No furniture, no food, no money

debbie_debt

Hi Seven-day-weekend.

I'm a School Nurse, which means I work primarily in the field of child protection, and hence work quite closely with families with unfortunate home circumstances and occasionally have very little. The key issues I tend to support people with are:

- Domestic violence. A partner leaving with children to flee domestic violence will often have to leave with a bag of clothes, a few toys for the children and a few personal possessions. That's quite often it and they move into a refuge for a short period before trying to get back on their feet and starting again from scratch, leaving them in an empty council house with little money to start building up possessions.
- Substance misuse. This is more common than you'd think - it can become a downward spiral very quickly and leave people selling possessions to pay their dealer money which is already owed whilst still trying to find more money for the next hit. It's amazing how quickly a house can become completely empty when someone's desperate for money. I've even seen one family sell their carpets and kids toys to fund their habit.
- Prison. Recoving from an extended jail term can be very difficult. The poverty cycle usually starts upon release, when the person struggles to fit back into society, finds it difficult to present themselves appropriately in an interview situation/faces the stigma of having being in prison and therefore can't get work. Adhering to schedules for signing on and actively seeking work can also be a challenge, especially if they didn't attend any courses in prison which would've got them used to routines and boundaries. This then leads to failure to sign on and benefits stopping.
- Learning disabilities. I've supported many families with learning difficulties. Many can be fantastic parents but have, for example, absolutely no concept of time. Recently, many have been told they no longer qualify for disability benefits and need to start seeking work. This results in them struggling to maintain records of job seeking and keeping appointments at the benefits office. Being unable to structure a logical argument in demonstrating they are actively seeking work often sees them having restrictions placed on benefits for extended periods and living with no money. Again, possessions are often sold - and you'd be amazed how easily people will take advantage of those with learning disabilities and buy (for example) a sofa for a fiver, leaving them even worse off.


There could be many more reasons, but these are the most common I've seen in the last few years. I'd strongly suggest you look into some training to help you understand these issues. Your local Safeguarding Children Board delivers a lot of free training on issues such as substance misuse and domestic violence.

Hope this helps

Debbie

prepareathome

Something that might just help you understand why people allow themselves to use up every avenue of credit is the pressure that is put on you to have a good credit score.l There are quite a few diaries by people on the DFW thread which start by asking where else can they find credit to survive as outgoings not covered by income and they have used all the credit they can find but don't want to default because they don't want to damage their good credit rating. People are brainwashed into believing having a good credit score is the most important thing of all, not that they cannot manage on their income - usually through no fault of their own, illness or unemployment has cut their income, when they took out their original credit they had enough income to cover it.

I just wish someone would explain to people that a good credit score is not the most important thing in the world, not if you income has fallen and you cannot pay your debts, if they realised this I think a lot more people would then go for a DMP a lot earlier and end up in much less debt.

You sound such a lovely caring person who really wants to help people, Good Luck, please never get disillusioned, yes there are dishonest people out there but truly there are more honest ones, but I know in a job like yours its hard after time to be sure.

seven-day-weekend

Everyone's posts have been really infomative, thank you, I have obviously led a very sheltered life!

I have personal knowledge of the ex-prisoner's problems though. We had a guy live with us for a year who had these problems, he thought he was being 'shafted' at every turn by people like the Jobcentre because he was always getting warnings and sanctions and his money not going in on time, and we had to keep telling him that he had to stick to their rules and show up at the time they said, etc. We made phone calls for him to help him in these things and once even swore before a notary that he was not in a certain place at a certain time because he was with us (he WAS being fixed up on this occasion, but by the criminal fraternity he had disassociated himself from). I really believe that if we and others had not been there to help him he would have ended up homeless and probably back in prison. He got a flat down the road from us eventually and the church we belonged to got him furniture, he would not have had any otherwise.

So, there are many and varied reasons for having nothing - not just purely financial, sometimes social and medical too.

Thanks again, this thread is an eye-opener.