How poor is poor?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/12/private-tenants-living-rent-commision

I agree with this, by Caroline Lucas, but Cameron and cronies will not have it.

The Tories have voted against requiring landlords to make their houses fit for habitation.

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/12/tories-reject-move-to-ensure-rented-homes-fit-for-human-habitation

How did they win by 90+ votes on this when there is only a twelve seat majority? Who voted with them, or did not think it important enough to turn up?

morethan2 I'm glad you were there too.

Half of single parent families are classed as on a low income these days (according to poverty.org). A decade ago it was two thirds. It's still a lot of families.

True, if they are in employment and well paid

Some single mothers are poor, I agree. Not all of them.

morethan, what a lovely kind gesture and you would also have made her feel part of the human race again. Yes single mothers are very poor

Morethan2 - so glad you were there - and that she had other support too. In her situation it could be so easy to lose your grip on life generally and not get the children back.

I once came across a very thin young women in Lidl. She counted out pennies for some sanitary towels and was 9p short. Of course I happily gave her 10p. She cried with thanks. I persuaded her to let me give her a lift home. As we drove she told me her tale. She'd been hospitalised because of domestic abuse and her husband locked her out of the family home because he knew she was about to leave him. She was trying to get custody of her children. She'd managed to get rehoused and friends and family had got together second hand furniture. She couldn't afford heating or to eat properly. It was pitiful. Living off a single persons benefit Without a doubt she was poor. I was privileged to befriend her and watch in amazement how this young girl with the help of her family rebuilt her life and eventually got custody of her children. So I think it's the single on benefit who are the seriously poor.

I retired from DWP 2 years ago, and at that point, and I am sure nothing has changed. In fact I know it hasn't. I have just completed 2 claims for Attendance Allowance for friends. The health condition has to have a severe effect on a persons life to attract AA. For younger people it us even more difficult to be awarded Personal I dependence Paynent - the replacement for Cdusability Living Alliwance. Please excuse typing errors.

A very long time ago you could get an additional amount of one specific benefit if you had to do more washing than normal because of a family member suffering from a medical condition such incontinence. This was usually because bedding needed washing because of bed wetting. It could also be claimed for the cost of extra washing for psoriasis suffers who used oily ointments that spoiled clothingand and bedding, meaning it needed washing more often. IIRC, a Dr's letter was required. It was a additional amount of benefit that was generally believed to be abused by many claimants.

My benefits knowledge is way out of date, but I'm not aware of any kind of allowance these days. A loan might be a possibility though, paid back from a person's benefit.

If it's the same programme I saw, I really thought she told the doctor she was an alcoholic

Food, clothing and shelter are the basic human needs. If you lack any of these I would call that poverty.
But people's ideas of what being poor means have changed greatly in modern times. Standards have risen and people's expectations are now higher. Most of us look back on our childhood when food was more basic, a boiled egg for tea; there was one fire in the living room, no TV, no holidays, we had few clothes, toys or books, but we didn't think of ourselves as poor, did we?
If you have seen a township in Africa where people live in shacks and have hardly any possessions, you have seen poverty. There is no benefit system, jobs are scarce and education is not free.
The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever. Properties in London that cost millions are standing empty most of the time, while there are people sleeping on the streets- that was a very rare sight years ago. The tax rules need shaking up, definitely.

Strange, that, Ethel. My husband never got extra benefits for his incontinence. He got legbags and catheters. Has the system changed for the better for incontinence sufferers?
You get benefits if you can prove that you need someone to help you get to the toilet in time, or to remind you to go to the toilet.
What was the programme?

i0.wp.com/voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/meme-poor-economy.jpg?w=529

I do have more sympathy with people on benefits than I used to have as I spent 2 months on sickness benefit last year. I now know that it just takes an illness, accident etc and your income is gone, my savings went in a few weeks.so yes we need foodbanks, luckily I did not have to use one (as yet), Im back working now but I have the fear of poverty at the back of my mind all the time.

Im beginning to think that the examples we see of benefit claimants who have huge tv sets, buy lots of food/expensive luxury items that others strive to work for , must be defrauding the system. Like the female on tv recently who boasted that she took a bottle of water to the GP and in the waiting room she poured it down her front, telling the GP that she was incontinent, he referred her to a social worker etc and eventually she got lots of extra benefits to assist her with her incontinence.

I have no fear of giving out my name or location, Im rosie and live in Northumberland. A real Geordie lass.

durhamjen yours is definitely a difficult one, I will have to give that some thought. Mine is the name of my last cat- I now live in NW London but originally come from Scotland, educated in Perthshire.

Lyn
Perth

Guess what my name is, BarbaraAbbs, and where I'm from.

I think there would be less nasty comments if gransnetters had to use their own names - and even location!

There aren't that many though...

This is poor. This is appalling. I would like to hear someone who agrees with the government justify this.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/06/dwp-bureaucracy-benefit-claimants-cruelty

Unnecessary again, grannylyn. Eloethan is trying to get the subject back on track. Ten pages on here and many of the comments are relevant, if not chatty.

Naughty Granny, wrist slap

Sadly we need food banks or people will be subjected to hunger, I find a 'thank you' when handing over food to be distressing . Sick of hearing what a wealthy country we are when we have people in such poverty

Agreed!

In some ways I wish foodbanks didn't exist, because people think they're some kind of solution. I always have this image of people crawling around the lord's table waiting for a few crumbs to fall.

I agree with you to a point Daphne. The issues you describe are much wider than food banks, which do a really good job of feeding people during a short-term crisis. I am conscious that we are putting a band-aid on a broken arm.