Tuesday 11 February 2020

Marsha Lives (on 16p a day)


Marsha is pale and bruised. She seems to be hungry.

Marsha has been living on the streets for 3 years but has recently been found a private tenancy with the help of a charity and claimed Universal Credit. That means she has 5 pounds a month to live on after her rent has been paid. Last month she had 12 pounds.

This baffling outcome is all the stranger because the property she is renting is supposed to be affordable for people on benefits (a rental cap known as the Local Housing Allowance-for more information on this see here https://hackney.gov.uk/local-housing-allowance). These properties are becoming exceedingly rare in London, where truly affordable social housing has become even rarer.

What has caused this is the benefits cap- a formula that caps a basket of benefits (which you can see here https://www.gov.uk/benefit-cap) at variable rates depending on the size of the household and whether like Marsha you live in Greater London. Marsha’s benefits cap is 1,282 a month or 15,410 a year.

At first glance that doesn’t look bad. 15,410 a year is barely enough to scrape by on in London, but many starter jobs, in shops, as security guards, as care assistants yield such a pay. If the state is prepared to grant Marsha an income equivalent to a minimum wage job, surely she must be able to get by. That at least is how the benefits cap has been missold.

Let us look first at the brutality of the algorithm. Of the 1,282 Marsha has to live on 1,183 goes to rent. That’s supposed to be an affordable rent for people on lifeline benefits. Yet that would leave her with 99 to live on that month. Take away 69 because of the advance she was given while her Universal Credit claim was being processed (a period of 2 months). Take away some more clawback towards the rent arrears that formed while it happened.

Even Jack Monroe would struggle to live on the 5 a month (1.15 a week) that Marsha is left with. While she has a roof over her head (for now), she was vastly richer begging on the street. Londoners can be mean, but she tells me that she usually managed to beat 16p a day.

Let us look next at the lie that this was missold on. A worker with a modest job earning 15,410 a year could be entitled to a further 9,152 in state aid a year. And well that person should get such help, for after paying rent they too would have nothing to survive on. Go out and get a job then.

The benefits cap was sold to us then, on a prospectus that the grifters would get work, and do better. The lazy would learn to graft or be punished. Be a grafter not a grifter.

But Marsha is pale and bruised. She is 51 years of age. Her CV reads, learnt how to beg on the streets for 3 years. She can’t feed herself now she has a home. I can't see her getting a job tomorrow.

Shall we let Marsha starve?  I hope we are better than that.

And that was one case we saw at Hackney Central Library of 16 on Monday night before the patient staff told us we had to leave.  And another case we cannot do anything about other than to tell you, dear reader.


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