Poverty or not?

Nonnie - this government is closing family centres and preventive services to vulnerable children and families are being closed because of the austerity agenda. Those services were doing good work in educationing the people using their services on cooking healthy food on a tight budget, money management, parenting skills and many other life skills. The wider costs of the cuts are showing themselves in family breakdown, homelessness, increased drug and alcohol dependence and mental health problems. I know some will see these comments as political but my view is it’s fairly straight forward, you done take from the poor and give to the rich and make a healthy society.

mollie you have said what I was going to say. I found the article by Caitlin Moran both moving and shocking, and her point very true, that 'hygiene poverty' is something not much considered but very important.

Clearly the system is not working as well as it could but what could be done to change it other than throwing lots more money at it and putting taxes up.

Maybe there is a case for counselling for those on long term benefits not related to health? Perhaps all could benefit from Phoenix's skills in making a little food to a long way? How would we get such education/help across?

I remember many years ago a group I belonged to having a discussion with a couple of young people from a deprived estate. They had lots to complain about, some of which we found difficult to cope with, but no suggestions about what they wanted done. One of our group asked "if we had all the resources in the world what could we do to make life better" and was roundly told that it was not all about money. He had never suggested it was.

There are scroungers in the system. I know of 2 women, now in their 60s who trained many years ago with a friend of mine. She has gone on to have a career using that training and they have not. They have never worked and live in social housing in Worthing paid for by the taxpayer. Maybe counselling years ago would have helped them learn a different attitude and helped them into work? They are actually quite proud of their situation.

Well done that Scottish council but there must be a better answer.

Not Sandro Sanpro . Don't know any Sandro.

@mollie I read that piece by Caitlin Moran and wanted to know where her mother was in all this. We were not well off but sts were there - albeit made to last too long and bought last minute. Don't mean to derail but Sandro and so on are now my foodbank must donate.

I don’t think anyone’s ‘condemned’ smoking and drinking jenpax . The post I read simply suggested there are more important things, like feeding the family.

It's very difficult and when you are down it's difficult to climb back up. And in the short time you might be able to cope but the long time effects build up. And you lose self worth and confidence.
I must enrol at the food bank to help out.

The basic amount allowed for a single JSA or UC claimant is £73 per week. Now most councils will make even these claimants pay 20% of their council tax say £5pw then they have to pay gas and electric say another £5 pw to each (£10) water and sewerage another £5 bus fares to get to job Center and to look for work and also if no computer at home the obligatory trip to library to job search and manage the online benefit claim £10 then a mobile phone (again essential for job seeking and managing benefit claims ) another £10 per week this leaves £30 per week for food, cleaning stuff clothes shoes hair cuts and this assumes they aren’t paying back a benefit advance or having to pay bed room tax. It’s not much! It leaves no room for anything breaking down and if for example they don’t have a washing machine (broken or couldn’t afford it) that’s another £10 per week leaving £20 a week for all the stuff I mentioned! That’s without the smoking or drinking that others have condemned?

Caitlin Moran wrote a piece about hygiene poverty this week. She admits to stealing deodorant as a teenager because the family budget didn’t run to toiletries and sanitary products. There’s a collection locally for towels and tampons that I always add to apart from the usual food bank collection. It’s an aspect of being skint that people don’t think about normally. And this is the UK in the 21st century.

When they mess up your benefits they tell you not to worry because if they've made a mistake you'll get the money backdated. The problem is that you rely on the money coming when it's supposed to. Last year they messed up my Housing Benefit ....suddenly stopped paying it even though there had been no change in circumstance. It was OK them saying it would be backdated. I couldn't say that to my landlord. I had to find the rent money regardless.

It is not just the cost of food which is bad enough but cleaning materials for the home including washing powder can cost a fortune, not to mention toothpaste, soap and deodorant etc. the cost of which all mounts up. I have no idea how anybody lives on a minimum wage and is expected to pay bills also. I do not see the point of sending 20p a week, it would probably cost a fiver at least to administer.

I do not know what the answer is because I have a nephew who thinks it is God given right to have a council flat and never work.

Thanks Nanawind, that’s the reality of life for so many people. I do hope they have a less stressful period in their lives

My DD works 13 hours a week and is also a carer for her Nana, she has 3 children by her first husband, future SIL also has his 3 children (one disabled but ex wife gets the benefit for the children) 3 nights a week, lost his job, whilst applying for another job he applied for help and was given the grand total of 20p per week he had to wait for this so it was back dated for 6 weeks, cheque received for £1.20 thank goodness he has no now got another job.

vampire queen, I sympathise. We have people struggling because of the bedroom tax in our family, its just plain wrong.
It's reassuring for me to see so many comments here that recognise the reality for those on benefits. Yes, a few people abuse the system but anyone working with children, whether in education or social care will confirm that without the hot school meal at midday, some children would go without one decent meal a day. Too many children go without food between the mid day meal at school and breakfast club at school the following morning. It's positive that the government in Scotland are introducing a decent meal once a day, every day. Many parents I worked with struggled during the school holidays because they relied on their children being given a free school meal. It's the children who suffer.

Thanks for the advice, gmelon. I tried to get a dispensation for the extra room on the grounds that DHs children (10 and 12) stay with us every weekend and during the school holidays but was turned down on the grounds that the children can only be counted as living in one house even though they stay with us so often. When I queried this they told me that either we or the children should sleep on the living room floor.

Malucatchul....although no one would deny that some people abuse the system, the vast majority are genuine claimants who are either seeking work or are too ill to work.

Obviously there are some genuine people and I am not saying anything about them BUT I know someone who has not worked for over 4 years as "its not worth going to work" because their benefits and hand outs add up to more than they could earn, which is disgusting. I also know someone who works full time in a minimum wage job (48 hours a week) but has to pay £2700+ a year in council tax alone, not because they have an expensive property but because its a new build. They just about scrape by. No one needs to live in poverty as in the "olden days" but there are an awful lot of good hard working people who don't have any disposable income and just about manage. Minimum wage, zero hours contracts, expensive transport all add to make a lot of honest hard working people very near the edge. I get very annoyed when I see people on benefits drinking and smoking then pleading poverty - that's not what the money is for and many working people don't do it as they cant afford to. We've been very hard up in the past despite working. Did we smoke or drink - no. Did our children ever go without - no. Oh and we had 2 children as that's all we could afford.

I heard on the news tonight that a council in Scotland will be providing a hot meal for qualifying pupils EVERY day of the year, not just school days - weekends and school holidays. I think that says a lot.

Not that many years ago Mr P and I nearly lost the house, could not afford heating oil, and took a calculator to Lidl with us to see if we could afford a jar of coffee.

Because we had a mortgage, we did not qualify for housing support/benefit, after filling in umpteen forms and providing all sorts of proof of Mr P being self employed, but without a current contract, it was decided that we were eligible for council tax support of around £2 a month!

Fortunately I can cook from scratch, so there were quite a lot of meals made with chicken thighs, mince stretched with mushrooms, random vegetable soup etc.

Our Christmas that year was saved by wonderfully kind actions by a couple of GN members, we will always be so grateful for their help.

Monica, I really liked your post. It was compassionate and understanding.

JSA is often stopped because the Job Centre deem you have not searched hard enough for a job or have missed an appointment, housing benefit is then also stopped. These people then have zero income. We did have years when I believe benefits covered the essentials but now I think they often don't.
Some people with mental health issues cannot manage and others simply don't manage well but children still need to be fed and clothed.

vampirequeen
Have you applied for discretionary housing benefit to cover your extra bedroom?
If you live alone.
If your health requires some overnight help on occasion.
You may be in need of the extra room and therefore justified in having it.
You may have knowledge of this already.

There are weeks without any money, often, whilst benefit claims are sorted out. Literally without a penny coming in, and all the while the bills are mounting up. Full rent being charged until such time as its shown that you qualify for some help.
Then there are benefits which won't be backdated, or not paid for the first week, the first three months, etc.
Once the debts snowball, its difficult to get on top of everything.

Poverty is relative as well as absolute. For absolute poverty, go back 150 years. Living in a damp cellar, no window, cannot afford clothes or heat and can barely feed themselves.

Thank God that kind of poverty no longer exists, but benefits are meagre and you have to be very well organised, fit and active and have no bad luck (sudden illness needing extra heat and lots of washing or other domestic disaster).

Those on benefits are ordinary humans like us and just like some of us, some are wonderful money managers getting 2p worth of value from every 1p, while others are less well organised and are not Alpha money managers.

Many of those on benefits are among the weakest and less organised, with lives dogged by illness, and mistakes. We should not expect those on benefits to be more well organised than the rest of society.

They work out what they say you need and then take part of it back in the form of the bedroom tax. I live in a 2 bedroomed house. There is nowhere to move to even if my health would allow it atm so they keep 14% of my housing benefit.

The money is not there for some people, believe me. Cost of housing, cost of childcare, zero hours contracts, minimum wage, etc etc ... nightmare.