Mainstream media often overlooks the fact taht homelessness is on the sharp rise in Britain today and with housing benifit set to be slashed back in 2013 there is no doubt in my mind there will be more people living on the streets in the years to come. With Labour and tories backing laws to criminalise squatting making it illegal to squat and limit peoples choices where they can go to kip at night is a grave concern of mine. The media who are petti bourgeois in the main live a very comfortable lifestyel and report on homelessness only around christmas time to ramp up sympathy for the poor but if they really cared that'd look to really do something about it. But they do not.
lessness is the most extreme form of housing need. But it isn’t just about people sleeping on the streets. There are many more people in England who do not have a home despite not actually sleeping rough. Some have to put up with living in temporary accommodation where they have an uncertain future. Unable to afford alternative options, others have to endure overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Having a home is about more than just having a roof over your head.
Homelessness is not just a housing problem. Not having a decent home adversely affects all areas of your life - from your health, to your achievement at school if you are a child, and your ability to get work if you are an adult. Conversely, if you are struggling with your health or your employment, this may in turn affect your housing needs and the security of your home.
People end up homeless for a wide variety of reasons:
When relationships break down, often one person is forced to move out without anywhere to go.
Private tenancies frequently last only for six months or a year, and when they come to an end people may face homelessness due to a lack of other affordable options.
When faced with an abusive home life, many children decide to run away.
After a reduction in or loss of income due to health reasons or unemployment, or a sharp rise in interest rates, a person may find themselves unable to keep up mortgage repayments. Some people on low incomes who rely on housing benefit to pay their rent can face eviction because of errors and delays in the benefit being paid.
lessness is still viewed by many as the result of personal failings. But homelessness is caused by a complex interplay between a person's personal circumstances, and adverse 'structural' factors, outside that person's direct control. These problems can build up over years leading to the final crisis when a person may become homeless.
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Total numbers of homeless people in England are very difficult to calculate because of the transient nature of the homeless population and because the various forms of homelessness are counted in different, but sometimes overlapping ways. However, there are various figures available. Some statistics are snapshot figures that count numbers of people at a particular moment in time. Others are ‘flow’ figures which count people becoming homeless over a period of time.
People sleeping rough are often difficult to count for a number of reasons, for example because people bed down at different times, move about, are hidden away in derelict buildings or travel on night buses. The numbers of people who sleep on friends’ floors, and stay in squats and other insecure accommodation are often not known.
In summary, the main sources of published statistics on homelessness are:
•Street counts of people sleeping rough
•Data from local authorities on the number of people who apply to them as homeless
•Local authority data on cases of prevention of homelessness
•Statistics from homelessness services about the numbers of clients they serve.
which can often be misleading or inaccurate too. This is a growing issue and a problem for many and as the size of the global economic crisis looks set to deepen in the next few years people will be forced into increasing difficult decisions about their lives and thier lifestyles. I myself am lucky enough to have never experienced being homeless and dont pretend to know how it is like but i still think that the issue shouldnt be ushered under the carpet just as some of are lucky enough to not be homeless . It is not a prospect many wish for and some may be reluctant to be helped off the streets this can be a challenge but support must be there if they want it at all times. The other big problem is a lack of affordable housing in this country which i have addressed on this blog before which does play a big part in more and more people being forced on to the streets.
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Showing posts with label benifit cutsb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label benifit cutsb. Show all posts
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Child povety in Condem Britain as cuts begin to hit
Last Monday on BBc 1 there was a documentary shown called Poor Kids. these documentaries dont come on that often as we are distracted from the real reallities of what really goes on in parts of Britain today as the working class people realise the tories are back at the helm. Documentaries like this one shown last week are shown not because the ruling class wants the mass's to see such things but they are obliged to keep their state funding to show these sorts of programmes to remain somewhat balanced.
The programme was good and underneath i've placed the review of the documantary from our paper this week- the socialist which you can read more at www.socialistparty.org.uk
Three and a half million children in Britain live in poverty. The gap between rich and poor has never been greater. BBC One's "Poor Kids" filmed children in their homes and neighbourhoods and let them talk. What a sad, sickening picture of life in one of the richest countries in the world.
We're told we all have to tighten our belts; that we've all been profligate and now wasteful public spending has to be reined in.
We saw a boy who was bullied for wearing hand-me-down school clothes from his older sister, and a girl who had never had a holiday apart from a school trip to Scarborough. All the children filmed occasionally went without meals, and all of them were cold in the winter because their parents couldn't afford to properly heat their homes.
I normally hate programmes like this. we are very aware that our own children and many of their friends are in the poverty statistics, and I dread programmes that claim to show what it's really like. Aside from the fact that inevitably editorial decisions distort what we see, they also lift people out of their context. With very little commentary we are largely left to draw our own conclusions, and it would be very easy for some viewers to see these children's lives as the product of individual problem parents.
But that is clearly not the case. The statistics injected at various points in the programme showed that these children simply illustrate general conditions. When children talked about their asthma and eczema problems, we were told that poor children are two and a half times more likely to suffer chronic illnesses and 85% of children living in damp conditions suffer breathing problems.
What linked all the families shown was long-term unemployment. One was a single father, struggling to find work that would fit around childcare, while in his city five people chase every job. Officially, the poverty line for a family his size is £1,000 a month after housing costs. This family lived on £420 a month. The father explained that when he was in work their income was that amount a week.
Massive public sector cuts are going to make these conditions far worse. If the government realises its plans, job prospects are going to get much worse, benefits will fall, housing conditions worsen and access to decent children's services, limited as it already is, will be slashed. The happy ending for one child in the programme, when her damp block of flats was knocked down and her family was rehoused, is unlikely to be repeated for many children in this age of austerity.
In fact the people in the programme are the target of Con-Dem attacks. These are the 'scroungers' allegedly living in luxury at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.
The final statistics in the programme were probably the most devastating. On measures of child poverty, Britain comes 18 out of 22 European countries, with only Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Italy worse. And child poverty is set to rise 11% over the next three years.
Of course the programme offered no solutions. It is up to the Socialist to provide that - to end the horrors of child poverty we must organise to defeat the cuts, and fight for a programme of full employment, and investment in decent housing and public services.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting the cuts
Strike 30 June
Workers tur
The programme was good and underneath i've placed the review of the documantary from our paper this week- the socialist which you can read more at www.socialistparty.org.uk
Three and a half million children in Britain live in poverty. The gap between rich and poor has never been greater. BBC One's "Poor Kids" filmed children in their homes and neighbourhoods and let them talk. What a sad, sickening picture of life in one of the richest countries in the world.
We're told we all have to tighten our belts; that we've all been profligate and now wasteful public spending has to be reined in.
We saw a boy who was bullied for wearing hand-me-down school clothes from his older sister, and a girl who had never had a holiday apart from a school trip to Scarborough. All the children filmed occasionally went without meals, and all of them were cold in the winter because their parents couldn't afford to properly heat their homes.
I normally hate programmes like this. we are very aware that our own children and many of their friends are in the poverty statistics, and I dread programmes that claim to show what it's really like. Aside from the fact that inevitably editorial decisions distort what we see, they also lift people out of their context. With very little commentary we are largely left to draw our own conclusions, and it would be very easy for some viewers to see these children's lives as the product of individual problem parents.
But that is clearly not the case. The statistics injected at various points in the programme showed that these children simply illustrate general conditions. When children talked about their asthma and eczema problems, we were told that poor children are two and a half times more likely to suffer chronic illnesses and 85% of children living in damp conditions suffer breathing problems.
What linked all the families shown was long-term unemployment. One was a single father, struggling to find work that would fit around childcare, while in his city five people chase every job. Officially, the poverty line for a family his size is £1,000 a month after housing costs. This family lived on £420 a month. The father explained that when he was in work their income was that amount a week.
Massive public sector cuts are going to make these conditions far worse. If the government realises its plans, job prospects are going to get much worse, benefits will fall, housing conditions worsen and access to decent children's services, limited as it already is, will be slashed. The happy ending for one child in the programme, when her damp block of flats was knocked down and her family was rehoused, is unlikely to be repeated for many children in this age of austerity.
In fact the people in the programme are the target of Con-Dem attacks. These are the 'scroungers' allegedly living in luxury at the expense of hard-working taxpayers.
The final statistics in the programme were probably the most devastating. On measures of child poverty, Britain comes 18 out of 22 European countries, with only Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Italy worse. And child poverty is set to rise 11% over the next three years.
Of course the programme offered no solutions. It is up to the Socialist to provide that - to end the horrors of child poverty we must organise to defeat the cuts, and fight for a programme of full employment, and investment in decent housing and public services.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting the cuts
Strike 30 June
Workers tur
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