19 ms·

“You're on the verge of losing everything but you don’t understand why”

162 points by sjclemmy 9y ago

labster 9y ago
So you read this story. It's entirely written in the second person. You get annoyed by that, because the story isn't really about you, it's about someone else. You keep reading anyway. You are appalled by the complexity of the social safety net and all of the needless bureaucracy, and how this makes people including you more vulnerable if something goes wrong.
- ddorian43 9y ago
  Where you come from, there's no safety net, they find you a shitty job to not pay you unemployment benefits. That's why you have to keep your own "personal safety cushion". You upvote on hacker news and move on.
- to3m 9y ago
  A personal bugbear for me too. The writer's story is theirs, and I wish they'd stop trying to tell me it's mine too. I typically assume that they're right, that I know what's going to happen, and stop reading. I don't know which is worse, though: this, or history programmes narrated in the present tense.
  - andyjohnson0 9y ago
    > history programmes narrated in the present tense This is called "historical present" [1], and is a style derived from Latin. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present
- robmcm 9y ago
  The concept is to make you see the world though someone else's eyes, to put you into someone else's shoes. You are highlighting your inability to do this, and proving how you only want to consider the impact directly on yourself.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  In fairness, I've known a number of English people who tell stories exactly like the author did in this case. It feels more authentic - I can imagine the subject of the tale speaking in exactly the same manner. Nah'mean? You pick up a book, see, and it's all written like the author's telling you how it happened. Gets under your skin, right? Makes it more personal somehow. You read some more, and you get sucked in, lose yourself like.
  - dm319 9y ago
    Yes, it's an East-London working-class style.
jarl-ragnar 9y ago
All very lamentable but you read it and get a sense of someone who is largely passive and to whom life happens. Where's the sense of ownership and shaping your own destiny?
- EliRivers 9y ago
  What point are you making? Are you saying it's his own fault for not having shaped his own destiny like an Ayn Rand character? Are you saying it would be nice if he did have more of a sense of ownership? Sure, that would be nice, but lots of things in life would be nice and saying they would be nice makes no difference to anything. What point are you making? Someone who shapes their own destiny such that they wouldn't be in this situation, wouldn't be in this situation. I might as well say it would be nice if someone hit by a car hadn't been in the road.
- dm319 9y ago
  'lamentable' is such a passive word to describe someone's life becoming a living hell and ruin. Not everyone is able to organise their life, not everyone is clever or successful, and certainly most people do not shape their own destiny. The question is what do you think is ok to happen to people like this? Are you ok with this happening to people in your community? For some people the anwser is 'yes'. Those people might be selfish, or uncaring. Maybe they lack empathy. Maybe they don't believe it is happening. Even if they are selfish, they'd also have to believe the chance of this happening to them is going to be very low.
  - jarl-ragnar 9y ago
    I guess I'm questioning the spin that the BBC article put on this. And no I'm not ok with this happening to people. However, there were opportunities where he could have helped himself - exhibit better judgement on who he chose to drink with, thus avoiding the stabbing; - understand that the change in benefit payment is making it his responsibility to pay the rent. Let's face it he must have noticed the increased payment to him when that first rent cheque landed in his account. Living in the UK and being subjected to this sort of "journalistic" output from the BBC day-in-day out, I read it as a propaganda piece by the BBC designed to support their agenda.
arethuza 9y ago
It's a tragedy that the country of Nye Bevan and Clement Attlee has come to this. I'm reminded of a quote that I think I first read in "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class" (NB strongly recommended): "There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won" Warren Buffet Edit: I'm in the middle of reading "Citizen Clem" and what an extraordinarily capable chap Attlee was. Here's a good article on him in (of all places) the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3174009/DOMINIC-SANDBROOK-Labour-s-greatest-leader-teach-squabbling-pygmies.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3174009/DOMINIC-SA... Edit2: Even Thatcher was a fan of Attlee: "Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show."
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  > Even Thatcher was a fan of Attlee We don't hold that against him, though.
- Nursie 9y ago
  I've not read "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class", but from what little I know of it one (probably minor) thing that Jones tries to establish is that the very word "Chav" is a classist acronym for "Council Housed And Violent". This is a retrofit for narrative purposes, invented by Jones, who seeks to demonise the word and in doing so police its use. The origins of the term are much older (before council houses in fact). Having read quite a number of his columms for the guardian, he seems to represent a lot that I dislike about the UK left and their tendency to try to redefine popular terms in such a way as to demonise their users. It's straw-man fallacy writ large - you said "chav" therefore you are classist (Tory) scum. Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off, I don't give a shit what their socio-economic background might be. I have left-leaning tendencies, I think the benefits system in the UK is a f*cking shambles, the NHS needs help and is an essential service, that there's a lot more we can do to help our people thrive and succeed. But this vein of pious language-warping really puts me off from identifying with the self-identified left or the Labour party.
vuldin 9y ago
First bit of literature I have read in second person for quite some time. I actually really liked it as a refreshing change to the usual format. I feel like it lends itself to a deeper connection with the subject (in this case Tony).
- shoo 9y ago
  tangential-second-person-links: http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-2.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-...
DanBC 9y ago
Here's the book of rules used to make decisions. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-guide-staff-guide https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu... Have a look around it. Especially, have a look at the page counts.
- peshpesh 9y ago
  Wow... their Decision Maker's Guide [DMG] is huge... DMG Vol 1 Ch 1: Principles of decision making and evidence, 70 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 2: Claims and applications, 114 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 4: Supersession, suspension and termination, 148 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 5: Work-focused interviews, 188 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 6: Making appeals and staying, 123 pages DMG Vol 1: Amendment 54, 72 pages DMG Vol 1: Amendment 53, 92 pages DMG Vol 2 Ch 7 Part 1: Common subjects [070000 to 070899], 188 pages
cjrp 9y ago
> Mullings, your legal advisor, tells you it might not feel like it, but you're one of the lucky ones. At least because this was a housing case you had legal representation. If you hadn't, you would have been steamrollered. Primarily as a result of cuts to the legal aid system[1]. Design a benefits system that's incredibly complex and all too easy to fall foul of, and then deny any kind of legal assistance in the inevitable appeal. I hope Iain Duncan Smith and his colleagues are one day able to reflect on what they've created. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts-benefits-cases-state-help-dla-esa-ministry-justice-disability-living-allowance-a8028936.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts...
yason 9y ago
Given the bureaucratic complexity of welfare and social support in most countries there might be a solution to a problem nobody wants to see. Welfare support has long time ago reached the level where it's difficult if not impossible for a normal, working, and still mentally capable person to understand everything and their caveats — not to mention someone who has first had hard luck, is then subsequently out of energy, and is finally subjected to the experience of being a cog in the very machine that is the bureaucracy. From programmer's point of view the obvious solution is encapsulation. Let's keep the private parts to the implementation and only offer a reasonable public interface. That means a dedicated social worker who knows both the rules and knows you. An outsider can't be expected to chug along with the ever-mutating directives, laws, guidances, and rules that are part of the bureaucracy's own operation and related legislation. Let the bureau have people who take human descriptions of one's life and work out the best plan out of available benefits. The insiders have the knowledge of what works together and how to make the system work. This would also be more efficient: failed applications, missing actions, mismatched assumptions, eviction orders, court cases, etc do all cost the bureau some time and money already in the current system. If there was an inside person who could rule out the impossible branches right away and check eligibility on the applicant's first or second visit, everyone would save time.
- Y_Y 9y ago
  Maybe their purpose isn't too be efficient. If everyone automatically got all the benefits they were entitled to it works surely be a lot more expensive.
  - masklinn 9y ago
    Or maybe that's the lie told in order to make the system more complex and harder to navigate, with more gates people won't be able to pass through, and an entire bureaucracy to administrate that — conveniently drawing even more resources from actually fulfilling the system's avowed purpose, ending with a system which keeps costing more and delivering less. As long as you can provide a steady stream of anecdotes and scapegoats it'll go fine. This can in turn justify cutting the system because it doesn't pull its weight[0], and the people who hate social support systems can pat themselves on the back over a job well done. [0] not all at once of course, you by start cutting ancillary services like legal aid[1] in order to feed the ever-increasing gate-keeping machinery you keep adding to [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts-benefits-cases-state-help-dla-esa-ministry-justice-disability-living-allowance-a8028936.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts...
downvote_me 9y ago
Reminded me of Daniel Blake http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/
- fastball 9y ago
  The penultimate paragraph mentions that film.
  - mendelk 9y ago
    Indeed. I heartily recommend watching it.
muse900 9y ago
I lived in London for several years. I've met people that were very open about scamming the system. I once knew a person, that went to London 17 years ago from another Country. He managed to get a not fit for work benefit and housing. His later then 'wife', they never got married but have a child together and live together, got some illness. Never met her, he was saying that was a genuine illness and not like his and she can't work. So that person that I mentioned above, owned a car and a motorbike. Not sure if those items were under his name or not. He also worked at a car mechanic shop for money under the table. In the 4 years I knew him, he was never caught, nor anyone went to his supposed house to check if he is there or what he is doing. That guy was literally skimming the system for money without any control. At some point he and his 'wife' found out about another scam that they could run, if she gets evicted by her landlord (both of them were getting housing benefits, but they were presenting that they were staying at 2 different properties while he was staying at her house) she could somehow get a free house. So they decided to bring a dog home so that the landlord sends them out. They got send out. She was put into a b&b with her daughter for a few months, while he was staying at the other house the benefits was paying for and then I've no idea if the scam worked or not. To be very and completely honest, I did look into how I can report that guy, just because I didn't find it fair, that I am paying taxes and there are people like this person on the article that really need the money, and you get those people that just scam the system. All I got from googling how to report someone, was that the reporting system sucks so much that the HMRC won't really do much about it. That sort story is just there to show you whats wrong with the system in general.
- robmcm 9y ago
  I have similar stories about acquaintance IT contractors using offshore tax schemes. Are they better or worse? These anecdotes about complex systems only fuel peoples preconceived perceptions of systems that they fear benefit others more than them.
- arethuza 9y ago
  Absolutely, I've lost friends over this very point - cheating the benefits systems makes me just as angry as people who don't pay their taxes. But which one is actually the biggest problem for the country? "Benefits fraud costs the government £1.3bn a year, according to official statistics, while the gap between tax owed and tax paid is put at £34bn a year by officials." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/13/benefit-or-tax-evasion-row-over-the-tories-targets https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/13/benefit-or-t...
cjsuk 9y ago
Ignoring the obvious welfare complaint, which I incidentally agree with, it paints a pretty good picture of all the health and social problems leading up to this situation for a lot of people. It also shows how the health of the previous generation can cause havoc on the current generation, a problem which I'm dealing with now. If we improve physical and mental health over the next couple of generations I think there will be a massive shift away from this failure mode. The problem is that those services are being cut as is the education that supports them. So we're screwed. Also a 4 year cycle on government before someone comes and erases progress or long term goals instantly and just burns a mountain of cash doesn't work either.
jamiegreen 9y ago
Time for UBI?
javajosh 9y ago
Government everywhere has a massive usability problem. Ignore the policies themselves, ignore the values they represent, the relationship between citizen and government should be easy and coherent. The solution here is, actually, better software. It's the difference between the law and the way it is enforced. If surveillance capitalism has taught us anything, it's that people will put up with almost any policy as long as it's easy. We should use this knowledge to build interfaces to government programs. Indeed, I foresee a time when one's smartphone keeps all your data, and a "government program" is literally a program that runs on your phone and lets you know, proactively, if you are eligible, and enrollment is one click away. We can and should incrementally approach this goal in all our work.
coldtea 9y ago
Well, in the US you'd have already lost everything and been homeless just for the medical bills of your mother, let alone your father later, and you after that.
- vonmoltke 9y ago
  That's an inflammatory mischarachterization of the situation in the US. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it is not common enough to qualify as a "would".
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Not common enough? It's the most oft-heard story, and the most common complaint about the health coverage system there. A single accident/illness can deplete your savings account and/or send you homeless. Heck, I personally know people were that happened, and I don't even know that many people there. Here's how common it is: (...) Nerdwallet estimated that 57.1 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills, making it the leading cause of the financial calamity that often precedes homelessness. Although the tipping point is often the loss of a job, sickness or injury often precede it. Sickness and injuries make holding a job difficult, which leads to income declining and homelessness for those without a safety net. Due to the mostly employer-based health insurance coverage system in the U.S., no job means no health insurance. The combination of unemployment and poor health can then lead to financial ruin. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/how-health-and-homelessness-are-connectedmedically/458871/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/how-hea... I just returned from the annual conference of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, where the link between medical bankruptcy and homelessness was made more clear than ever. (...) Illness and medical bills were linked to at least 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, medical bankruptcies will total 866,000 and involve 2.346 million Americans this year – about one person every 15 seconds. Most medically bankrupt families were middle class before they suffered financial setbacks. 60.3% of them had attended college and 66.4% had owned a home; 20% of families included a military veteran or active-duty soldier. 78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the bankrupting illness; 60% had private insurance. 69% of debtor families had coverage at the time of their bankruptcy filing; 60% of families had continuous coverage. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/28/747432/- https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/28/747432/-
dm319 9y ago
I know most people here are fairly well-paid, intelligent and many are well-adjusted and stable. But it'd be mistake to assume this happens to other people. Sometimes a series of unfortunate events (lost job, lost child, lost marriage) trigger a series of events, helped by alcohol and poor-decision making and resulting in homelessness and poverty. When I lived in Oxford I came across a book put together of mini-interviews of the homeless there - their stories. It really surprised me how many of the biographies started off with a well-paid professional job with a happy family and spiralled out of control.
- adstr123 9y ago
  Do you happen to remember the name of that book/any details? I'm from Oxford and would like to have a look at that
  - dm319 9y ago
    I can't find it at home, but came across this website, I think it's related. http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/
- malmsteen 9y ago
  Any reference ?
  - dm319 9y ago
    Not saying we shouldn't be concerned unless this can happen to us, but a brief google turned up these[1][2]. I didn't find many stories that started out as professionals, apart from someone who did law at university then couldn't find a job. But the stories are interesting. Might have to dig out my book which is somewhere at home. [1]http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ [2] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-one-woman-went-professional-11371566 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-one-woman-went-pro...
- dazc 9y ago
  A bout of depression or a series of unfortunate events can certainly put you into a tail-spin that's difficult to get out of. I've been there; it's like you know what you need to do but something is weighing on you with such a force that it can be very difficult to fight against. Ending up on the streets with nothing is a natural conclusion and what happens then is partly a test of character and partly luck. For many it's the end of the road.
michaelmrose 9y ago
How this would have looked in the US. * Relationship with girlfriend breaks up and you move in with parents. * Parents medical bills eat up everything they have and more when they pass away their creditors swoop in to take anything that's left. * You are kindly told you will be moved to the street so you get a job. Your part time job pays enough for you to crash on a couch or at best maybe rent a room somewhere if your lucky. * When you get attacked you have no insurance so you now owe $5000 which you have no way to pay and a prescription for opoids. * You apply for disability but get denied. No help is forthcoming. You quickly lose your place to live about 3 days after the rent is due. Nobody cares why you can't pay. Your address is now the street corner where you stick your pile of dirty blankets. * Due to your financial situation and eviction you will never be able to rent anything without substantial money up front and nobody wants to hire you. * After the initial perscription(s) of opoids wear off you now have pain AND an addiction unlikely to be satisfied legally. You turn to panhandling and use the money to buy heroin. * You get a dose that happened to be cut with something far too strong and nobody realizes your dead until someone complains about the smell.
- abandonliberty 9y ago
  In Vancouver, maybe around 1/10 homeless people die per year from overdose. So for quite a while, this is how the second-last step looks: * Your frequent ambulance trips and incarcerations now cost society around $200K/year, far more than social support ever would. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/one-homeless-person-costs-171-000-a-year-1.365403 https://bc.ctvnews.ca/one-homeless-person-costs-171-000-a-ye... http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-homeless-population-increases-to-4000-people.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-... http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-homeless-population-increases-to-4000-people.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-...
  - notabee 9y ago
    It probably costs something near to that in the U.S. in emergency medical costs, incarceration, and other civil services to deal with the problem, except we won't try to get them rehab help or preventative care because...bootstraps or something.

162 points by sjclemmy 9y ago

So you read this story. It's entirely written in the second person. You get annoyed by that, because the story isn't really about you, it's about someone else. You keep reading anyway. You are appalled by the complexity of the social safety net and all of the needless bureaucracy, and how this makes people including you more vulnerable if something goes wrong.

ddorian43 9y ago
Where you come from, there's no safety net, they find you a shitty job to not pay you unemployment benefits. That's why you have to keep your own "personal safety cushion". You upvote on hacker news and move on.
to3m 9y ago
A personal bugbear for me too. The writer's story is theirs, and I wish they'd stop trying to tell me it's mine too. I typically assume that they're right, that I know what's going to happen, and stop reading. I don't know which is worse, though: this, or history programmes narrated in the present tense.
- andyjohnson0 9y ago
  > history programmes narrated in the present tense This is called "historical present" [1], and is a style derived from Latin. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present
robmcm 9y ago
The concept is to make you see the world though someone else's eyes, to put you into someone else's shoes. You are highlighting your inability to do this, and proving how you only want to consider the impact directly on yourself.
duncan_bayne 9y ago
In fairness, I've known a number of English people who tell stories exactly like the author did in this case. It feels more authentic - I can imagine the subject of the tale speaking in exactly the same manner. Nah'mean? You pick up a book, see, and it's all written like the author's telling you how it happened. Gets under your skin, right? Makes it more personal somehow. You read some more, and you get sucked in, lose yourself like.
- dm319 9y ago
  Yes, it's an East-London working-class style.

jarl-ragnar 9y ago

All very lamentable but you read it and get a sense of someone who is largely passive and to whom life happens. Where's the sense of ownership and shaping your own destiny?

EliRivers 9y ago
What point are you making? Are you saying it's his own fault for not having shaped his own destiny like an Ayn Rand character? Are you saying it would be nice if he did have more of a sense of ownership? Sure, that would be nice, but lots of things in life would be nice and saying they would be nice makes no difference to anything. What point are you making? Someone who shapes their own destiny such that they wouldn't be in this situation, wouldn't be in this situation. I might as well say it would be nice if someone hit by a car hadn't been in the road.
dm319 9y ago
'lamentable' is such a passive word to describe someone's life becoming a living hell and ruin. Not everyone is able to organise their life, not everyone is clever or successful, and certainly most people do not shape their own destiny. The question is what do you think is ok to happen to people like this? Are you ok with this happening to people in your community? For some people the anwser is 'yes'. Those people might be selfish, or uncaring. Maybe they lack empathy. Maybe they don't believe it is happening. Even if they are selfish, they'd also have to believe the chance of this happening to them is going to be very low.
- jarl-ragnar 9y ago
  I guess I'm questioning the spin that the BBC article put on this. And no I'm not ok with this happening to people. However, there were opportunities where he could have helped himself - exhibit better judgement on who he chose to drink with, thus avoiding the stabbing; - understand that the change in benefit payment is making it his responsibility to pay the rent. Let's face it he must have noticed the increased payment to him when that first rent cheque landed in his account. Living in the UK and being subjected to this sort of "journalistic" output from the BBC day-in-day out, I read it as a propaganda piece by the BBC designed to support their agenda.

arethuza 9y ago

It's a tragedy that the country of Nye Bevan and Clement Attlee has come to this. I'm reminded of a quote that I think I first read in "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class" (NB strongly recommended): "There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won" Warren Buffet Edit: I'm in the middle of reading "Citizen Clem" and what an extraordinarily capable chap Attlee was. Here's a good article on him in (of all places) the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3174009/DOMINIC-SANDBROOK-Labour-s-greatest-leader-teach-squabbling-pygmies.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3174009/DOMINIC-SA... Edit2: Even Thatcher was a fan of Attlee: "Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show."

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> Even Thatcher was a fan of Attlee We don't hold that against him, though.
Nursie 9y ago
I've not read "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class", but from what little I know of it one (probably minor) thing that Jones tries to establish is that the very word "Chav" is a classist acronym for "Council Housed And Violent". This is a retrofit for narrative purposes, invented by Jones, who seeks to demonise the word and in doing so police its use. The origins of the term are much older (before council houses in fact). Having read quite a number of his columms for the guardian, he seems to represent a lot that I dislike about the UK left and their tendency to try to redefine popular terms in such a way as to demonise their users. It's straw-man fallacy writ large - you said "chav" therefore you are classist (Tory) scum. Actually I said chav because that group of loud, ridiculously dressed arseholes over there is starting to kick off, I don't give a shit what their socio-economic background might be. I have left-leaning tendencies, I think the benefits system in the UK is a f*cking shambles, the NHS needs help and is an essential service, that there's a lot more we can do to help our people thrive and succeed. But this vein of pious language-warping really puts me off from identifying with the self-identified left or the Labour party.

vuldin 9y ago

First bit of literature I have read in second person for quite some time. I actually really liked it as a refreshing change to the usual format. I feel like it lends itself to a deeper connection with the subject (in this case Tony).

shoo 9y ago
tangential-second-person-links: http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-2.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/rule-34-...

DanBC 9y ago

Here's the book of rules used to make decisions. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-guide-staff-guide https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decision-makers-gu... Have a look around it. Especially, have a look at the page counts.

peshpesh 9y ago
Wow... their Decision Maker's Guide [DMG] is huge... DMG Vol 1 Ch 1: Principles of decision making and evidence, 70 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 2: Claims and applications, 114 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 4: Supersession, suspension and termination, 148 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 5: Work-focused interviews, 188 pages DMG Vol 1 Ch 6: Making appeals and staying, 123 pages DMG Vol 1: Amendment 54, 72 pages DMG Vol 1: Amendment 53, 92 pages DMG Vol 2 Ch 7 Part 1: Common subjects [070000 to 070899], 188 pages

cjrp 9y ago

> Mullings, your legal advisor, tells you it might not feel like it, but you're one of the lucky ones. At least because this was a housing case you had legal representation. If you hadn't, you would have been steamrollered. Primarily as a result of cuts to the legal aid system[1]. Design a benefits system that's incredibly complex and all too easy to fall foul of, and then deny any kind of legal assistance in the inevitable appeal. I hope Iain Duncan Smith and his colleagues are one day able to reflect on what they've created. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts-benefits-cases-state-help-dla-esa-ministry-justice-disability-living-allowance-a8028936.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts...

yason 9y ago

Given the bureaucratic complexity of welfare and social support in most countries there might be a solution to a problem nobody wants to see. Welfare support has long time ago reached the level where it's difficult if not impossible for a normal, working, and still mentally capable person to understand everything and their caveats — not to mention someone who has first had hard luck, is then subsequently out of energy, and is finally subjected to the experience of being a cog in the very machine that is the bureaucracy. From programmer's point of view the obvious solution is encapsulation. Let's keep the private parts to the implementation and only offer a reasonable public interface. That means a dedicated social worker who knows both the rules and knows you. An outsider can't be expected to chug along with the ever-mutating directives, laws, guidances, and rules that are part of the bureaucracy's own operation and related legislation. Let the bureau have people who take human descriptions of one's life and work out the best plan out of available benefits. The insiders have the knowledge of what works together and how to make the system work. This would also be more efficient: failed applications, missing actions, mismatched assumptions, eviction orders, court cases, etc do all cost the bureau some time and money already in the current system. If there was an inside person who could rule out the impossible branches right away and check eligibility on the applicant's first or second visit, everyone would save time.

Y_Y 9y ago
Maybe their purpose isn't too be efficient. If everyone automatically got all the benefits they were entitled to it works surely be a lot more expensive.
- masklinn 9y ago
  Or maybe that's the lie told in order to make the system more complex and harder to navigate, with more gates people won't be able to pass through, and an entire bureaucracy to administrate that — conveniently drawing even more resources from actually fulfilling the system's avowed purpose, ending with a system which keeps costing more and delivering less. As long as you can provide a steady stream of anecdotes and scapegoats it'll go fine. This can in turn justify cutting the system because it doesn't pull its weight[0], and the people who hate social support systems can pat themselves on the back over a job well done. [0] not all at once of course, you by start cutting ancillary services like legal aid[1] in order to feed the ever-increasing gate-keeping machinery you keep adding to [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts-benefits-cases-state-help-dla-esa-ministry-justice-disability-living-allowance-a8028936.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legal-aid-cuts...

downvote_me 9y ago

Reminded me of Daniel Blake http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/

fastball 9y ago
The penultimate paragraph mentions that film.
- mendelk 9y ago
  Indeed. I heartily recommend watching it.

muse900 9y ago

I lived in London for several years. I've met people that were very open about scamming the system. I once knew a person, that went to London 17 years ago from another Country. He managed to get a not fit for work benefit and housing. His later then 'wife', they never got married but have a child together and live together, got some illness. Never met her, he was saying that was a genuine illness and not like his and she can't work. So that person that I mentioned above, owned a car and a motorbike. Not sure if those items were under his name or not. He also worked at a car mechanic shop for money under the table. In the 4 years I knew him, he was never caught, nor anyone went to his supposed house to check if he is there or what he is doing. That guy was literally skimming the system for money without any control. At some point he and his 'wife' found out about another scam that they could run, if she gets evicted by her landlord (both of them were getting housing benefits, but they were presenting that they were staying at 2 different properties while he was staying at her house) she could somehow get a free house. So they decided to bring a dog home so that the landlord sends them out. They got send out. She was put into a b&b with her daughter for a few months, while he was staying at the other house the benefits was paying for and then I've no idea if the scam worked or not. To be very and completely honest, I did look into how I can report that guy, just because I didn't find it fair, that I am paying taxes and there are people like this person on the article that really need the money, and you get those people that just scam the system. All I got from googling how to report someone, was that the reporting system sucks so much that the HMRC won't really do much about it. That sort story is just there to show you whats wrong with the system in general.

robmcm 9y ago
I have similar stories about acquaintance IT contractors using offshore tax schemes. Are they better or worse? These anecdotes about complex systems only fuel peoples preconceived perceptions of systems that they fear benefit others more than them.
arethuza 9y ago
Absolutely, I've lost friends over this very point - cheating the benefits systems makes me just as angry as people who don't pay their taxes. But which one is actually the biggest problem for the country? "Benefits fraud costs the government £1.3bn a year, according to official statistics, while the gap between tax owed and tax paid is put at £34bn a year by officials." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/13/benefit-or-tax-evasion-row-over-the-tories-targets https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/13/benefit-or-t...

cjsuk 9y ago

Ignoring the obvious welfare complaint, which I incidentally agree with, it paints a pretty good picture of all the health and social problems leading up to this situation for a lot of people. It also shows how the health of the previous generation can cause havoc on the current generation, a problem which I'm dealing with now. If we improve physical and mental health over the next couple of generations I think there will be a massive shift away from this failure mode. The problem is that those services are being cut as is the education that supports them. So we're screwed. Also a 4 year cycle on government before someone comes and erases progress or long term goals instantly and just burns a mountain of cash doesn't work either.

jamiegreen 9y ago

Time for UBI?

javajosh 9y ago

Government everywhere has a massive usability problem. Ignore the policies themselves, ignore the values they represent, the relationship between citizen and government should be easy and coherent. The solution here is, actually, better software. It's the difference between the law and the way it is enforced. If surveillance capitalism has taught us anything, it's that people will put up with almost any policy as long as it's easy. We should use this knowledge to build interfaces to government programs. Indeed, I foresee a time when one's smartphone keeps all your data, and a "government program" is literally a program that runs on your phone and lets you know, proactively, if you are eligible, and enrollment is one click away. We can and should incrementally approach this goal in all our work.

coldtea 9y ago

Well, in the US you'd have already lost everything and been homeless just for the medical bills of your mother, let alone your father later, and you after that.

vonmoltke 9y ago
That's an inflammatory mischarachterization of the situation in the US. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it is not common enough to qualify as a "would".
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 9y ago
  Not common enough? It's the most oft-heard story, and the most common complaint about the health coverage system there. A single accident/illness can deplete your savings account and/or send you homeless. Heck, I personally know people were that happened, and I don't even know that many people there. Here's how common it is: (...) Nerdwallet estimated that 57.1 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills, making it the leading cause of the financial calamity that often precedes homelessness. Although the tipping point is often the loss of a job, sickness or injury often precede it. Sickness and injuries make holding a job difficult, which leads to income declining and homelessness for those without a safety net. Due to the mostly employer-based health insurance coverage system in the U.S., no job means no health insurance. The combination of unemployment and poor health can then lead to financial ruin. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/how-health-and-homelessness-are-connectedmedically/458871/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/how-hea... I just returned from the annual conference of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, where the link between medical bankruptcy and homelessness was made more clear than ever. (...) Illness and medical bills were linked to at least 62.1% of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Based on the current bankruptcy filing rate, medical bankruptcies will total 866,000 and involve 2.346 million Americans this year – about one person every 15 seconds. Most medically bankrupt families were middle class before they suffered financial setbacks. 60.3% of them had attended college and 66.4% had owned a home; 20% of families included a military veteran or active-duty soldier. 78% of the individuals whose illness led to bankruptcy had health insurance at the onset of the bankrupting illness; 60% had private insurance. 69% of debtor families had coverage at the time of their bankruptcy filing; 60% of families had continuous coverage. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/28/747432/- https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/28/747432/-

dm319 9y ago

I know most people here are fairly well-paid, intelligent and many are well-adjusted and stable. But it'd be mistake to assume this happens to other people. Sometimes a series of unfortunate events (lost job, lost child, lost marriage) trigger a series of events, helped by alcohol and poor-decision making and resulting in homelessness and poverty. When I lived in Oxford I came across a book put together of mini-interviews of the homeless there - their stories. It really surprised me how many of the biographies started off with a well-paid professional job with a happy family and spiralled out of control.

adstr123 9y ago
Do you happen to remember the name of that book/any details? I'm from Oxford and would like to have a look at that
- dm319 9y ago
  I can't find it at home, but came across this website, I think it's related. http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/
malmsteen 9y ago
Any reference ?
- dm319 9y ago
  Not saying we shouldn't be concerned unless this can happen to us, but a brief google turned up these[1][2]. I didn't find many stories that started out as professionals, apart from someone who did law at university then couldn't find a job. But the stories are interesting. Might have to dig out my book which is somewhere at home. [1]http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ http://www.oxhop.org.uk/ourvoices/mystory/ [2] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-one-woman-went-professional-11371566 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-one-woman-went-pro...
dazc 9y ago
A bout of depression or a series of unfortunate events can certainly put you into a tail-spin that's difficult to get out of. I've been there; it's like you know what you need to do but something is weighing on you with such a force that it can be very difficult to fight against. Ending up on the streets with nothing is a natural conclusion and what happens then is partly a test of character and partly luck. For many it's the end of the road.

michaelmrose 9y ago

How this would have looked in the US. * Relationship with girlfriend breaks up and you move in with parents. * Parents medical bills eat up everything they have and more when they pass away their creditors swoop in to take anything that's left. * You are kindly told you will be moved to the street so you get a job. Your part time job pays enough for you to crash on a couch or at best maybe rent a room somewhere if your lucky. * When you get attacked you have no insurance so you now owe $5000 which you have no way to pay and a prescription for opoids. * You apply for disability but get denied. No help is forthcoming. You quickly lose your place to live about 3 days after the rent is due. Nobody cares why you can't pay. Your address is now the street corner where you stick your pile of dirty blankets. * Due to your financial situation and eviction you will never be able to rent anything without substantial money up front and nobody wants to hire you. * After the initial perscription(s) of opoids wear off you now have pain AND an addiction unlikely to be satisfied legally. You turn to panhandling and use the money to buy heroin. * You get a dose that happened to be cut with something far too strong and nobody realizes your dead until someone complains about the smell.

abandonliberty 9y ago
In Vancouver, maybe around 1/10 homeless people die per year from overdose. So for quite a while, this is how the second-last step looks: * Your frequent ambulance trips and incarcerations now cost society around $200K/year, far more than social support ever would. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/one-homeless-person-costs-171-000-a-year-1.365403 https://bc.ctvnews.ca/one-homeless-person-costs-171-000-a-ye... http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-homeless-population-increases-to-4000-people.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-... http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-homeless-population-increases-to-4000-people.html http://www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2017/02/27/vancouver-...
- notabee 9y ago
  It probably costs something near to that in the U.S. in emergency medical costs, incarceration, and other civil services to deal with the problem, except we won't try to get them rehab help or preventative care because...bootstraps or something.