Housing nazis

Labour Minister Caroline Flint has hit the news for saying, if you want to keep your council house, get a job… or words to that effect. As if it were that simple. People all over our fair land are right now sitting in their council homes, slapping their foreheads and shouting, A JOB! Of course!

There were those that supported her and those that thought what she said was inappropriate, short sighted and damaging and has only added fuel to the stereotype that people in council housing are bludging off the state and expecting something for nothing.

As someone who works in housing I know there are a significant minority of people who want something for bugger all. They are actually working. Unfortunately what they’re working is the system. They are adept at making sure they get what they want and claiming every benefit there is and yes, it does stick in your throat. Frankly to see them lose their council home wouldn’t make me lose any sleep (in fact, I even volunteer to break the news to them...) Able of body and of mind, they make a conscious choice to not work and instead waste their lives in a haze of cheap alcohol and cigarettes and no ambition. (To be fair, that does also describe my days at university…)

However, there is a significant majority of people that are in social housing for all the ‘right’ reasons and this idea that everyone needs to get a job in the next five minutes or we’re making you homeless is ludicrous and the impact on people that genuinely need help would be devastating.

We have funny ideas about work; for example we don’t value the work of carers at all, despite them saving the economy quite literally millions of pounds a year. Having someone in a residential facility with trained staff can cost tax payers thousands a week, someone staying at home - in a council home - to care for a loved one can cost just several hundred pound a week, not to mention affording the person being cared for privacy, dignity and quality of life just by being in their own home, being looked after by someone they love.

We either see disabled people as not being able to work at all, or needing to work in exactly the same way as able-bodied people. Whilst some people do indeed fall into those categories, there is no middle ground and so there is often no effective and appropriate support for people that do want to work but need to work in a way that is right for them. Therefore disabled people that are vulnerable, for example, become more and more isolated.

We declare that training and education will get people back into work, and then place strange and frankly archaic limitations on what training people can do (we won’t pay for that… if it’s over a certain number of hours we’ll cut your benefit… no we can’t help with course materials…) and the same for volunteering! Volunteering also saves the economy millions a year, but yes, you’ve guessed it: if you volunteer over a set number of hours each week you can have your benefit cut! So much for the training, work experience, life skills, personal development and confidence that volunteering can give you…

Or in other words, we don’t value it, we don’t value you and because you are not actively seeking to train, gain work experience, life skills, personal development and confidence we also despise you… have a shitty day…

Here’s the thing, why not just have stronger and more effective enforcement for those that abuse the system? We don’t need pointless, ill thought out and misguided rhetoric (whoops, there goes politics…), we need action. We need to know that when people need help they can get it, and when people lie or cheat, there are the staff and resources available to target them swiftly and effectively and do something about it without endless bureaucracy and procrastination.

You might say, hang on! Isn’t that what Caroline Flint was saying? I don’t think so. In my humble opinion what she was doing was issuing blanket threats, stirring up the idea that everyone that relies on the state in some way is well, dirty. She thinks it will save money but it won’t. I’ve been unemployed, in fact I’ve been made redundant twice now, and I’ve needed help. When I signed on, nobody really checked I was looking for work (in fact when I told the advisor I had applied for 11 jobs in one week he was rather surprised and seemed a bit confused as to why I would go to all that trouble!) So how are those same bored and badly trained staff going to enforce this new police state…?

You know, half of this would be avoided by the insistence of common sense and flexibility. Put a senior advisor into each job centre who would act as moderator on all the cases that were borderline, get them to make a fair judgement on cases where clearly, that person is doing all they can to better themselves and to get back to work. So if they are volunteering or training, but it somehow impinges on some rule written in 1846, get the advisor to use their common sense and make the judgement to support that person rather than kicking them when they’re down.

I'm not saying it's easy, but politicians are supposed to be capable and bright; adept at finding the right solutions to difficult problems and they are supposed to care about 'we the people'. I say we bring in a new law with immediate effect, politicians found to be useless lying bigoted toads must be made homeless immediately. They can apply for council housing but unfortunatley it's full of people who wanted to work but were prevented from doing so thanks to social prejudice and lack of practical support...