London evicts. Women and children first, thanks

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Kate B

One development (if you can call it that) I’ve really noticed in London this year is the increase in calls and contacts from people who are facing eviction, or trying to stop an eviction right then and there, or worried that they are being pushed out of their their estates and homes by planners and developers. I decided to start to collect the stories of some of the people affected. The first two are below in this post. They’ll form part of a longer piece I’m writing on these evictions.

A few thoughts on this –

The more I talk to people, the more obvious it becomes that the real problem is the terrible lack of decent, secure, well-maintained, well-managed social housing people can easily afford. Long-term lets are especially crucial. The expensive, wildly insecure private rental sector is a challenge for most of us who rent. It can be particularly challenging and unforgiving if you have support needs. If people had secure social housing with long-term lets, a lot of the problems they’re reporting now simply would never come to pass – problems like being forced to move because a landlord wants the house or flat back, the stress of uncertain short-term tenancies, having to live in single, tiny, dirty rooms that private sector landlords pass off as flats to collect housing benefit and all the rest. I’ve spoken with people who have serious mental health problems and who simply can’t handle the idea of moving home, or to an unfamiliar environment. They are offered other places in the private sector, but that’s neither here nor there. They don’t want to move. They can’t move. But they’ve been evicted – forcibly – because the landlord wants them out.

Unfortunately, social housing waiting lists in some boroughs run into the tens of thousands – about 24,000 in Newham, 28,000 in Camden and 20,000 in Lambeth, to give a few examples. The truth is that people’s chances of securing a place that way are non-existent. (There’s another point, too – with a bigger social housing stock and better security in it, people in social housing wouldn’t be facing eviction in the growing numbers they are now, either).

Without those places, it’s up to tenants to get by in a hostile environment. Doesn’t matter that many people struggle. You beat the odds yourself, or you go down. Ours is the great era of individual responsibility, after all. Iain Duncan Smith – a man who is himself housed in his rich wife’s mansion – is very big on this Do It For Yourself concept. Individual liability at any cost is one of Universal Credit’s many rotten planks. When UC comes in for all, if it does, the housing element will be paid to claimants, who then must pay rent from it. Anyone who fails to achieve that will be dismissed as feckless. Anyone who argues for direct payment to landlords will be written off as a Nanny State relic (*waves*). No matter that the odds in that game are already stacked against plenty of people. Cuts to council tax benefit and housing benefit mean that many already pay bigger council tax bills and bigger rent demands. Using rent money to cover council tax arrears because your council threatens you with a liability order to deduct tax straight from your benefits, say, would not be irresponsible. But we’ll end up there, anyway. We live in an age where individuals must sink or swim – which usually means a lot of well-off people blathering on about responsibility while they watch other people sink.

“They told us that we have to organise the money,” one very young housing benefit tenant said to me a week or so ago when she reported back from a Jobcentre Plus meeting about Universal Credit. “They said that we shouldn’t be having fun with our money.” Continue reading →

How Iain Duncan Smith lives – compared with people who must live his policies

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Kate B

Posting this because I can.

Here’s Iain Duncan Smith’s weekend place, which was occupied last year by UK Uncut and Disabled People Against Cuts in a protest against the bedroom tax. It’s a very nice pile indeed. It comes with a tennis court, the sort of lake that Mr Darcy might emerge from in clinging pants, happy lambs and a very large house. Very. If you must lie around somewhere thinking of ways to piss the rest of the exchequer away on Universal Credit, then this is the place to do it:

Compare this if you will with the tiny one-room Kilburn flat which I visited on I visited on Monday.

No lakes or tennis courts here, alas. This flat is occupied by a 51-year-old man who is out of work at the moment and must sign on at the local jobcentre. He has been sent on the work programme. He has mild learning difficulties. He has not found a job through the jobentre, even though he has a good work history.

He was very depressed about the flat and it was easy to see why. The room was so small that it was difficult for the four of us who were there to fit into all at once. There was a bed, a broken fridge, a small fridge in the middle of the room that this man had bought to keep his diabetes medication in, and a broken oven. There was a second, smaller oven with two hotplates sitting on top of the broken oven.

There were no windows as such in this room – just a door area that led to a path. The man had complained to his landlord about the mice and cockroaches that live under the broken oven, but nothing had been done.

I’d say We’re All In It Together, except that is getting old. Even as irony it’s getting pretty old.

How people with learning difficulties are expected to live…#jsa #sanctions

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Kate B

Wednesday 30 July: updated with more photos at the end

Yesterday, I went to the home of a Kilburn man who is 51, has mild learning difficulties and currently signs on. He has worked all his life in hotels and in kitchenwork, but found it harder to get and keep work during the recession. He’s been out of work for four years now and is depressed about it. He doesn’t read or write very well and thinks that is the reason he’s finding it difficult to get another job. More on that soon.

For now, he wanted to show me his flat. It’s the tiny, single room in Kilburn you see here – so small that it was difficult for the four of us who were there to fit into all at once. His rent is paid in housing benefit – which means that his landlord gets housing benefit for renting this tiny little room out as a flat.

There was a bed, a broken fridge, another fridge in the middle of the room that this man had bought to keep his diabetes medication in, because it must be kept cool, and a broken oven. He’d got a second smaller oven with two hotplates to sit on top of the broken oven so that he’d at least have hotplates that worked. You can see that in the video. This man has complained to his landlord about the mice and cockroaches that live under the broken oven, but nothing has been done.

There are no windows as such in this “flat” – just a door area that leads to a shared path down the side of the house. In the heat, the room has been nearly uninhabitable. To cap things off, he says he has to do a jobsearch of about seven to ten jobs a week and has been threatened with sanctions if he doesn’t. He has been sent on the work programme. He wants another job. I’ll add to this story and have a lot more video to post, but – have this to think on for now. Here we are in 2014. Austerity’s over, you know. For some.

Photos added:

Room view. Bed, kitchen and clothing all in one tiny area.

Bed area:

Don’t like homeless people in your area? Don’t like kids? Spike them!

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Kate B

Update Saturday 26 July:

The spikes have been totally removed. Here’s a video of the spikes being cut out:

And a good photo courtesy of People’s Republic of Southwark:

Some photos of the spikes being removed here – here’s one from that facebook set:

People won’t put up with this sort of elitist crap – ie giving some people free access to neighbourhoods, but not others. Doesn’t matter if it’s your poor doors or spikes or whatever. This “some neighbourhoods are only for the well-off” bollocks will not stand.

So give it up.

————————————————————————————————————————

Update Thursday 24 July:

Have returned to the site to find that a helpful someone has started to remove the spikes. People really don’t like these spikes. Nor should they. They’re awful. They’re aimed at rough sleepers and kids. Don’t care how gentrified your area is. You don’t need these.

Anyway – they’ve been reduced from this:

To this:

Also, as you can read here, one of the people I returned to the site with talked to some of the people working right next door to the spikes site and found out from those people that skateboarders are not a problem in the area. The same person also rang the company that placed the spikes and was told never to call or email again. How rude. “We didn’t need to talk to anyone,” that person was told. “It’s private property.” That’s a refrain you hear a lot these days. As it happens, private companies must learn that they do need to talk to people. The concerns raised about these anti-homeless, anti-young-people spikes need to be answered. There are no safety or warning signs about these spikes. I had another look today.

———————————————————————————————————————

Original post:

Ahhhh – the inner London gentrification era. I just love it…

Yesterday morning, I went to Abbey Street in Southwark, because the People’s Republic of Southwark blog had received a report of more anti-homelessness spikes outside flats at the corner of Druid and Abbey.

So off I went to take a look and to take photos….of the very large and harsh plastic spikes you see below. The spikes were clearly unpleasant and meant to hurt, and it was a little hard to imagine exactly who they were aimed at, so when I got home, I rang the company that manages the building (their badge was on the building) and asked them who the spikes were for.

The answer to that was – err, youngsters. The woman I spoke to said that the spikes had been put down to stop skateboarders, because building management had received complaints about them. Am guessing that the spikes would put rough sleepers and street drinkers off sitting and lying in that space, too. Can’t help thinking that went through a number of minds – not least because it seemed doubtful that skaters could jump to the point that the spikes were at, or that they’d leap across the divide in huge numbers, like a herd of gazelle, or whatever it was the building management company had in mind. The street doesn’t look like a skateboarding place. It’s just a street with an uneven pavement and a garage with cars in it after the so-called jump. Weird place to want to jump and smash up against a car on landing. But yes – kids on skateboards was the line. It seems that these large, exposed spikes are thought to be acceptable ammunition in a battle against young people who get on other people’s nerves.

So – we’ve had spikes for homeless people in Southwark and now we have spikes for skating kids in Southwark – and whoever else might sit or lie in that space. Am starting to wonder if spikes are the weapon of choice against people who are believed to mess up increasingly gentrified inner London neighbourhoods. Hum. I don’t believe that I care for that.

And just in case you were thinking of turning up here to moan that people like me just don’t understand how hard it is to live cheek-by-jowl with the south-east London rabble and boo hoo and blah blah – well, I do live in south-east London, thanks, and I also live right across from a skate-and-basketball park which is full of kids day and night and I really don’t give a shit about any of that, because I don’t own the world. There are homeless people and street drinkers and they sit in the park as well – unspiked to date. This is an urban space we have here and everyone has the right to it. Kids play out and do their thing and that is how it goes. I did the same when I was a kid. It’s never occurred to me that the kids in our local park should not be there. Neither has it ever occurred to me to have them impaled on spikes. It is interesting to know that a building management company thinks that’s a starter.

I’d also say that if you really can’t stand skating kids in your space, there are plenty of skate deterrents around that are less likely to have some 12-year-old’s eye out than the latest effort in Southwark. There’s no justification for the spikes in the pictures below. I don’t care how popular they are, or how often they’re used, or whatever. But what would I know, I guess. If you don’t like them – spike them. That’s the era we’re in.

Clips from today in London: very big turnout for the #GazaUnderAttack protest

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Kate B

As above from today. What a crowd. Forget whatever the mainstream tells you. Or doesn’t tell you. There were a hell of a lot of people out in London today protesting against the Gaza attacks. Should be big news everywhere. It won’t be, but it should.

Here are a few clips to give you an idea of scale and the sense of urgency around the whole event.

Keep an eye on the Reel News site as they’re going to post a full video report.

Empty words and a terror of protestors: thanks for nothing, Penning #SaveILF

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Kate B

Here we are, then – a little video I filmed on the quiet of the now-departed (post-reshuffle) Minister of State for Disabled People Mike Penning talking total bollocks at the June Independent Living Fund adjournment debate. I had to film this one on a little camera that I rested on my knee under the desk. Things were fraught at the House of Commons that day. There was an official in the room who told me off for stepping over a little rope instead of walking around it. After that, he kept looking at me like he was measuring me for a coffin. I got the distinct feeling that the very fact campaigners and journalists turned up for the ILF debate that day was getting on people’s nerves. I arrived 15 minutes early for the debate and wasn’t allowed to wait outside the room. Officials told me to go away and come back. It really was that kind of day.

Anyway – thought I’d post this video for the record. Mike Penning’s failure to support independent living for disabled people ought to haunt him forever. It will if he has any sort of conscience. This issue will not go away.

As many people know, the Independent Living Fund is a vital pot of money used by severely disabled people to pay for the added carer hours they need to live their independent adult lives. Earlier this year, Penning announced that the fund would close by the end of June next year and that people would have to rely on councils for social care. No matter that last year, the court of appeal overturned an earlier government attempt to close the ILF. Penning and Iain Duncan Smith have insisted that this attack on disabled people continue.

That ILF closure will be disastrous for ILF recipients – and for the idea that disabled people should be able to live, like everyone else. This is a crucial point – and it’s the reason why the fight for the ILF is both escalating and winning people round. There’s something fundamental to the notion that everyone is equal in this battle. As I’ve said before – saving the ILF is not just about saving a pot of money. It’s about saving the idea that disabled people deserve to live and to get out there and live. Penning argued, of course (he did it again at the adjournment debate) that councils will be able to pick up the tab for care costs for this group of people. That is garbage and everyone knows it. Councils can’t meet social care costs as it is. As readers of this site will know, I’m already talking with severely disabled people who have real problems finding adequate care. ILF recipients will join these people in their problems if their fund closes. The fund should be kept and opened up to all who need it.

Penning did tell one truth at the adjournment debate, right at the start of his speech:

“Can I guarantee that no one in receipt of ILF money today will be adversely affected by the changes that we are going to make? No, I cannot, and no minister of any colour or persuasion could.”

People know this and are responding accordingly. About ten days after he gave this speech, ILF recipients occupied the grounds of Westminster Abbey to draw attention to the threat the ILF closure poses.

Which brings me to – protests about social security cuts:

During that adjournment debate, the MP Mary Glindon observed that a group of ILF recipients had recently turned up to the DWP offices at Caxton House to protest at the ILF closure and to hand in a letter which outlined their concerns. The doors at Caxton House were shut in their faces. I know this, because I was there. I took this film on that day. “Those people simply wanted to hand a letter in to the Minister’s office, but no one was available, and I had to take the letter in by the back door,” Glindon told Penning.

Said Penning: “I am sure that it [the event] was peaceful, well-mannered and nice, but that is not always the case. If the hon. Lady looks at the side of the building she will see that paint has been thrown over it and there have been really nasty incidents outside.” (There’s a clip at the end of the Penning video above where he says that).

Interesting. I sent an FOI to the DWP to ask about the paint throwing and the “nasty incidents”. The response showed things were really not as dramatic as all that. They certainly weren’t as dramatic as Penning would lead you to believe…The paint throwing was apparently noticed in February this year. The DWP didn’t know when it was thrown, or who threw it. So that was all a bit hopeless. You can see the sad little dribble of paint they photographed in the picture they sent me here:

As far as Penning’s “nasty incidents” went, the DWP reported three events in its FOI response to me.

The first was a 2012 “invasion” (their word) of the DWP’s Caxton House reception area by protesters, which the DWP said prevented “normal access.” I was at that protest myself. My overriding memory of it was that the thing was seriously overpoliced and ended in scuffles in which a disabled protestor was injured. The police did a hell of a lot of pushing and shoving that day. You can see that in the video I took here:

Remember: people at that protest were demonstrating against horrendous social security cuts and the Atos regime. They had and have every right to make a vociferous protest against those things. Protesting against that sort of government extremism is not extreme. It is an entirely rational response.

Next, the DWP FOI response mentioned the May 2014 protest at Caxton House, too (I was at that one as well and filmed it here. There was no violence. There was a group of disabled people in wheelchairs trying to deliver their letter about the ILF as discussed above and asking people who came and went from the building if anyone had ever set eyes on Mike Penning. People were starting to wonder if he actually existed at that point.

The DWP also cites a 9 June 2014 protest where staff had to walk past protesters to return after a fire evacuation – you can watch that here. Protestors had a loudhailer and banners, and they chalked names onto the pavement. The FOI response says that police were not called.

People have the right to protest. They certainly have the right to protest about this government’s out-of-control social security cuts. And of course people wanted a response from Penning on the ILF. They wanted him to abandon his plans to close the fund. But Penning made it clear that the closure would go ahead – that came through loud and clear at the ILF adjournment debate. That left and leaves people with no option except to go back to court, which they are doing, and organise protests where they get in the establishment’s face. The ILF closure plan must be thrown out.

Until it is, people are perfectly entitled to demand that it is thrown out. Such protest is entirely justified. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the establishment that has done the escalating to date. I’ve been to plenty of these protests and was at the recent Save the ILF occupation of Westminster Abbey grounds – a peaceful but ridiculously over-policed event where a small group of disabled campaigners and supporters tried to set up a camp to draw attention to the government threat to the ILF. Look at the number of coppers that turned out for that one. Look at the vile policy protestors are campaigning against. It’s very clear to me who started all of this.

I find it very interesting that the mere act of protesting these days – that is, standing outside a building with banners, loudhailers and leaflets – is written off as nasty or extreme and used as a justification to stick to a massively unpopular decision, and to ignore the people whose lives are being destroyed by that decision. Without ILF money to pay for personal assistants, ILF recipients face lives at home with grossly inadequate levels of care, or stuck in carehomes. Nobody deserves that. Nobody voted for that. It is this government that is extreme. Even Nick Clegg is getting that. So, you know – expect a goddamn response. It amazes me that people on the receiving end of the coalition’s appalling attacks on social security have kept their cool for as long as they have. The government keeps escalating. Who knows what the future holds.

Video: life with a serious mental health condition. Join the WCA vigil this Tuesday

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Kate B

In this video, Roy Bard explains his lifelong problems with critical depression. He also takes us on a short tour of his home and explains how difficult he can find it to look after himself and his flat when things are going badly. This is how a serious mental health condition can affect day to day living:

One of Roy’s friends was a bit shocked when he saw this video, so he came to London to help Roy clean the flat up.

When we made the video, Roy was on incapacity benefit. He was waiting for the forms that would tell him to apply for employment and support allowance and to prepare for an Atos work capability assessment. He has since received those forms and returned them. He is now waiting to hear about the Atos face-to-face assessment. He could be waiting a while on this, too, given that there are hundreds and thousands of people in the ESA assessment queue. You’ll hear Roy say in the video that he finds all the waiting torturous. Struggling with serious depression is difficult enough. It is made considerably more difficult if you have to wait for a useless private contractor to get around to deciding if you’re entitled to financial support.

Which brings us to this week’s court action on the work capability for claimants with mental health conditions:

In 2012, the Public Law Project and two people with mental health conditions brought a judicial review of the work capability assessment – and the courts found in their favour. As Disabled People Against Cuts reports here, the judges decided that the WCA did indeed place mental health claimants at a substantial disadvantage and that the DWP should make reasonable adjustments for claimants because of that.

Says DPAC:

“Often mental health claimants struggle to provide further medical evidence to support their claim for ESA. They may not be able to accurately self report how their mental health conditions affect them, either when completing forms or at face to face assessments. Many claimants are wrongly found fit for work and subjected to the stress of appealing the decision.

“The claimants who brought the case, DM and MM, asked the court to rule that the DWP should be responsible for obtaining further medical evidence at every stage of the process to improve the chances of a more accurate decision being reached about whether a person is able to work, or to start preparing for work, and to avoid the need for a face to face assessment in cases where this would be especially distressing for the claimant.”

Needless to say, the DWP appealed that judgement – “we believe we have made – and continue to make – significant improvements to the work capability assessment process for people with mental health conditions,” the DWP told me when I asked the department why it had decided to appeal a decision which would have made life so much easier for so many claimants. Continue reading →

Video and pics: disabled protestors block Victoria Street #SaveILF

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Kate B

To Caxton House and Victoria Street today, where Disabled People Against Cuts blocked all traffic at the top of Victoria Street to protest at the government’s plans to close the Independent Living Fund. The ILF is a fund disabled people used to pay for the extra support they need to live independent lives. The government wants to close the fund. The government is not going to find that easy.

ILF recipient Kevin Caulfield fights to save the ILF and the police fight to save…Barclays

Last Saturday, disabled people occupied the grounds of Westminster Abbey to protest at the proposed closure of the ILF. That protest generated an extraordinarily large and unfriendly police response, and zero support from the good Christians of the Abbey. Today’s coppers seemed to have learned something from the bad publicity Saturday’s effort generated. The police sent to the Independent Living Fund tea party outside DWP HQ in Tothill Street today and then to Victoria Street when protestors blocked the road appeared to have done a bit more by way of affability training. Still, protestors blocked Victoria Street for long enough to make the point about the ILF again… and the police definitely wanted them gone:

The copper in the video above kept rattling on about the impact the protest was having on the traffic – an odd line to take, given that disrupting London traffic was the point of the exercise.

“What about the long term impact on me of not being able to leave my house and doing what you take for granted?” ILF recipient Sam Brackenbury asked him.

“I can’t do anything about that, me,” said the copper. “What I can do is ask yourselves to consider the impact on the traffic you’re causing.”

Long may that impact and disruption continue. Without the ILF, disabled people will not be able to afford the day-to-day support that allows them to leave their houses, go to work, socialise – everything that everyone else takes for granted. That’s why these Save ILF protests are so vital and why they’re gaining momentum. Saving the ILF is not just about saving a pot of money. It’s about saving the idea that disabled people deserve to live.

Protestors block the buses to Clapham:

A letter to government:

Protestors sitting on Victoria Street:

This shot is from Bob Ellard: the tailback of buses as Victoria Street is blocked:

No god here: just heavy police at the Westminster Abbey #SaveILF protest

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Kate B

Sunday 29 June: more updates, including more footage of the protest, police standing on tents and us arguing with police about press access added at the end of the post:

———————————————————-

Saturday 28 June:

A lot more to video to come – here’s a starter.

Went with Disabled People Against Cuts to the blockade of Westminster Abbey today as severely disabled people continued ther fight to save the Independent Living Fund. The ILF is a fund that severely disabled people to pay for the extra carer hours they need to live independent lives. Iain Duncan Smith and Mike Penning, needless to say, plan to close the fund and leave these people in carehomes, or stuck at home with dangerously low levels of care. The court of appeal overturned a government ILF closure decision last year, but that’s not the sort of thing that puts Pennning off. The government announced this year that it would close the fund by 2015

Disabled people continue to fight for the ILF through the courts. Today, they attempted to take things to another level and set up a camp in the grounds of Westminster Abbey. The hope was that the church of England would see the point of this extremely serious and important protest, and help facilitate a protest camp and discussion. The lives of these disabled people will be threatened without that ILF money. It’s as simple as that.

Unfortunately, the church seemed to miss that point – perhaps in its rush to get the Met on the line. Christianity was in very short supply at the Abbey today. Police poured through the gates to stop the protest and to stamp on tents, to make sure they couldn’t be pitched. They were very heavy-handed all round and must easily have outnumbered protestors ten to one. Have a look at some of this.

Here’s a short clip of the police chasing one protestor across the grounds, then grabbing one young woman and cuffing her after shoving her against a tree. This was pretty brutal – you’ll see towards the end of the clip that they twist her arm right up behind her:

Here they are standing on a tent so that disabled people couldn’t pitch the tent in the Abbey grounds to make their protest:

This next photo shows disabled people grabbing onto each other when police rushed their line of wheelchairs. This was extraordinary – the police just raced at the line of wheelchairs:

another cop standing on a tent:

In this video, you’ll see some of the severely disabled people who had their wheelchairs chained together to protest at the ILF’s closure – and then a short clip of the sort of police numbers sent in to deal with them. Unreal:

And in this video, disabled protestors getting into the grounds through a smaller gate and chaining their wheelchairs together:

More to come tomorrow. As I say – this is a vital protest. Saving the ILF is not just about saving a pot of money. It’s about saving the idea that severely disabled people deserve to live – like everybody else. Pity the church doesn’t get that. At all. Today’s display was utterly shameful. Those behind it better start praying that there isn’t a god.

————————————————————————————–

Updates 29 June 2014:

Here’s a video of a few of us arguing with police about press access for filming, and then more footage of police standing on tents and then again of their sheer numbers. I had the weirdest discussion with the clown you see at the start of this video. I wanted to walk through the police kettle to talk to disabled protestors on the other side of the police line and the railings, so I showed this copper my press pass. He said I couldn’t go through, because I was using my pass for “suspect” purposes and that if I was a journalist, I’d know what he meant. I am a journalist and I had absolutely no idea what he meant. I still have no idea. I can only assume that they didn’t want people who were inside the protest to have any sort of contact with people on the other side of the fence. He got out his little notebook and pen and told me to give him my name. I turned my pass around so he couldn’t see my name and told him to get lost. Jesus:

Another photo of disabled people being shoved into each other as police rush their line of wheelchairs:

More footage of protestors and of applause for their efforts when they were finally forced to leave the Abbey:

DPAC’s next action: Save the Independent Living Fund party this week on July 4. See you there.

A few words from young people who must sign on because work is insecure and low paid

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Kate B

Am surfacing briefly today to make the point to Ed Miliband and other Labour greats that quite a few of the young people I meet who claim jobseekers’ allowance ARE in work. The problem these young people have is that they’re in and out of work, because the work they get is very insecure and low-paid. They pay in while they’re working. They just don’t get enough ongoing work to pay in on a regular, ongoing basis. Because that’s our era, Ed. People can train all they like and as hard as they like, but that won’t count for much if the only work on offer is badly paid, or not paid at all. That’s the point to focus on, Ed. That’s the ONLY point to focus on. If Ed is really serious about sorting out youth unemployment and low pay, he might like to support a few boycott workfare protests.

The young people who I’ve spoken to outside jobcentres this year generally report that they land a few months at a job here and a few weeks at a job there, and then the work dries up and they have to sign on until another crap job comes along. Said Ravi 22: “Contract work – it’s not ideal. Once the contract is over and you haven’t got any backup, then yeah, you lose everything that you’ve worked for. You save up and when the contract ends, if you haven’t got another job, everything that you’ve saved up goes onto your bills and stuff like that and you’ve got to start again.”

These people also seem keen on meaningful, paid work and often say things like “I don’t really want to go back to dealing.” Said Gio, 19, below: “I don’t want to be on the streets drug dealing and stuff to earn the money, because I’ve been through that stage.”

Etc.

Anyway.

Here is:

Ravi, aged 22. Signs on at Kilburn jobcentre. We met in March. He’d last worked in January. He worked in sectors like retail and banking. He wanted something ongoing, but was struggling to find permanent work. He was trying to sort out a sanction the day that we spoke – he was waiting to go into the jobcentre for a meeting where he hoped things would be worked out.

Ravi said:

“I have to come here every week. One week is to just sign on and one week is to speak to an advisor – but it’s not really to speak to an advisor. It’s just to sit in front of them and they are just going to say “there’s nothing to really match your criteria here – retail – so see you next week.” It is a system set up for you to fail. If you don’t turn up for an appointment – because [for example] you have got to come in every morning and they say, well, you didn’t turn up, so you’re suspended.

“They suspended my benefit. Apparently, the reason was that my jobsearch wasn’t correct. Apparently, you can’t hand out CVs any more. They go – “95% of your jobs are online” and they [said to me] “a few of your jobsearches say that you handed out CVs and these places don’t accept CVs. Therefore, you’ve been suspended.”

“I was sanctioned, yeah. I think I still am. I’ve got to come back to talk to someone at 3.15pm and they are going to explain it. It’s a bit difficult. My adviser [that I’m talking to today] – out of all of them, he’s okay. He’s more understanding, unlike the rest of them. I think they’re fed up with their own jobs to be honest. He’s quite good. He’s really understanding. He would actually advise me, unlike the rest of them.

“I asked them – what was the reason for the sanction? I asked them like three times and they kept diverting the conversation. So I honestly didn’t know. [It came about this way]. Basically, I came in on time and it was 9.15am or something, and then one of the advisers looked through the [jobsearch] sheet and he said “come back at 11.15am to the third floor.” So I came back at 11.15am, not knowing what I was coming back for. She said “the reason why you’ve been told to come back is that your jobsearch is incorrect.” I asked her “Why? What’s wrong with it?” and she was like “some dates are missing,” and I was like “it’s all there. Maybe I’ve just made a few mistakes on it.” She actually gave me the chance to do it again in front of her, so I literally done it again in front of her. I spent like 15 or 20 minutes doing it again and I handed to to her and she said “it’s still incorrect” and I said – “I honestly do not know what you want me to do. I’ve done it again.” I don’t like arguing and things like that – some people there really argue and shout – but I’m not like that. I was like,

“Okay, fair enough.” It’s their decision, so I just left them and I’ve been told to come back today to sort it out.

“This is my first time of being sanctioned, so it was pretty confusing. This is my second time at the jobcentre since I’ve been 16. I’ve always been working, so I’m not used to the system. I’m not sure what it’s all about to be honest. So it’s changed. It’s more confusing. They were telling me that there’s like a million people from age 18 to 24 on benefits, so obviously they’re probably frustrated behind the scenes and all, but I think that the way they take it out on us is not right. I’ve seen the way that they treat people upstairs myself and I don’t say anything, but I think it’s not right.

Continue reading →