4 March 2015
The rough sleepers and the safety net
People power got rid of Selfridges’ anti-homeless spikes last week, but as Cathy Urquhart, the campaigner who started the petition, says, the homeless are still with us.
Rough sleeping has risen 55% since 2010. Anyone who spends time in Manchester city centre will know this already, as the issue is appallingly plain to see.
Many other towns and cities in Greater Manchester are seeing rising homelessness too, and the problem is even bigger than it sounds, as official figures only cover those seen by officials bedding down.
Every rough sleeper has their own story, but a running theme is that they’ve been let down by life in general, and by the benefits system in particular.
The welfare state is meant to provide a safety net to stop us falling into poverty and destitution. But posturing politicians claiming to ‘get tough on benefits’ have gouged holes in it, and more and more people are slipping through.
Contrary to popular belief, claiming benefits is very far from an easy ride.
Even people that are ill or disabled are now often expected to ‘treat looking for work as a full time activity’.
I work with people that have mental health problems, some of whom have been declared ‘fit for work’ when they are clearly still very ill. They exhaust themselves trying to jump through the necessary hoops, and inevitably some don’t manage it.
Others caught between zero hours contracts and benefit delays or sanctions may also end up penniless.
If those people don’t have family that can support them, they may end up on the street.
It is a completely avoidable tragedy. A truly secure welfare system, such as the guaranteed Basic Income that the Green Party proposes, would eradicate much of the problem overnight.
This means paying a basic income of around £80 a week to everyone in the country. Housing benefit, payments for ill and disabled people, and supplements for single parents would be additional.
It is an expensive policy, but we have found it can be paid for with the money saved by replacing the existing benefits system and income tax personal allowance, and through a mix of top-end tax changes.
And if everyone has money to spend, that money flows back into businesses, wages and taxes. So it is not lost to the system, just redistributed to ensure we can all get by.
We need to make a choice about what kind of country we want to be.
Are we so mean-spirited that we’d rather have the government fight low-income people over every last penny of welfare spending, and live with the devastation and homelessness that results?
Or shall we just solve the problem with a secure and decent welfare state, fit for a rich country in modern times?
The campaign against the spikes proved that people power can work. Let’s see how far we can push it.
27th Feb 2015
http://www.welfareweekly.com/dwp-gets-tough-sickness-benefit-claimants/
http://www.turn2us.org.uk/be_aware/be_aware_in-work_benefits/zero-hours_contract.aspx
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare
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