You've Never Had It So Good....

TruckerT

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

.. and that reminds me of something written by George Bartley [an actual workhouse guardian in Ealing] in 1876...

Omigod are you really that old? Respect, man x

TruckerT

gazter

TruckerT wrote: »

Please define homelessness.

TruckerT

Government definition of 'accepted homeless'.

gazter

Southend1 wrote: »

I think if you speak to the individuals who make up the statistics you'll find that every case of homelessness is a tragedy and particularly bad in the case of rough sleepers. An increase of even one person is a bad thing.

You cant make government policy based on individual cases. A certain number of people will become homeless, a certain number of people will become rough sleepers. You have to use the resources to best manage this service.

You say it is a bad thing, but numbers are significantly lower than what would be considered normal.

Southend1

gazter wrote: »

You cant make government policy based on individual cases. A certain number of people will become homeless, a certain number of people will become rough sleepers. You have to use the resources to best manage this service.

You say it is a bad thing, but numbers are significantly lower than what would be considered normal.

I don't recall saying that you could make government policy on that basis.

Resources for managing issues linked to homelessness e.g. Addiction, mental health, physical abuse etc are being cut. This is likely to be one of the reasons for the increase in rough sleepers.

Indeed I do say an increase in rough sleeping is a bad thing. I challenge you to give me one good reason why it is good.

Going back to the original point: just because some people are worse off than others on average, doesn't mean there isn't hardship among the latter.

TruckerT

gazter wrote: »

Government definition of 'accepted homeless'.

Accepted by whom? It is hard to imagine anything more subjective than a Government Definition.

gazter wrote: »

You cant make government policy based on individual cases. A certain number of people will become homeless, a certain number of people will become rough sleepers. You have to use the resources to best manage this service.

You say it is a bad thing, but numbers are significantly lower than what would be considered normal.

Hamish expects the housing market to return to normality very soon. When do you think that the homeless figures will return to normal?

TruckerT...

Generali

Hmm. Interesting to note that some seem to want to argue that Britons are poorer than Guatemalans.

Yes, there are an unfortunate few in the UK. However, I would guess that almost every Briton is richer and has more possibilities in their lives than a Guatemalan at the same point on the income scale.

What do you think happens to mentally ill Guatemalans? Or unemployed ones? Or ordinary people that get serious physical illnesses.

I think some of you need to raise your vision to the wider world around you.

Graham_Devon

Generali wrote: »

Hmm. Interesting to note that some seem to want to argue that Britons are poorer than Guatemalans.

No ones argued that, have they?

Rather people appear to be suggesting it's all very subjective. This debate appears to me to be a case of comparing apples with pears.

Southend1

Generali wrote: »

Hmm. Interesting to note that some seem to want to argue that Britons are poorer than Guatemalans.

Yes, there are an unfortunate few in the UK. However, I would guess that almost every Briton is richer and has more possibilities in their lives than a Guatemalan at the same point on the income scale.

What do you think happens to mentally ill Guatemalans? Or unemployed ones? Or ordinary people that get serious physical illnesses.

I think some of you need to raise your vision to the wider world around you.

I haven't seen anyone arguing that here.

The point is that while an appreciation of the bigger picture is immensely valuable, one shouldn't lose sight of the detail.

Statistics, particularly averages, hide a multitude of sins.

Loughton_Monkey

TruckerT wrote: »

Omigod are you really that old? Respect, man x

TruckerT

Not that old, I'm afraid.

But since I have compiled an extensive family tree going back to 1645, I note that several of my kin were 'familiar' with the workhouse.

I particularly admire one particular ancestor who parked his wife in a Cambridgeshire workhouse and went down to London only to be found at the next census "married" to a different lady and declaring a "daughter" plying her trade as a box maker. [This miscreant was not on my 'direct line'].

My fifth great grandfather, however, was clearly claiming (or was identified as likely to claim) "parish relief" in the parish in which he was born. Despite that, they ruled him as having no rights of 'settlement' there and shifted him (under an official Removal Order) to another parish, together with his wife and four very young children.

I admit therefore, being directly descended from someone on benefits.

One of his grandsons (not on my direct line) was very adventurious and moved, of his own volition, from North Essex down to Loughton [An absolute coincidence] where he plied his trade as a gardener, until such time as he found himself in Hackney Workhouse. Rather strangely, his daughter married rather well into a 'gentleman' corn dealer and both her sons plied their trade as silversmiths, and even supplied surgical instruments to Lord Nelson. Despite this, they 'allowed' their grandfather to die penniless in Hackney Workhouse.

No family 'loyalties' there then!

For these reasons, I have tended to do a lot of reading about workhouses, poor laws, and poverty, and have concluded that nothing is new. In very round figures, 'benefits' were always a burden of every village's 'rich' people (farmers, shopkeepers, and landowners) and they found that benefit claimants had a good "nose" for which were the generous parishes.

This led to 'Removal Orders' where such "Benefits Tourists" were duly packed off to their parish of "settlement" [there were rules to define this]. This reduced the payments considerably, but still eventually created too big a "benefits culture" to the extent that laws were passed to disallow most "parish relief" in favour of building workhouses - on the 'thinking' that if they made these places bad enough, the idle would far prefer to get a job rather than pick rope or break stones for their living. No longer could they lounge around "outside" and get free loaves of bread or rent for their hovels.

This, as I understand it, worked a dream, until they 'over-did' it and courted so much bad publicity that various 'do-gooders' dictated that workhouses were hotbeds of cruelty, violence, abuse, and financial mismanagement by the guardians. It did, however, result in far fewer benefits claimants and allowed working people to go around unhindered by the poor huddled in shop doorways....

Rightly or wrongly, workhouses were disbanded in the early 20th century.

What goes around comes around. Little has changed, other than the percentage of people 'on benefits' continues to escalate.

Generali

Southend1 wrote: »

I haven't seen anyone arguing that here.

The point is that while an appreciation of the bigger picture is immensely valuable, one shouldn't lose sight of the detail.

Statistics, particularly averages, hide a multitude of sins.

What sort of sins? The implication is that there are poor Britons that are worse off than poor Guatemalans. It's just not true.