LHA - Local Housing Allowance

Much fanfare, and the news that Local Housing Allowance is going up.

And that's a good thing, Yes?

Well, yes... and no, and nearly!

What does that mean?

Our Sue sits down with a coffee, and with a little help from the Shelter Blog tries to make sense of what's happening.

April increase

Yes, the Local Housing Allowance is finally going up in April.  Which is a great headline, but in real terms, how much will it mean to those who rely on it to cover their private rental costs?  Well, it goes up in line with CPI, the Consumer Price Index.  This currently stands at 1.7%, so the increase will be very small, and make little difference to those already juggling to make ends meet.

It was a great headline during the Election - 

"We will tackle rough sleeping and homelessness"

But without affordable homes available to rent, and with a dearth of social housing, in the real world the options are limited.  

The LHA should make finding a suitable home that is affordable and available a real possibility, but on current allowances the market is very limited.  Without a reasonable increase, it is almost certain that levels of homelessness will continue, and are likely to rise.

How does this LHA work then?

Well, Government Policy was to set the LHA to cover the bottom third of local rental markets across the country.  Those claiming it should receive just enough to get by in the private rental market.  

But - and there is always a BUT...

There has been a freeze on the allowance, and various other cuts since its introduction.  The result?  LHA rates don't cover the bottom third of rents in 97% of the country.  In fact in 32% they don't even cover a tenth.

So the LHA is out of touch with the rental market.  

What does that mean then?

People getting the LHA face huge shortfalls between the rent they pay and the LHA they can claim.  The result?  Arrears and eviction is the worst case, or juggling heating, rent and food for many.  

The 1.7% increase is suggested to increase payments by, on average £10 a month.  According to research by Shelter, for many on low or no income, the current shortfall between LHA and their rent each month is on average £113. £10 isn't going to bridge that gap.  

What do you do in that position?  Use other benefits to help pay the rent?  Cut back on food for yourself so the kids can eat? Walk the 4 miles to your zero hours contract job - and 4 miles home?  Turn off the heating? Eat cold beans from the can, cos you can't afford to cook? Take a payday loan? 

It's a precarious existence, usually resulting in rent arrears and debt, and finally you face eviction and homelessness.

So. Sorry Government, this 1.7% increase clearly isn't enough.  

As Shelter say "... the only way to ensure the availability of housing is adequate for those claiming LHA is to lift the rates back up so that they cover at least the bottom 30% of rents."

Food for thought?  More of a call to action I think!

(Rents in England rose 14% April 2012 to November 2019 

Index of Private Housing rental prices, Monthly estimates)

Information taken from the Shelter blog, written by Steph Kleynhans

(c) Shelter 2020.

You can find Shelter on Twitter @Shelter

Subjects for our blog are chosen and adapted by Sue, our volunteer @beanies_masato

A night shelter is a lifeline...

St Petrocs in Cornwall explain...

Christmas is all tidied away, and all your donations have been sent out from Beanie Cellars.  It's a grey January day, and Sue has the coffee on ready for a chat with Lois Wild.  Lois is part of the communications team at St Petrocs, and agrees to share some of her experiences from the night shelter that they ran over Christmas.

Lets clear the coffee cups and hand over to Lois!

She starts..

On the night I'll describe, my colleague Ian and I arrived at 7.30pm to check the list of the people we know have booked a bed with us.  We see familiar names, and sadly, as always, some we don't know yet.  We open at 8pm.  We explain the rules to the first timers, and get them to sign to say they agree.  It's a very simple process.

The people we meet all have one thing in common other than being without a home, and that is a desperate disbelief at the situation that they have found themselves in.

Our Greg nods in agreement.  One month he was the Manager at a big department store, without a care in the world.  They went bust, and within 34 days Greg was on the street.

Lois sighs.  Like Greg, they remain positive, even in what are, in many cases, extremely challenging times.  How they find the strength to go on, I don't know.

Back at the shelter, Michelle and Cec our evening shift volunteers turn up with a box of chocolate biscuits to break the ice.  And suddenly there is a buzz of chatter.  Some music, a quiz, a jigsaw challenge, and the atmosphere is welcoming and warm.  I think people are able to relax and unwind, knowing they have shelter and a place to feel safe.

Joe arrives with a friend he’s been sleeping rough with. He’s drunk, and he’s angry, or as it turns out, just desperate and frustrated.

I’m keeping my eye on him as he’s quite loud. Iain keeps popping in to check everything is ok. As the evening progresses, he opens up, and it turns out that he had to leave home after his partner of 15 years started a relationship with his best friend. He slept rough which led to him drinking heavily to numb the emotional pain, this led to him missing work, and that led to him losing his job. 

He cannot believe he’s ended up in this situation. Again, conversations about his cat, who he adores and gave him such fond memories, and who he cannot see anymore

We sat and did a jigsaw together until 2am while he just shared his life experiences and how he had got to the position of three months sleeping rough, and now a night in a St Petrocs night shelter, while he’s seeking more permanent accommodation so he can start to rebuild his life. 

He’s wearing his old work uniform, he’s a proud man who has worked hard all his life, has had many different jobs from farming, to factory work. The work jacket is a reminder of his former life and former identity.

In the morning, he’s in a much better mood after a good night’s sleep inside, and getting a lot off his chest. He lovingly shows us some photos of his cat before heading off for breakfast which is provided by the devoted volunteers who run the Breakfast Project every single morning of the year.  Joe walked out of his relationship, and his home, but it doesn't always happen that way.

Sarah told me of her experience of a bailiff coming to her home and evicting her, and how he wouldn’t let her back in to get her cats.  Greg tells us he had the same experience, except his was his computer and all his belongings apart from his work clothes, and that was because he was wearing them.

Things are looking good for Sarah, the next day she was pleased to tell me she’d attended a house interview in St Austell. She wants to be accommodated out of town as she doesn’t to bump into her kids while she’s trying to rebuild her life, she doesn’t want them to see her in this way.

Another man, only 25 years old has been convinced to use the shelter after some hesitation. He settles in straight away finding his bed, and sitting down. I talk about a puzzle book someone has donated, and he says “I love a wordsearch, watch me, I’ll do it in 10 minutes”. He quietly sits back and enjoys searching for words while everyone else talks, does the jigsaw and drinks tea before the 11pm curfew for hot drinks and cigarettes.

In the morning at 7.30am, Iain and I gently wake everyone up and encourage them to pack away their bedding and their belongings into plastic containers with their names on it so they can use it again the next night and again until we find them some accommodation of their own to move in to.

Some have more belongings than others. Some arrive in just the clothes they are wearing, others with so many bags and belongings that they have been trying to carry around with them. At least now they can leave them with us to look after while they go about their day to day.  

There is never anywhere that's safe to leave your things if you are on the street adds Greg.  They get stolen if they're any good, or taken away by the street cleaning gangs.  When you have so little, to lose it all is devastating...

Thank you Lois, for sharing your night.  In many areas the night shelters only open on the few nights that the temperature drops below zero.  This is when local authorities activate SWEP - the severe weather emergency protocol.  It helps, for sure, but it isn't permanent, and it certainly isn't enough!

Lois is nodding.  This experience has had a really profound effect on me, and left me feeling bewildered, exhausted, emotional, and grateful that as an organisation, we at St Petrocs provide this service for people. It is their best option - the alternative is likely to be a night on the streets. I am proud of my colleagues who do this each year, not just as a "one off" like my efforts this year. 

I feel more determined than ever to help make a difference and to end street homelessness Cornwall.

We certainly agree with that sentiment!

Thank you Lois for your time, and for sharing your experience.

If you would like to support St Petrocs in Cornwall, you can find them on Twitter as @stpetrocs and you can donate through our website @beanies_masato, where they are one of our outreach partners.  You can also get information from their website www.stpetrocs.org.uk

Versions of this appeared first in CornwallLive

New Year new YOU?

January 2020 dawns, and here we are...

As grey January sets in we have a new guest sharing coffee and hobnobs with Sue at Beanie Cellars. Welcome Stu Hennigan.

Stu is a writer, poet and librarian, living and working in the North of England.  His work has been published in Lune, the journal of literary misrule and anothernorth.org.

As talk turns to those who are homeless, sleeping on the streets and trying to keep out the worst of the winter weather, Stu shares one of his writings.  I think you’ll find it thought provoking…

       I saw it on a sign this morning when I went into the library.

  New Year, New You – how to get refreshed for 2020.  

       The chance would be a fine thing.  I’d love a new me for the New Year – in fact I’d love a new life entirely, but I’m not going to get one.  

I always used to look forward to going to the library when I was a kid.  Me mam used to take us after school once a week and I’d never want to go home.  We always had books in the house, like, but in the library it seemed like there was an infinite amount, such a pile that I barely knew where to start.  So many stories to read and so many different worlds to explore – paradise for an imaginative child.  I spent some of the happiest hours of my life in the library and it holds a lot of fond memories for me.  I still love going there now, but it’s not the same as it was.  Now I only go in to get out of the cold, and it’s hard to concentrate on reading when all you can think about is all the food that’s not in your belly, all the money that’s not in your pocket and how worrying it is that your hands have turned blue inside your gloves cos you’ve spent the night in a bus shelter, keeping one eye open for the coppers or the drunks stumbling out of the clubs in the endless frozen hours between midnight and dawn.  

My mate Spike got battered a couple of weeks ago by a gang of fellas fresh from their night out.  He was mooching down in town and he fell asleep in a doorway down by the big Morrisons on Merrion Street.  They woke him up pissing all over him, and when he asked them what the fuck they were playing at they all piled in, five of the bastards, and gave him a real kicking.  Broken nose, two black eyes, a couple of missing teeth, cracked some ribs as well by the sound of it.  Poor sod looked like he’d done ten rounds with Tyson Fury afterwards, and for what? Some pissed-up idiots thinking he’s fair game just because he’s got nowhere to live.  You’ve gotta wonder what goes through their heads.  That kind of thing is just normal now, though.  I’ve been spat at, kicked, punched, and called every name under the sun. It’s like people think that you’ve got no feelings if you’re homeless.  It’s not a choice, you know?  Do you really think anyone would choose to live like this if they didn’t have to? 

Me mam always had a misguided attitude towards it, bless her.  ''What those people need to do", she used to say, "is have a bath, get some clean clothes on and go find a job".  There’s not a lot you can say to that, is there?  It’s a good job she’s not here to see that state of me now.  It’d break her heart.

       She was an absolute star, me mam was.  I loved her to bits, and if she was still around there’s no way any of this would have happened.  There’s this idea that rough sleepers are all from broken homes, smackheads for parents and that, but it’s not how it was for me.  Me old man worked as a forklift driver in a warehouse and he was making a pretty decent screw, and me mam topped it up with a few quid from working the tills part-time at Fulton’s on Harehills Lane.  I always had new clothes, we ate decent food and we got away on holiday somewhere warm once a year.  I was an only child and me mam doted on me.  Me dad too, although he didn’t really show it in the same way, gruff northerner that he is.  We were a nice little family.  We weren’t rolling in money but we were doing okay, you know?  And then one day mam found a little lump and came back from the hospital with a face like nothing you’ve ever seen.  Six months later she was dead, the cancer in her breast having turned metastatic and spread to her liver and lungs, eating her from the inside with a speed that blew your mind.  She weighed five stone when she died, and for all her forty years, she looked like a woman double her age.  With her gone, everything just fell apart.  

       Me old man took to drinking and he didn’t have much time for looking after me, smashed as he was on the living room floor every night with a litre of Royal Czar for company; me, I fell in with some older kids at school who were up to no good, started bunking off to go out grafting down in town, nicking clothes to sell outside the school gates, serving a bit of weed and that.  I started getting in trouble with the coppers, and in the end me old man kicked me out.  He had enough on his plate without the law braying on the door looking for me two or three times a week, so that was the end of that one.  There are only so many sofas you can crash on, especially when your mates are always getting banged up for the night, and in the end I ran out of places to go.  That was about a year and a half since, and now here I am, still a couple of months off my eighteenth birthday with well over a year of rough sleeping behind me.      

       You wouldn’t believe some of the places I’ve had to kip.  I’ve slept on park benches and in underpasses; I’ve slept under bridges and in the maintenance hatches of railway tunnels; I slept in a tent in a cemetery for a couple of weeks, until some bastard nicked it.  I even lived in a dustbin round the back of Wilko’s for a few days, until I got woken up by the sound of the wagon coming to empty it one morning.  It’s a good job I heard it or I could have been brown bread, crushed in the machine with no one any the wiser about me ever having been there. 

            That was in the early days; I’m a lot more careful now.  It’s tough at first, but you soon learn.  You talk to some of the old heads and they reckon times have never been tougher than they are now.  There used to be a few hostels round here, like Pennington Place near Little London, but they’re long gone.  They lost their funding, so the doors closed forever and more safe spaces were lost. Now there’s only the Crypt, and it’s always full.  Look around the city and you see empty buildings all over the place – some absolutely huge ones, like the old Arc in Headingley – that could shelter loads of us, but people would rather let them fall to pieces than let the likes of me in there to keep out of the rain.  It just doesn’t make sense, but I guess in times of austerity, Brexit and people protesting about vegan sausage rolls in Gregg’s nothing does, and nothing has to.

Until recently a few of us had taken to sleeping up near the top of Woodhouse Lane multi-story.  It’s freezing, but at least it’s dry and you’re out of the way.  That was okay for a couple of weeks, until someone complained and the coppers moved us on, saying we posed a safety risk to the car park users.  Strange to be talking about safety, under the circumstances.  What about my safety, and all the other poor sods that are sleeping outside every night, starving to death in the streets before the eyes of a public that pretends not to notice, eyes down, not even wanting to acknowledge our existence?  No one’s talking about that.

       The few benefits I got, I lost because I could never turn up to appointments on time.  It’s pretty hard to do that when you don’t even know what day of the week it is, never mind the time, but try telling that to the DWP.  Week on week it gets harder and harder for people like me, and there’s an army of us out here, an occupying force in every major town and city, thinking, feeling human beings reduced to the level of street urchins, the kind of thing spawned by the Industrial Revolution, urban foragers of a type that should have been consigned to the dustbin of history years ago. With things as they are though, it’s hard to see anything changing any time soon.  

       I stayed in the library for a couple of hours today, pressed flat against a radiator in a comfy chair, thawing out my aching bones and pondering the message on the sign – New Year, New You.  New hope?

              Not likely.

As we said...thought provoking stuff.  Thank you Stu.

You can find Stu on Twitter @Stu_Hennigan, drop in and say Hello

At  @beanies_masato on Twitter you can help us to get support to

 Lads like the one in this story via homeless outreach support

 teams we link up with across the country.  We send out warm hats, 

sweatshirts and essentials requested by outreach, working from the

 sales generated from our Twitter presence.  Take a look. 

Blog by Sue

And whats the summer been like for you?

hot…

Beanie cellars has an ample supply of coffee today… and, I do believe some chocolate muffins have magically appeared…  Happily we have company to help us munch them, as one of our volunteers has popped in out of the rain.  

Lets see what she has to share with us today.

We often go walkabout in town, and the number of homeless people we see seems to be more every time we visit.  The new ones sit, eyes cast down and obviously scared to make contact.  But we have made some friends amongst the 'regulars', although it takes a lot of time and a gentle approach to gain their trust!

Today, we went over to speak with Mike...

Jemima spots us first, she always knows who her friends are. Tail wagging, an expectant look in her eyes, excitement growing as we draw nearer.

Our Volunteer continues…

She lies at the feet of Michael, the bond between them both is strong. Jemima gets the first hello and a huge lot of fuss before I see Michael’s face.

Michael is young, mid-twenties. He has a cherubic face and grins readily, displaying his rotted teeth. He’s often hunched over and doesn’t easily make eye contact until he knows you’re on his side. His face and hands are weather worn, more suited to an old man than the boy before me. His ripped and dirty top now familiar and almost a part of him. He sits, as ever, in the same place, his few small bags beside him and his only comfort, a ripped and tattered blue sleeping bag.

He’s softly spoken, shy and very polite. He doesn’t like asking for anything so wants to earn his keep. He borrows a friend’s iPad and plays Magic Piano in the hopes of a few pence, a sausage roll or a bottle of water.

He hasn’t done well today. 19p sits in his pot. I hand him a small carrier bag with a few essentials, ‘presents’. Of course, the most excited he gets is for the dog food and dog treats, it’s always about Jemima. He was scared today, very scared. He has no money left, he and Jemima haven’t eaten and the shops are soon closing, there will be nobody left around to notice him.

We talk, he’s a good conversationalist. In another life, he’s be the bloke everyone likes and wants to spend time with.

The last time we met, he’d told me how it had rained so much lately that he’d not coped well. Today, he spoke more about that problem.

“The rain brings out the hard nosed people, or it makes them hard nosed. Nobody wants to stop in the rain, they rush past.”

Our rainy summer has brought a lot of hunger for Michael. He told me of how there was a period of time last year when he and Jemima were “…starving, so starving”. He managed to get a little food but there wasn’t enough to share, so he gave it all to Jemima and went without. He tells me this as he is ripping off bits of his cheeseburger for Jemima, even though she has dog food and sausages. It’s become a habit, he shares with her without a second thought.

Rain and hot weather are the times he suffers most. People assume that he’s ok in the summer, that he needs nothing because it’s not cold. He’s hungry, he’s lonely, he’s in need of clean clothes and a shower. In many ways, he copes better in the winter, people are kinder. The cold weather brings out their compassion. There seems no logical reason for this.

Michael talks a lot about being invisible, about people simply not seeing him. This seems to be the hardest aspect for most homeless people. Yet, this invisibility happens whatever the weather and seemingly more so during the summer. Whenever you stop to talk to Michael, you can bring food, clothes, toiletries, whatever you do, he always thanks you for simply stopping to talk. Nobody stops in the rain, nobody glances at him during the summer.

“What would make it easier for you during summer?” I ask. I asked this same question the last time we spoke, he gave the same answer.

“Hydration.” 

He struggles, as we all do with keeping hydrated in hot weather, but trying to find water can be an impossible task. Water. A commodity we take so for granted as it drips from our taps and we spend too long in the shower or, during those summer months, simply splash it on our faces for some instant relief.

Michael, like all homeless people I’ve met, doesn’t ask for much. He doesn’t ask for new shoes or a room. He asks for water. He asks for people to see him.

I look around, bearing in mind the invisibility. I see people looking and smiling at us spread across the pavement eating and drinking. 

They are smiling at me.

Nobody makes eye contact with Michael, nobody says hello to him. They don’t see him and I don’t understand how that’s possible.

“In the summer, I can sit here for 6 hours playing this before I get a single penny or anything to eat”. He says that has happened too in the snow, but it’s almost normal during warm weather.

I can see Michael is exhausted, he watches as the streets empty and the shops close up. It’s time to part ways until next week. A hug and a request that he looks after himself is responded to with, “I’ll be OK, I’ve got you.”

I reluctantly leave him, look forward to getting home to a cup of coffee, a comfy seat and relaxation. And of course, water. All the water I need, it’s here all year around. 

Thank you to our lovely volunteer, and thanks to Michael for sharing.

Life is hard on the streets in summer.  People don't think about what its like to sit in the heat all day and worry about getting a drink of water.  Or sit in the rain, and see the chance of a few pennies for food become an impossibility.

Here at Beanies we try to raise awareness of the problems faced by our homeless friends.  We work with outreach charities, helped by donations through our webpage.

You can find us on Twitter as @beanies_masato, or, if you would like to look at our web page, you can follow this link

http://www.masato.co.uk/collections/masato-homeless-support

Thank you for your visit!

You can't be homeless… you got a JOB!!

but you can be homeless and working…

Beanie cellars has that Friday feeling today, but it will soon wear off!

We open the door to Charlotte who, with guide dog Layla curled at her feet, has some thoughts to share with you!

Over to Charlotte...

Hello again everyone.

I'm back to talk to you about something rather odd.

How can someone be homeless but have a job?

How does that happen?

Well, I was homeless. Living in a hostel, as you know if you have read my other posts here.

I also had a job at the same time.

It was not a great job but it meant I was not on benefits. I was not stuck in the hostel all day. I had somewhere to be at a set time. I had money in my pocket.

The problem was I did not have enough money to put a deposit down on a private property or for a mortgage. So, I had to wait for social housing. But I am under 25. So I am not seen as a priority even though I had nowhere else to go. So, I was in a hostel - homeless but working.

Sadly there is a real stigma attached to being homeless, and to having a hostel as your address.  I had to keep where I was living a secret from most people at work.

When some people found out they reacted as if I was not human.  They simply didn't really understand. Some of their words were very hurtful. 

Others were kinder.  They did not react as if this was a bad thing. They did not treat me differently but respected that I was looking after myself and coping with a difficult situation whilst not letting it take over my life.

Sadly, these were the few.  The majority were simply unkind, even to the verge of bullying.

With the increasing amounts landlords and letting agencies want for deposits if you have nowhere to go. E.g. moving out of student accommodations, house burnt down, tenancy ending… etc… It is almost impossible to get that money together no matter how hard you try. 

So even though you are employed you cannot get a place to live. Then you must hope that the local authority takes pity on you and gives you a place to stay or a friend comes up with the offer of a sofa to surf. Neither are great options but it is better to keep up appearances at work than living on the streets where food, water and being able to wash becomes harder to access.

Unfortunately, it does become harder to not just keep a job when you are homeless. It also becomes harder to apply for work to get out of that situation. If you don’t have a job already when you are made homeless there are very few people who will employ someone who is homeless no matter what the reason. This is because many people believe that it is your fault you are homeless. But as we know this is not usually the case.  They often say it on the Beanies site, but we all should remember that everyone can be ONE event from loosing their home.  Job loss, bereavement, serious illness, family breakdown, debt or abuse - they can all prove the tipping point.  For each and every one of us.

So do not be surprised if you find out a co-worker is homeless, in a hostel or sofa surfing. This is because finding a place to live is hard work and very expensive and it gets harder. That is why it is called a crisis.

Be kind to them and offer up your sofa if you can. Make sure they are safe and if you hear of someone looking to rent out a spare room let them know!

Thank you Charlotte, and we do appreciate that you share your thoughts and experiences with us.

You can find Charlotte on Twitter as @blindseyeview

Here at @beanies_masato we share information about homelessness.  We try to defuse the stigma and consequent abuse attached.  And we sell stuff to support our homeless friends via our Twitter outreach partners.

You can find our current sale items on this link

http://www.masato.co.uk/collections/masato-homeless-support