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Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts

Wednesday, 27 September 2017

Universal Credit's built-in misery for claimants should be stopped, not just paused


There is a Direct Line landlord Insurance tv ad that I have previously cited on Kwug Blog, in a post entitled Why this blogger is boycotting Direct Line insurance of any kind.(1) That ad has not made it to youtube yet but is very relevant to Government plans to increase the roll-out of Universal Credit.

On 15 September, in a piece headed National Audit Office points finger at Government welfare reforms over steep rise in homelessness, Hattie Williams reported in Church Times:(2)

The chief executive of the homelessness charity Depaul UK, Martin Houghton-Brown, said: “While the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 should help, there is a real risk it will be undermined by welfare reforms — particularly the roll-out of Universal Credit and proposed changes to supported accommodation funding.


“It is important that ministers look again at the amount of time people have to wait to receive their first Universal Credit payment. Many of the young people we work with are having to wait at least six weeks, during which time they struggle to pay their rent and, in some cases, have to rely on foodbanks.”
 Now, there is a 38 Degrees campaign to pause the rollout of Universal Credit.(3) Sadly, that petition page does not recognise that the delays of at least six weeks before the Universal Credit claimant gets their first payment are built into the system from inception.(4) None the less, a 'pause' can mark a turning point away from Universal Credit. And the real opposition in the House of Commons to such vicious attacks on poor people has increased since a former Labour opposition backed the roll-out of Universal Credit as 'too big to fail'.

So this blogger asks you to back this 38 Degrees as an interim to the scrapping of it before it wrecks more and more lives.

Direct Line petition: Pause the rollout of Universal Credit (5)


Link references

  1. http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/why-this-blogger-is-boycotting-direct-line-insurance-of-any-kind.html
  2. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/15-september/news/uk/national-audit-office-points-finger-at-government-welfare-reforms-over-steep-rise-in-homelessness
  3. https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/universal-credit-pause
  4. http://camdennewjournal.com/article/benefit-related-suicides-will-be-highlighted-on-april-3  
  5. https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/universal-credit-pause

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

Let us not help Theresa May bury the bad news about Universal Credit rollout, suicides and homelessness under a Brexit General Election

Yesterday's Kwug Blog carried a 'guest blog post' from Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty.(1) Even in his mid-80's, Revd Paul is extremely prolific with his offerings and far quicker to respond than this disabled person. The best I can do to 'catch up with him' is generally to forward e-mail notifications of the Taxpayers Against Poverty (TAP) website on to the Kilburn Unemployed e-list, but even then be selective so as not to give vulnerable list members a sense of melt-down and information overload.(2)

The Kwug Blog 'guest contribution' posted yesterday, — A Universal Credit case study — however, included tabulated data that proved difficult to transmit by e-mail and provided valuable information about Universal Credit that the general public are largely ignorant about, and corporate mass media generally keeps buried while Universal Credit-related rent arrears can catapult the number of evictions from social housing.(3) It can take up to 12 weeks for a Universal Credit claim to be processed and thus for the claimant to get any Universal Credit income; yet under English Law, eviction proceedings can begin after just eight weeks or rent arrears.(4)

Revd Paul Nicolson does not keep his incisive light buried under a bushel, and though his latest offering by e-mail has not yet made it to the TAP website, I can help here to get the message out as soon as possible even while I was hoping to prioritise other things just now.

Referenda and General Elections are too often based not on real knowledge of issues, and the results are mangled in an unrepresentative 'first past the post' electoral system that is too influenced by the wealthy. Whatever the result of an 8 June General Election, it will not really be a mandate for what the people have heard too litlle of. I should add that while the KUWG focus is mainly on the benefits system while housing law is too complex for us to handle, TAP has a more extensive overview of things, and more specific to LB Haringey where Revd Paul lives.

With that, I shall just bring in Revd Paul's latest offering.

During election TAP will do what we do



--
HARINGEY COUNCIL TAXES BENEFIT INCOMES OF ITS POOREST RESIDENTS OF UK'S MOST DEPRIVED WARDS WITH 
LOW LIFE EXPECTANCY AND HIGH RISK OF LOW BIRTH-WEIGHT.

from the Reverend Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty
No citizen without an affordable home and an 
adequate income in work or unemployment. 

93 Campbell Road, Tottenham, London N17 0BF, 0208 3765455, 07961 177889, 


Link references

http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-universal-credit-case-study-by-revd-paul-nicolson.html
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-universal-credit-case-study-by-revd-paul-nicolson.html 
https://scottishunemployedworkers.net/2016/07/15/sharing-knowledge-in-the-face-of-further-attacks/

Sunday, 18 September 2016

Revd Paul Nicolson comments on preview of Ken Loach's Palme D'Or winning 'I, Daniel Blake'

Guest blog post by Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty

Dear all,  

I went to a preview of Ken Loach's very necessary Palme D'Or winning new film I, Daniel Blake; I wept.  I am so glad 
​a special screening has been​
 arranged 
​ by the Peoples Assembly 
in Birmingham and sorry I 
​cannot be there​

Life was bad for the unemployed prior to Iain Duncan Smith's reforms, when I was working with and for benefit claimants in debt. Parliament did not, however, permit jobcentre officials to stop unemployment income for one month, three months or three years with a benefit sanction. 

I reflected at the preview that I, Daniel Blake describes only one of three nightmare bureaucracies which require officials to implement oppressive laws that impact on the mental and physical health of our poorest fellow citizens and their children by creating debts, hunger and homelessness. 

Now, when the jobcentre stops an income with a benefit sanction, local authorities continue to enforce rent and council tax arrears; magistrates enforce fines for poverty related offences such as TV licence or fare evasion, both adding court costs and bailiffs fees.  Those debts have often arisen because benefit and other incomes in and out of work have been shredded since 2010. The debts pile up while the unemployment income is stopped by the sanction and are then enforced for months after it ends. 

The poverty crisis is even deeper than the tragic circumstances accurately captured by Ken Loach. 

​In solidarity, 

Paul​

from the Reverend Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty
No citizen without an affordable home and an 
adequate income in work or unemployment. 

93 Campbell Road, Tottenham, London N17 0BF, 0208 3765455, 07961 177889, 


Tuesday, 30 August 2016

UK benefit cap, party conference season, BBC, Russia and hegemony

Blogger Johnny Void reports that when the overall benefit cap is lowered this Autumn, it will be for the third time in just five years. What does that all mean? How about, as JV writes, Hunger, Homelessness and Despair, The Stark Reality of the Benefit Cap?

Of course that is not the analysis we shall be hearing trumpeted this October when BBC News reports from Conservative & Unionist Party Autumn Conference 2016. What will other political parties have to say about this third lowering of the benefit cap in five years? And if they do say anything about the benefit cap at those Autumn conferences, will the BBC report it? 

Oh, no! What have I done now? I've probably sown the seeds for more and more page viewings of Kwug Blog from Russia, where it seems their larger population are dead keen to seek out reports of how nasty the UK Government is to poor people within the UK. (For the past month or two, there have been about four times more page viewings of this blog from Russia than from within the UK, until my health forced me to cut back on my output — reducing the number of page viewings of this blog per week to practically zero from Russia.)

Needless to say, while internal debate is potentially healthy, as a Green Party member too poor to attend party conference and very restricted by the agendas of DWP regarding how much money the law says I need to live on and what I need to declare, and the timetabling of Green Party of England & Wales Conference Arrangements Committee etc, I hope the Green Party Autumn Conference discussions about 'progressive alliance' politics do not entirely overwhelm matters of how nasty 'austerity government' is to poor people.

Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Saturday, 11 June 2016

Could 'disaster capitalism''s adoption of Education, Health & Care Plans be levering in more forced separations of children from poor families?

The below is adapted from an email letter sent by Dude Swheatie of Kwug to his local ward councillor. Please note that the 'David Cameron' paragraph below has been substantially amended and improved upon since the original was written. 

It should be very clear that the Christianity of Prime Minister David Cameron differs considerably as an ideological 'locus of control' from that of Council Tax protester Revd Paul Nicolson. http://www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/the-need-for-active-participation-in-divine-gratuitous-love-never-greater-than-in-the-current-millennium/

Hi, Cllr

The Department for Education & Skills has published figures for take-up by local authorities (LA's) throughout England regarding statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Education, Health & Care (EHC) Plans for children.(1) Disability News Service has drawn attention to low take-up of SEN statementing as suggesting that LA's are struggling with funding.(2)

Meanwhile it strikes me that councils' execution of EHC statementing may impact along the lines of 'papering over the cracks' in their agendas and thus collude with Conservative Government agendas toward forcing more adoptions of children from poor families against the ideological framework of Milton Friedman's 'Holy Trinity' of neoliberal economics. That 'Holy Trinity', as highlighted in Naomi Klein's 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism, consists of
privatization, deregulation and cuts to social spending -- in which governments …. abandon public ownership, reduce taxes, eliminate the minimum wage, cut health and welfare spending, and privatize education. She calls the means of achieving this goal "disaster capitalism" and describes how it has resulted in a worldwide redistribution of income and wealth to the already rich at the expense of economic solvency for the middle and lower classes.(3)
I further argue that 'disaster captialism' turns vulnerable service users into commodities. This has already been observed in the 'welfare to work' industry's secondment of economically vulnerable people in a new slavery industry,(4) and in the privatisation of social services in general.(5) There is also, of course, the sell-off of social housing to private investers that displaces whole communities.(6) I believe that this conversion of vulnerable people into commodities may now be a factor in councils' adoption of EHC's as a rationale for a surge in forced separation of children from their parents, a surge that has been highlighted by Legal Action for Women.(7)

In housing advice services funded by LA's, it has been standard practice for some years to not allocate legal advice to people facing the prospect of eviction until an eviction notice has been served. That practice leads vulnerable families and individuals to crisis point and often to eviction before alternative accommodation can be found. Now, the Housing and Planning Bill 2016 raises the prospect of an even greater surge of evictions of vulnerable people.(8) And the most recent Queen's Speech raises the prospect of more forced separations of parents from their children; state intervention into the lives of families at breaking point as the walls close in on them is far more likely to focus on forced separation of families than supporting of the family unit.(9) 

It would seem that David Cameron's Government does not regard burgeoning promiscuous sanctions against economically vulnerable people as in any way suspect but entirely corrective..(10) In other words, his focus is entirely upon the violence committed within poor people's homes without regarding the actions of an oppressive State as a root cause and role model. What I have observed and identified as 'burn out' symptoms in people who have been denied benefits by accident or by design has made me somewhat glad that I have only been a one-person household in those times.  People can get very irritable and irritating when they are denied basic rights, and such behaviour is all too easily regarded as the fault of the person's nature rather than how they are treated. Gandhi observed: "Poverty is the worst form of violence." And it is often easier to 'lash out' in anger at those most easily to hand rather than to acknowledge just how much we have been abused by supposedly legitimate authority. [Author's note: The link text for (10) and text up to this point has been amended and extended since original publication this morning.]

Caroline Lucas MP (Green Party) has said of that Queen's Speech:
"Just a few months ago we had another eye watering budget — and further cuts to local services are now hitting hard. The idea that the Government can build social reform on the carcass of a gutted welfare state is a fallacy."(11)

Maybe it all depends on what sort of 'social reform' that government desires?

Thus I ask you as my ward councillor to contact Legal Action for Women toward scrutinising how much [my local council] might or might not be colluding with an agenda of privatising parenthood and reducing the rights of poor people in favour of those whose social worth is supposedly enshrined in their finances.(12) Yet it is a very unequal world that we are living in. With privatisation of adoption services and parenthood, children become commodities in a form of legalised human trafficking.

In conclusion, I would point out that supporting families in the face of poverty can be an example of what 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' (1970) author Paulo Freire called 'authentic liberation', whereas forced adoption can be regarded as an example of 'false generosity'. I would also argue that in cases where there is domestic violence, that domestic violence is pioneered by oppressive attitudes and practices by the State against hard pressed parents.

Your constituent


Name
Address

NB: The constituent's home address helps validate their writing to a particular ward councillor or councillors. As Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is focused on the London Boroughs of Brent and Camden, the respective 'find your local councillor' page links are 

TheyWorkForYou.com has a form for helping you identify and contact your local Member of Parliament.(15)

Links

  1. Reference to Housing & Planning Bill 2016 pending




Friday, 20 May 2016

Legal Action for Women: Stop forced separation of children from mothers in UK and US

Guest posting from Legal Action for Women that would resonate with KUWG members who are parents. The event concerned is sponsored by Hampstead & Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq


Suffer the Little Children
Stopping forced separations
of children from mothers in UK and US
Tuesday, 7 June 2016 6.30 - 8.30pm
Grimond Room, Portcullis House,
Bridge Street, SW1A 2LW
london-underground-logo-london-underground-28512913-2000-1620  Westminster  wheelchair roound  All welcome.
(Portcullis House is part of the Houses of Parliament - please allow time to go through security)
Kindly sponsored by Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead & Kilburn
Guest speaker: Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, USA, and author of Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse  
Other speakers
Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project 
Nicola Mann, Women Against Rape 
Anne Neale, Legal Action for Women 
Kim Sparrow, Single Mothers’ Self Defence 
Mothers fighting for their children
Suffer the Little Children – a Dossier by Legal Action for Women documenting mothers’ struggle in the family courts in England, will be launched at the meeting.
Following the US-model, forced separations of mothers and children have increased massively in the UK in the past 20 years, especially against those of us on low incomes, of colour, immigrant, teenagers, with learning difficulties … Sexism, racism, domestic violence, usually suffered by the mother, poverty, homelessness … all influence decisions to remove children from their mothers. Everyone knows that mothers are children’s first line of protection and defence, but this is increasingly denied.
Early intervention by the state in the name of protecting children has led to cruel and traumatic separation rather than compassionate support. One third of children report being abused while in care. It has spawned an industry which feeds on the attack on parents’ capacity to raise their own children. As“emotional abuse and neglect” have become a more common basis for intervention than physical or sexual abuse, the discretionary powers of social workers have dangerously expanded. In Scotland, the new ‘Named Person’ legislation is being challenged in the Supreme Court as it raises concerns that the state is undermining families by taking parenting powers upon itself.
A child protection social worker warns us about the government’s latest plans:
http://www.dumblittleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1-15.jpg
The “undeserving poor” have lost their council homes; lost their benefits and lost their community services; why not make it easier to lose their children too?
http://www.dumblittleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1-15.jpg
But mothers, grandmothers and other carers in the US and UK are forming self-help groups and fighting back. 
Image001
Called by: Legal Action for Women
law@allwomencount.net  020 7482 2496  http://legalactionforwomen.net

Monday, 27 July 2015

KUWG Diary from Wed 29 July 2015

Compiled by Ivy

Wed 29th July, 2:30pm-4:30pm, @ Kilburn Salvation Army Hall, 55 Chichester Road, NW6 5QW: Rights training sessions organised by Lift: http://www.liftpeople.org.uk/
ESA (Employment & Support Allowance) and PIP (Personal Independence Payments) training by KUWG
 
Thurs 30th July, 3pm for 3:30pm-5:30pm @ Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH: KUWG regular Thursday meeting

Wed 5th Aug, 2:30pm-3:30pm, @ Kilburn Salvation Army Hall, 55 Chichester Road, NW6 5QW: Rights training session organised by Lift: http://www.liftpeople.org.uk/Community Resources in South Kilburn training by South Kilburn Trust and South Kilburn Voices

Thu 6th Aug 4.15 - 4.45pm Keep Volunteering Voluntary at KUWG meeting, Penny from Waterhouse NCIA will attend in regards on how to tackle workfare. (Weekly KUWG meeting meeting assembles from 3pm; exits 5:30pm sharp.)

Wed 12th Aug, 2:30pm-4pm, @ Kilburn Salvation Army Hall, 55 Chichester Road, NW6 5QW: Rights training session organised by Lift: http://www.liftpeople.org.uk/
Cooking on a budget training by Granville Community Kitchen and Fuel Poverty Action
 
Thurs 13th Aug, 3pm for 3:30pm-5:30pm @ Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH: KUWG regular Thursday meeting
 


Wed 19th Aug, 2:30pm-4pm, @ Kilburn Salvation Army Hall, 55 Chichester Road, NW6 5QW: Rights training session organised by Lift: http://www.liftpeople.org.uk/
Money Management training session by Hillingdon Credit Union and Kilburn Fair Credit Campaign

Thurs 20th Aug, 3pm for 3:30pm-5:30pm @ Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH: KUWG regular Thursday meeting 
 
Wed 26th Aug, 2:30pm-4pm, @ Kilburn Salvation Army Hall, 55 Chichester Road, NW6 5QW: Rights training session organised by Lift: http://www.liftpeople.org.uk/

(This will focus on changes to EU migrants' benefits and other entitlements following changes to legislation.)



Thurs 27th Aug, 3pm for 3:30pm-5:30pm @ Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH: KUWG regular Thursday meeting 
 
(KUWG Thursday meetings as usual ongoing as long as Kingsgate Community Centre is open)


Sun 4th - Wed 7th Oct Festival of Resistance - a counter protest against Tory Party Conference in Manchester. By People’s Assembly.

Sun 4th Oct National Demonstration by the TUC. Pesky Tories are itching to criminalise trade unions’ right to strike. Let’s show them what they’re missing.

Thu 5th Nov 6pm The Million Mask March by Anonymous at Trafalgar Square. Work your finest Guy Fawkes attire & roar: Fuck Austerity! Anonymously.

Saturday, 4 July 2015

A Budget to eliminate the safety net?

Things cannot get any worse

 By Joan Grant of the KUWG


The Tories said that they would make £12bn of cuts to social security, but would not tell us how. The one measure that we were told about was freezing benefits for 2 years. That saves £1bn. Reducing the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 will save £100m a year. So that left £10.5bn of savings still to be found.

The Budget is just days away now. We still have not been told what is planned but the press are starting to discuss different rumours.

One of the rumoured cuts is to make everyone claiming Housing Benefit pay 10% of their rent. They well know but probably do not care that there are thousands of people who get £73 in JSA but whose rent is £250 a week. No one can afford to pay a third of such a low income towards the rent on a long term basis. People will get into arrears very quickly and then be evicted. The lives of people in the private rented sector are insecure enough as it is, without this as well. In a borough like Brent 100 people a week apply as homeless to the Council. A plan like this will just make things much worse.

The way to reduce the housing benefit bill is to have more social housing so that people are paying lower rents. However, one of the first things the Coalition did back in 2010 was to reduce the amount of money allocated to building social housing. Another short sighted move. Selling off housing association flats (which will ultimately end up in the hands of buy to let landlords) is another very bad policy.

The other possible cut that I have seen mentioned is to reduce the amount that people in the ESA-WRAG get from £102 to the same as JSA, i.e. £73. People currently in the ESA-WRAG face seeing their benefit reduced by £30 a week. In addition they may have to pay 10 % of their rent which could be £25 or more each week. So they face a dramatic reduction in their incomes

The Tories also plan to take away Housing Benefit from young people aged 18-to-25 who are receiving JSA. This is another pointless, petty and vindictive policy. 
 
I have no wish to scare anyone as these proposals are just rumours at this stage. But there will be more cuts after the budget on Thursday, so we may as well be prepared.

I personally do not expect any meaningful opposition from Labour. They may even support these measures to show that they can take “tough decisions”. But I’d love to be proved wrong. Only Jeremy Corbyn was on the anti austerity march two weeks ago.

These cuts will affect millions of people. The only thing that we down at the bottom have is numbers. We have to find a way to make our voices heard.

And all of this is in stark contrast to the inheritance tax cuts for homeowners which will “cost” a £1bn.

I will do another blog next week after the budget, when we will know exactly what we are dealing with. 

Related post

Benefits for people in work cost 6x as much as for people out of work

 

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

Latest homelessness stats underline a growing problem

From Z2K — Justice for vulnerable debtors

The final set of official homelessness statistics under this Government were snuck out amidst a flurry of pre-election announcements by the Department for Communities & Local Government last week. In combination with the equally worrying statistics on rough sleeping published a week earlier, they paint a disturbing picture of a growing problem, not just in London, but in other parts of the country as well.

Continue reading....

Monday, 10 November 2014

0 hrs carework, rent arrears, eviction?

Latest from Kwug's Honorary Member Kate Belgrave shows how litlle careworkers are appreciated. Those who look after vulnerable people are often made more vulnerable by the State and employers than by the people they care for.

"It's the poor what gets the blame"

 24, careworker on zero hours and facing eviction from Focus E15



This afternoon, I spent several hours talking with a 24-year-old woman who is in rent arrears at the Focus E15 hostel and must appear in Bow County Court tomorrow at 2pm to try and stop her eviction from the hostel. If that fails, she’ll be evicted on Tuesday by East Homes. (East Homes is part of the East Thames Housing Group – if you like, give them a shout here @EastThamesGroup to ask them why they think homelessness is an acceptable option for young people who are already struggling, especially with winter approaching). If the eviction goes ahead, this young woman is pretty sure she will be out on the streets. She is probably right. She’s facing eviction from a homelessness hostel, which will make her – err, homeless. This woman suffers from depression. She is young and she is not rich. She’s in arrears and she will be punished. She has nowhere to go if she must leave Focus E15.
“I haven’t got anywhere else, because the only people I know are in the [Focus E15] hostel.” she says. “I want them [East Homes] to give me a month, or maybe two months to show that I can pay some of the money.” ...

Continue reading on Kate's blog, that carries a post-court-appearance update on this story...

See also Benefit claimants need firmer safeguards, not tougher sanctions