newham woman told me last week. “Racist as anything, he was. She wants to come back.”) I hear from new immigrants about the problems they face.

I took the three interviews below at a coffee morning on the Carpenter’s estate last week. One of the back rooms at the community centre is open for several hours on a Tuesday morning and people who are homeless, or needing food, or support come in for sandwiches, coffee and tea. I talked with people for a while. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that the likes of the Focus E15 campaign might just prove a sort of buffer against less positive tides: fascism, out-and-out racism and the aggression I always see when there isn’t enough to go around. Because I can tell you this – Labour isn’t providing that buffer. So. I’d imagine that Ukip is on Labour minds at the moment: certainly as you head towards Clacton and a byelection. I wondered of those sorts of issues were in Robin Wales’ mind when he took a moment during his recent ice-bucket challenge to implore council staff to vote Labour:

Anyway. A housing shortage and austerity generally does not bring out the best in people. Keeping so many properties in the Carpenter’s estate closed for so long was a bad move on the council’s part. People now know that a number of flats there were perfectly fine to live in. Exposing that has been the great achievement of this part of the Focus E15 campaign. Politicians can write a group of young housing campaigners off as a bunch of trots if they want and even drive through them in the mayoral auto, but that’s the lazy approach when you get down to it. It’s a dangerously lazy approach. It will not change the fact that many people now know that serviceable homes on that estate were closed. Nor will it change the fact that social fallout from a housing crisis and rising inequality is inevitably unpleasant.

It already is.

I’m going to add more interviews to this post as I go along. These three are to start:

Tony, 57, unemployed. Lives in Plaistow in a council flat. Angry and reluctant to talk in the first instance.

“Immigration is the problem. There’s too many immigrants. Housing is the problem and jobs. It has changed a lot here. Not for the better, either – no work. I want to get into the CCTV [to work as a security guard]. I’ve got my [security guard] certification, but I haven’t heard back from them.

“I’m 57, nearly 58. It’s hard now. I have to pay council tax now. It’s £10 a month what I wasn’t paying before. My rent went up 30p and the benefit rise was only 70p. I have to pay £2.50 in council tax. I live in a council flat. It’s okay. There are druggies upstairs, but it is okay. It’s not bad. It’s somewhere to live.

“With the work – I want to get into security. I passed all the courses. I got the badges in security, but they don’t want to know, because I got no work experience. It’s that I’m getting older now. I’m 58 this year. I got four children. I can’t give my kids money. I’m on the dole and that. It’s about £72 a week. About £144 a fortnight. You can’t do anything. You know what I mean. You can’t have a night out, or even go down the pub. So, you know. What can you do.” Continue reading →

Learning and literacy difficulties, no computer – but must do jobsearch online with no help

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Kate B

Video and report from today: #FocusE15 mothers reopen boarded-up Carpenters’ estate flats

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Kate B

Update 27 September:

Big day yesterday. To begin with, the council turned up at the Carpenter’s estate to turn off the water at the occupied flats. Jasmin Stone told me that she was sworn at when she asked why people were there to cut the water:

“We just asked them what was happening and the response we got was “don’t fucking record me or I’ll smash your camera on the floor.”

I’d ask the council for a comment on that, except that the council has refused to talk to me since the start of this year. Suffice to say for now that those of us who’ve spent time with this campaign have come to expect aggression and a not-so-latent misogyny from those who oppose it. There has been something nasty and unnecessarily confrontational about the council response from the start. I’ve often wondered why the council and its PR advisers didn’t make a better attempt to work with the women, at least at various junctures in their campaign. It would have been smart, for instance, for a councillor or two to have accompanied the women when they took a petition for social housing to Boris Johnson earlier this year. There have been chances like that which a Labour council might just have taken.

That hasn’t happened and it’s hard not to conclude that the council made a mistake by not opening things up for discussion, rather than trying to close them down. The women told me months ago that Robin Wales told them he was annoyed at their campaign. I saw that fury again earlier this year (here on video) when the council rushed from a council meeting to avoid the women and again when Wales rushed from me to avoid questions about his attendance at a property fair in Cannes. The upshot of all this is that the council now has a problem. People all over the country are watching this campaign and responding with enthusiasm. As Jasmin told me yesterday – people starting donating bottles of water as soon as news of the water being cut started to circulate on social media. I noticed a man distributing further bottles of water outside the court yesterday, too. As I said yesterday on twitter, I’m starting to get the feeling that half of Newham has been waiting for the chance to subvert Newham council. Chickens do come home to roost. I’ve spoken to residents on the Carpenter’s estate, as you can read below, and noted their enthusiasm for the campaign. They are not securely housed themselves.

As for the council’s botched attempt to fast-track an eviction yesterday – well, we all know what happened there. I spoke to Ravi Naik, one of the attending lawyers, who said:

“We were only instructed about an hour before the hearing so I had to rush to get there.

“The Council had made an application for an interim possession order – which means asking for possession of the building which would have had the effect of ending the protest. For this to be lawful, they have to give three days’ notice to the group. Obviously, the group would want to have that time to consider the position and properly defend themselves. The council wanted to shorten that time period to two hours – that’s from three days to two hours. This would have undermined any hope of legal representation.

We made the point to the judge that we’ve got all these complex legal arguments, but we haven’t had any chance to consider them with the group or look at the Council’s evidence; we only met the clients about an hour before. We didn’t have any chance to consider this with the group. The judge agreed with our position. In the rules governing civil procedure, the key rule is the Overriding Objective. This means that cases must be considered justly and fairly. The judge said that there was no chance that this case could be considered justly and fairly in the circumstances. I don’t think they expected the group to put together a legal team so quickly.”

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Update 23 September: more perfectly serviceable flats on the Carpenters’ estate:

This is a video I took a couple of weeks ago of another of the flats in the Carpenters’ estate tower block. The film is a little jumpy as I couldn’t see what I was doing – had to stick my hand with the phone camera under one of the metal security doors to film this. I believe this is one of the flats used by the media during the Olympics. Would ask the council about this to confirm, except that the council refuses to talk to me. Boo. Anyway – again, you can see these are of a good standard. There’s a video of another of these flats at the end of this post.

Another update: September 23 2014 – the many people in Newham who are struggling for housing:

Every week at their Saturday stall on the Stratford Broadway, the Focus E15 mothers have asked local people to write their own housing stories on sheets that the women taped to the pavement.

The Focus E5 women have collected all sorts of stories about people’s housing problems this way. It’s been interesting to see. There are a lot of sheets and a lot of stories. This is one of the reasons why the Focus E15 campaign for housing is so significant – and the reason that Newham Labour can’t ignore the campaign, even though it is trying very hard to right now, as the women continue their occupation of the Carpenters’ estate. A great many people have housing problems – they’re stuck in B&Bs, or temporary housing, or in the private sector where they can barely afford the rent. Those people and those problems won’t go away, even if Newham council does ultimately decide to drag the Focus E15 women out of the flats they are occupying. (Mayor Robin Wales is speaking at a Labour party fringe meeting on winning back “left behind” voters tonight, which is hilarious. When you read the comments on the sheets, you get the feeling he’s left quite a few voters behind).

You can see some of the comments people have written on the sheets in the pictures below (click on the images for a bigger pic):

“Single mum in B&B – for three years with my children.”

“Private landlord threw all my daughter’s clothes and furniture in a skip.”

“The council sent me to temporary accommodation in Barking. It was so disgusting with mice running around. I was there with my children for two years. The council did not listen to us. My children had to travel far every day back to Newham.”

“I live in a house with 10 people and only one toilet. I pay £500pm.”

On it goes.

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Update to beat all updates September 23 2014 (h-t Clifford Singer): Can Robin Wales – mayor of a borough where young homeless women who’ve been fighting him for housing all year are occupying abandoned flats – REALLY be speaking tonight at a Labour party conference fringe on “bringing insights on community organising and movement building?” What – is he going to talk about the Focus E15 campaign that has wrongfooted him at every turn? Will he show this video – the one where he spat the dummy at one of the Focus E15 mothers (an action for which he now finds himself the subject of an official complaint)? Don’t often say this sort of thing – but that’s a Labour party fringe event I wouldn’t mind attending.

Update September 22: were these abandoned flats originally adapted and made accessible?

I went back to the Carpenters’ estate this morning. On the ground floor of the building that the Focus E15 mothers have moved into, I found these abandoned flats. They have been left to rot. One of them looked like an accessible flat to me – it had ground floor access with an adapted wet-room bathroom. There’s such a shortage of accessible flats in London. Leaving an adapted place to decay does seem criminal. Pretty sure you can still see a bottle on the floor.

I also talked to several of the other estate residents this time – people who’ve been living at the estate for a while. A few residents visited the Focus E15 mothers in their reopened and occupied flats last night. There’s concern among residents about being identified and targeted by the council – but not about the occupation itself, it seems, at least among the people I spoke with. I spoke to four people and they seemed sympathetic to the Focus E15 fight for homes. That surprised me and didn’t surprise me. Not everyone likes an occupation, or a confrontation with council, but a lot of people can relate to a battle for housing.

Said one of the women I spoke to (she’s lived on the Carpenters’ estate for nearly 20 years):

“They [the Focus E15 mothers] should stay. We don’t mind them here at all. They have to stay longer to make it work, though. Tell them don’t do it for a couple of days and then go. Keep it going. I haven’t got a problem with them putting young mums there. Young mums got to have a place.

“I been here for nearly 20 years. It used to be lovely, with all the kids running round on that grass. But then, people moved out and they didn’t move anyone in. That’s all boarded up there. See, I will show you this place here [she walked me up a small path to another home which was sealed with a metal security door]. That has been closed up now for five years. But you don’t want to say anything. You don’t know now how long your tenancy is going to last now. It never used to be like that. It’s in the last few years.

“That’s a housing officer walking around here (she pointed out a woman walking around with papers and a small bag).

“You’ve not got a problem with that [occupation and banners], have you?” she said to another woman who emerged from her flat then.

“Nah,” the second woman said. “It’s for the right reasons. They’re doing it for the right reasons. People do need homes. The council say they haven’t got any homes, but they have.”

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Original post:

Back to Newham today – where the women of the Focus E15 mothers’ social housing campaign took the admirable step of reopening some of the long-boarded-up flats on the Carpenters’ estate. I hope news of this move has reached those Labour councillors and MPs who are all tucked up nice and warm at conference in Manchester.

Video: entering the flats and being welcomed by the Focus E15 campaigners:

The Focus E15 mothers have been fighting for social housing for a year. Newham council was planning to send them out of London to live, but pulled back from that idea when the women complained and campaigned. The women were placed in private tenancies for a year – but those tenancies will end soon. That will leave the women again with nowhere to live. Meanwhile, the Carpenters’ estate sits, partially abandoned and empty, next to Stratford station, with boarded-up flats all over. Newham council’s housing waiting list is 24,000. The women decided that flats shouldn’t be shut off when so many people are homeless, or struggling to find a decent place to live. This is a borough which likes to slap Asbo warnings on rough sleepers let’s not forget. So, the women arranged for a block on the Carpenters’ estate to be opened. They plan to stay for at least a couple of weeks.

And look at the flats they found inside the estate. I was a little shocked and surprised myself when I saw the flats. They looked pretty good. They certainly looked perfectly serviceable. I’d happily move into one myself. They’re carpeted, clean and the second one in particular looked as though it had a new kitchen. How can it be that Stratford’s homeless people are left to sleep in the Stratford centre, or run out of town entirely, when these places exist right next to Stratford station? How can it be that young women are told there’s no room for them and their children in Newham? I’ve asked the council about its plans for the estate – but no answer, alas. That council refuses to talk to me.

There will be mealy-mouthed statements about safety, planning, new builds and homes for all from the council, but the truth is that there is no justification for empty homes when so many people are homeless. It really is as simple as that. When it comes down to it, who’d rather live outside in winter than inside one of these places? The women are right to raise this issue and to force this issue.

Here’s Focus E15 Mother Sam Middleton explaining why she decided to take part in this operation and why she’ll stay in the Carpenters’ estate for a while.

“We know that if there’s the Carpenters’ estate then there’s loads of other estates out there like this. We thought – do you know what? There’s too many boardedup places and they need people to live in. If you look around today, you can see that the flats are liveable. So why not get families in and do what’s right?”

Indeed.

An unmarked car full of coppers began circling at about 5pm. I went over to ask them if they planned to “do” anything. “We’re just keeping an eye on things,” they told me. “Who are you?” Then, they asked me what “they” (the people who were occupying the flat) had inside the flats. I told them that the occupiers had found a bunch of nice flats that should be lived in. As they have.

I also spoke to one of the Carpenters’ estate residents. He wanted to go inside the reopened flats to see how the flats looked. He said he was worried about getting into trouble with the council, though, and so decided against going in.

Inside the flats: sitting room

Kitchen:

Bathroom:

This is a video I took several weeks ago inside the tower block at the estate. It’s jumpy, because I had to shove my phone under the boarded-up door of the empty flat I filmed here to get pictures. You can see that the flat is in pretty good condition, though. It’s empty, though.

New short film with the Daily Mirror: Save the Independent Living Fund! #SaveILF

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Kate B

New short film about the fight for the Independent Living Fund I’ve made with False Economy, Ros Wynne Jones at The Daily Mirror, Disabled People Against Cuts and Moore Lavan Films.

The ILF is a fund that disabled people use to pay for the extra care hours (personal assistance) that they need to live full and independent lives. The government plans to close the fund in June 2015 – even though the court of appeal overturned a previous closure decision at the end of last year.

The film features Mark Williams and Daphne Branchflower – two disabled people who talk about their lives and interests, and the central role that ILF funding plays for them. The film also features Angela Smith, a disabled woman who does not receive ILF and must rely solely on her cash-strapped local council care system.

Disabled people will again fight the government for the ILF in court on 22 and 23 October. See Disabled People Against Cuts for regular updates on campaigning and events, and https://www.facebook.com/ILFpostcard to take part in the Save the Independent Living Fund postcard campaign on facebook.

Earlier this year, disabled people occupied Westminster Abbey to protest at government plans to close the ILF. Disabled people have every right to independence and to live their lives just like everyone else expects to. This fight against government can’t and won’t be lost.