Who voted for this
Interviews with people dealing with housing problems and welfare cuts. Dislike for those who let it all happen.Kate Belgrave Journalist and bloggerContact: kate@katebelgrave.comHomepage photos courtesy of Latoya, the mother of the little boy with autism in the first episode.
Liz Kendall will NOT protect profoundly disabled people from benefit cuts
In this episode, we return to deeply unpleasant DWP secretary of state Liz Kendall and her plans to cut disability benefits.
Liz Kendall claims that disabled people who are most in need (whatever that means) will be protected from her cuts to their support money.
This claim is garbage. I'm calling it.
That is because Liz Kendall has a famously poor record when it comes to fighting for support money for disabled people.
Most memorable recent example: Kendall was on the Labour shadow front bench when the Tories went after the Inde...
Season 2: Liz Kendall and the great benefits robbery
Labour minister Liz Kendall is secretary of state for the department of work and pensions.
Liz is not an original thinker.
Like all her Tory predecessors, Liz wants to cut benefit and support money for sick and disabled people.
In this season, we're going take at look at Liz's implication that sick and disabled people are lazy, feckless and just need tipping out of their wheelchairs and into the amazing world of work.
Because Liz is very wrong about that, as we'll see. We'll be hearing from disabled people who know.
The benefits heist: how sick and disabled people have paid the price for the anti-welfare craze
In this episode, we take a look at:
Political attacks on sick and disabled people in the last 10 yearsClaims that benefit money is easy to get when it is categorically notLiz Kendall's stunning lack of imagination for devising welfare policy that brings out the best in us, rather than the absolute worseHow anti-benefit claimant rhetoric runs so deep that people who are meant to help sick and disabled people claim benefits believe it.Not very long ago, I interviewed a frontline universal credit staff member who actually said that homeless people and people who claimed benefits needed to...
When your council does not help you escape violence
Anna tells her story in this episode.
It's the story of how Anna, her partner and their 2 sons had to leave their council flat because their neighbour, who likes to wield a knife, was threatening to kill the children.
The tyres on Anna's car were slashed. The abuse and aggression escalated as time went on.
Anna asked Hackney council for help for a move to a like-for-like council place. This is what is supposed to happen when people are in serious danger, but - yeah. If only.
Anna explains what happens wh...
A really serious breach of very personal data
In this episode, Megi talks about Hackney council forwarding another family's very personal information to her husband's email address.
Megi has an autistic daughter. She talked about the family's housing problems in episode 5.
The information that the council accidentally forwarded to Megi's husband contained very sensitive details about another family entirely.
It had their names and contact details, children's names, bank details and details of abuse and fostering.
Why do these very serious data breaches keep happening?
Why are people who claim benefits or who need council help with hou...
Feels like everyone's just waiting for this kid to fall to his death
In this episode, we return to Latoya.
Latoya was featured in the first episode of this podcast.
She has an incredibly active 7-year-old autistic son who runs, climbs to incredible heights, barely sleeps and just about never stops.
Latoya also has a 4-year-old daughter who is also very likely autistic. She has just been referred for assessment. She is also very active and copies her brother.
The family lives in a second-floor council flat, which the boy (and possibly the girl, as time goes on) is going to fall from, sooner or l...
Letting agents DO NOT show properties to people who claim benefits
In this interlude episode, I ring (and record) letting agents to ask if they accept people who pay rent with benefits like universal credit.
You'll hear what the letting agents say.
It is actually unlawful for letting agents to say No to people who claim benefits, but that doesn't stop them keeping benefit claimants out, as you'll hear.
Most letting agents are smart enough to sound very welcoming and to say that of course you can register with them, but then they say - we don't have any landlords on our books who t...
Megi talks about her young daughter and her family's slow burial in Hackney council's housing bureaucracy
Megi has an 8 year old daughter with autism.
Megi talks about her daughter and the family's housing issues in this episode.
She also takes us on a rollercoaster ride (some cracking downhill bits) through the 5 years that she's spent getting absolutely nowhere in her attempts to get her family rehoused.
Megi's daughter is non verbal, not toilet trained and very active and strong. She generally only sleeps for an hour or two a night.
She also has serious meltdowns.
Their family of 3 lives in a one bedroom flat on the...
Niki tries to get on the council housing waiting list - while the council decides her son's autism is... on the mend?
Total circus here.
Niki talks about the 2.5 years it took to get on the Hackney council housing waiting list.
She has a 6 year old son who is autistic. He attends a SEND school in Hackney.
The family lives in a very small, one-bedroom private rental which has damp, mould and rodents. Needless to say, the family is keen to get out of there.
Niki also speaks of her concerns about the security of her family's personal documents after Hackney council's systems were torpedoed by a cyberattack.
She had to...
Niki talks about the slog to get benefits and housing when you have an autistic child. Fiasco.
Millennium politicians like to say that getting benefits, housing and support is too easy for too many people.
Au contraire.
In this episode, Niki talks about the ways that trying to get that help takes over your life.
Niki has a young autistic son, a tiny, rented one-bedroom flat for her family's four members (the landlord wants to raise the rent) and an almost full-time (unpaid) job wrangling the benefits and housing systems for support.
Easy it is not.
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All music on this podcast is by © Concr...
And Hackney council refuses to talk about a serious child safety issue
The podcast heads to Hackney council to ask to speak to someone about Latoya's desperation for a swap to a home when her son won't get injured.
The council shows this podcast the door - though we absolutely refuse to leave. We are staying until someone from the council or the ruling Labour group gives an interview.
Also - a few lines about how outfits like councils and government departments such as the department of work and pensions use press statements to blatantly lie about the services they claim to provide.
Enjoy.
A young son with autism and a very unhelpful council
Latoya is the mother of a 7 year old boy who has autism.
The boy is heading for calamity in the family's present home, which everyone who sees him, including professionals, understands within five minutes of watching him.
Will Hackney council help the family find a safer place to live?
Answer at the moment is probably no, given that Hackney council refuses to even talk about it. They need to have a quiet think about that, because we will be back. My word.
Music: In the First World...
