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This government must listen to avoid more lives being destroyed
Welfare reforms, including Universal Credit, have been widely criticised. So housing must take the lead in persuading the government to take a different, more caring approach, says Jim Strang
The word ‘reform’ is defined as a process of change that leads to improvement.
The so-called ‘welfare reforms’ that have been introduced over the past decade have improved little except the mood of the accountants at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The cuts to social security, branded as a necessary revamp of a ‘bloated’ system, are nothing more than an attack on the living standards of already poor people.
The government pats itself on the back for its performance on tackling the deficit, but fails to point out that any success has been achieved on the backs of cuts to incomes and public services on which vulnerable people and/or those in poverty rely on.
It has overwhelmingly been sick people, poor people, vulnerable people, homeless people and people with disabilities who have been sacrificed on the altar of austerity – and the awful consequences are very clear to all in the wider housing sector.
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That the system needed genuine reform was never argued against. But very few wanted, or desired, to see the catastrophe that has unfolded.
The roll-out of Universal Credit has been an unmitigated disaster.
Payment delays of up to 10 weeks and beyond have been worryingly common as Department for Work and Pensions staff have tried to navigate a flawed system.
“It has overwhelmingly been sick people, poor people, vulnerable people, homeless people and people with disabilities who have been sacrificed on the altar of austerity”
Rent arrears are skyrocketing in all Jobcentre Plus areas. As a result, families are facing a choice between paying their rent and eating – with those choosing to pay rent resorting to using food banks.
Those in poor health and struggling to get by have suffered the repeated indignity of an increasingly brutal assessment and appeals process.
These are real, documented and common occurrences up and down this country, all happening under the current ‘reform’ agenda.
Organisations such as the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), the regional housing federations, trade unions and a whole host of others, including Shelter and numerous children’s charities, have all reached the same conclusion: that the Universal Credit project must be abandoned or at least halted until the issues that cause appalling hardships are resolved.
We cannot continue to allow this listing ship of a policy to claim lives and livelihoods.
Many also demanded a massive and sustained public investment in housing, schools and health services. These are demands that so far have simply been ignored.
We are evidently no longer a caring society. Our government seems to have abandoned the poor, the sick, the young and the old by cutting their services.
The cuts have hit indicators of health and well-being across the board and child poverty rates are rising after a sustained period of marked improvement.
Health, education, children’s services and homelessness services are all on their knees and it’s the users of these services who are suffering daily.
While the government deliberates on lofty issues, such as whether we should have slightly faster trains coming north out of London, the worst of the sufferers of these ‘reforms’ are visible to us all.
They are on the streets of our towns and cities curled up in doorways, under sleeping bags and on top of cardboard, struggling to keep warm. Some have taken their own lives to avoid a bleak future of destitution and misery.
“We need to openly challenge the ideological choice of inflicting harm on huge numbers of our poorest fellow citizens to satisfy the demands for tax cuts for the richest”
The pressures on working families to pay ever-increasing living costs with stagnant wages is damaging to the very fabric of our communities.
We are led by a government that has repeatedly shown it will not act to remedy these issues.
To begin to fix this, we need to look again at how we treat our poorest, how we house our population and how we prioritise public spending.
First of all, however, we need to regain the collective compassion within our society that has been lost.
If we cannot stand up and be counted, why should we be surprised when the government acts as it does? We need to openly challenge the ideological choice of inflicting harm on huge numbers of our poorest fellow citizens to satisfy the demands for tax cuts for the richest.
Since the Middle Ages, the role of government across this United Kingdom has been to protect the realm and its people from all threats.
The people require protection not just from war, famine and violence but also from poverty and sickness. We had Poor Laws before we had a standing army. It’s time that the threat to the common wealth and common health of this country is again properly recognised and tackled.
We can change this. We can regain our compassion if we stand as one, in a clear and committed voice to demand change, to demand that our political leaders listen to the cries of those who are suffering. They must listen to the fears (and also the aspirations) of our young people for their futures and make them positive.
They must listen to the plight of impoverished older and disabled people and design policies that enrich lives instead of breaking them.
Our sector, the housing sector, must take the lead and make this government listen before more lives are damaged or destroyed.
The clock is ticking.
Jim Strang, president, Chartered Institute of Housing
