Hungry Britain

Name and shame.

Never experienced debt, paying bills, worried about having enough food etc. etc. eh, Cactus? Hahahahahahaha must remember that one!

I speak as a council estate girl who grew up on one of the largest overspill estates in the country, who knows only too well the difficulties of managing on fresh air.

So what EXACTLY do you do when you go into people's homes? You still haven't explained.

Tell us who the poster is.

I've just been called at BITCH in a PM. Delightful.

Could the council find her a smaller home, perhaps even in a different area by arranging something with another local authority?

Deb, your daughter is just the sort of person I mean who needs help, and urgently. I hope things work out for her and hope she gets the medical attention she needs. Thank goodness she has you.

The people I mean who 'play the system' are taking funds away from the people who need them.

It is very sad when marriages break up and the children have to suffer. I'm sure there was no way your daughter and her DH could have stayed together long enough to see the children looked after. Very sad.

Keep dipping into this thread and then leaving hastily with steam pouring out of my ears. My daughter is a single mum with two children. She lost the house she and her ex bought because of their divorce. They didn't get very much at all for it when it was sold. She put a small sum aside for her daughters and the rest went on necessities to set up a new home - beds, sheets, kettle, iron, because she had nothing.

Working full time would not bring in enough for her to have a mortgage or pay rent in the area even if she could do it with two children to care for. She is highly trained and good at her job having experience in caring for young people with special needs.

To obtain housing benefit she had to drop her working hours to 16 and there is no option for increasing these on a reducing benefit scheme. The council say she is overpaying for her home but it is actually less than the going rate for homes in the area so she has to make up the extra. Hardly a month goes by without the council threatening to stop her benefits just because a change in them is anticipated. It is a continual roller coaster.

On top of this she crushed her foot in October and is now on SSP which is due to end at the end of the month. The hospital she attended completely misdiagnosed and after Christmas she was finally sent to see a foot specialist. Hopefully on the 20th of this month she MIGHT get a diagnosis but there will still need to be treatment of course. The company she works for have arranged for her to see their doctor today and I just hope she still has a job at the end of the day if not the whole b****y precarious pack of cards will come tumbling down.

We have contacted our local MP for help but he is proving worse than useless. It is an emergency. Yes there are people who need help desperately, food banks are necessary (obviously we won't let our daughter get to this). It is the Government and IDS who are bringing about this level of poverty.

I think all your remarks are from smug self satisfied people who have never had to worry about paying bills etc. At least Ive got pride that Ive always done the correct thing, never gone whinging for handouts. Always had a job, at one time I was a cleaner but I always held my head up and 'paid my way'. There is no use in talking to people like you lot.
Dragonfly, is your life perfect that you can criticise me, at least Ive said openly that my life has been a struggle are you respectable.
there are many people who think its a disgrace to sit around in jamas all day but if they kept in the house that would be there business, the ones I find hard to believe are the ones who go to my local supermarket on sundays in jama bottoms or who lounge on garden walls at lunchtime in jamas.
This is like talking to a brick wall, I have my standards and you lot seem to have few.

Think about it before you condemn cactus.

There is a supermarket near an estate in Cardiff where women turn up in their PJs to shop having dropped off the kids at school. Any of you lot seen a shopper in Waitrose in pyjamas? I thought not.

All I can think of at the moment is the sketch with the Two Ronnies and John Cleese (I look down on him etc).

Wandering away from the OP.

Everyone may need a helping hand at some point in their lives, and there is obviously a blip in the system for the need for foodbanks to have arisen if the reason for them is a delay in benefits being paid. That needs addressing urgently. But is that the only reason and are they ALSO being used by people who 'play the system'? I know they have to be referred, but some people can be very good at manipulating the system. It cannot be denied that they exist.

Wait to be shot down in flames Rose.

What exactly do you do when you go into people's homes, cactus?

The lack of social housing is deplorable. But I guess the government realise that now and are at least trying to remedy the situation. Most new housing developments now have to include some housing association dwellings amongst the "upper crust" ones.

I don't see your point Nelliemoser.

Gillybob Well said about "menial" tasks.

Think about the refuse collectors and sewage maintenance workers. Road maintenance workers, Toilet cleaners in towns and businesses. Supermarket floor sweepers, hospital cleaners. Order pickers in food warehouses. Drain cleaners.

Well you get the idea! These are the generally poorly paid "lowly" workers who really keep everything else functioning. They keep our society going from the bottom up.

I'm still in my PJs.....what does that make me? What a load of c**p you talk, cactus60. Offensive c**p at that. There, I've said it.

Can anybody turn up for the left over puddings Riverwalk?

People have got it very easy at the moment with mortgages . Hardly any interest to be paid. (Until the government sends house prices soaring with the help-to-buy scheme)

Lol about sitting around in nightclothes. Is it ok up to, say, 10 o'clock?! Or 11?!!!

I'd put your comments fit in the "moaning minnie" brigade cactus60. It's been said endlessly, and in many different ways on this thread already. Benefit fraud is a very small percentage of those on benefits. Your comments about standards, not telling people what to do, pride, and your employment could be amusing, if they weren't so barbed. Your prejudice and dislike of so many of your fellow humans comes over loud and clear on this thread. Does it when you're visiting people who 'sit around all day in nightclothes' ?!

'durhamjen' I got my mortgage despite having zero hours, got it just before the recession when anyone could get one, |Im very proud Ive never missed one payment and would happily starve to pay for my home.
I was brought up working class but in those days working class meant 'working' not dole/benefit class or the 'underclass as the sociologists call it. I married a into a middle class family who were not very well off but had standards, these standards I adopted so I consider myself middle class now, my daughter is well educated. By standards I mean being well mannered, not sitting around all day in nightclothes etc.
I tend not to tell people what I do, although I work for a huge corporate company, I also have a little bit of self employment selling a skill I learned at college recently and believe it or not I work for an organisation who helps vulnerable people. Therefore I believe that many people use so called poverty as an excuse to moan and grasp for more, I would have more pride if I had nothing I would just do without. Its the moaning minnies I cant stand.

It was me who said "lowly plumbers" jingle as you probably know and "the bad side" of you really doesn't upset me in the least so please feel free to carry on.

The point I was trying to make (although possibly a poor example) is that even the most academic of us need the skills of those who "get their hands dirty" for a living ( electricians, plasterers, plumbers etc. incidentally all very highly skilled in their own right) Although I am sure you knew that was what I meant anyway so not sure why I am explaining myself, never mind.

A friend volunteers at a London night shelter.

The clients arrive in the evening and have a good meal cooked by local volunteer professional chefs.

I was very surprised to hear that in the morning many of the clients get up and dressed, eat breakfast then go to work!

So even people in employment can't afford to have a roof over their head or eat properly. She said that without exception every client is very lean and looks under-nourished. Another minor point but which I found fascinating, most people don't eat the nice puddings on offer.

Homelessness and hunger .... who'd have thought.

Anyone see ITVs Tonight programme on the working poor. Here, I think we have the heart of some of the issues already brought to light by the contributors to this discussion.x

Yes absent one of them lived in a paper bag in the coal hole or something, didn't they?
When we lived in Hongkong in the 70s and 80s we were rather starved of British humour (it existed in those days) and we had an LP of monty Python's Matching Tie and Handherchief which contained that sketch and also the song about the philosophers containing the line
'Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
I drink, therefore I am'
It perhaps seems a bit juvenile now, but friends used to come round just to listen to the LP and we would be falling about laughing.