Waiting lists....

I have lived where I live now for five and a half years. Six weeks before that my local council placed me on the housing waiting list. Due to fact that I am a single man and have no children I qualified to be on the list, but was not deemed to "be in priority need".

I feel I clearly understand this. It's bloody obvious that a single man in his forties is not in as MUCH need of housing as say, a single woman in her twenties with a toddler. Don't get me wrong, housing is a basic human need, we all need a roof over our heads.

I found out the other day, courtesy of Ken Livingstone in the local press, that the number of people who are on my local authority housing waiting list number 15,500. Is it any wonder that in the five-and-a-half years that I've been on that infernal list I've not heard a dicky-bird from my local council?

In the 2001 census the population of my north London borough was put at 202,824. Local estimates and surveys place a higher figure on that now. A study by the local council estimated it to be 223,171 in 2007. So I console myself with the thought that there are plenty worse off than me on that waiting list of 15,500.

Have you had similar experiences? We would like to get a picture of what it is like to be on the housing waiting list. Please post your comments below.

Being me

Being unemployed is a very easy word to say but hard situation to be in. It’s a state of living that no one wants to be in but a lot of people are.

I’ve been unemployed for about a year and a half. I have been looking for jobs everywhere but there are none to be seen. Well, I am a student so it doesn’t really matter. On the plus side I do get the odd £30 a week from Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), which this government is trying to get rid of.

But if you look at the surrounding parts of my life, not having a job is just the beginning of my desperate need of help. My mum is currently raising six children in a three-and-a-half bedroom house, and when I say three-and-a-half I mean the fourth bedroom is not even big enough to fit a single bed. On top of that she also attends college three days a week from 9am till 2pm, so a job is out of the question.

My step dad is 60 and retired, but wants to work again so in the near future he can start his own business; however the irony is that when my mum’s gone to college he has to baby-sit.


My aunty works Monday till Friday as a dinner lady but she doesn’t make nearly enough to help her with bills and to look after her 7 year old son.

I’ve got a set budget that I spend every week. As follows:
EMA payday- remember, EMA does not always come at a set date and it is not 100% that I will get it every week.
· Bus pass - £6.50
· Contribute to electric meter - £7
· Credit on my phone - £5
· Money that I save - £5
· Toiletries (deodorant and soap) - £3
· Cigarettes - £3

PROFIT-50p, LOSS-£29.50

So do you still think being unemployed is easy to say when you only live on 50p? Somehow I am still living. Sometimes I think of dealing on the other hand of the law but I don’t think I would be good role model to the younger generation in my family.

Being me is a way of life. Being me is being broke and angry. Being me is having to walk from Walthamstow to Clapton when you don’t have enough money on your Oyster (transport for London bus passes). BEING ME IS BEING UNEMPLOYED.

Bah, Humbug!

Christmas is undoubtedly the time of year when it is easiest to feel inadequate and shittiest about yourself if you are unemployed.

Bear in mind I'm not a parent so it's not even a question of letting down sad-eyed children on the big day.

I'm a bit of an atheist so the religious aspect of the day kind of passes me by.

My big sister has got loads of children, some of whom are grown-up with children of their own. Her old man is a trained chef (although he no longer works as one). So, as I'm sure you can imagine, they have all the right ingredients for a proper Christmas.

Absolute pandemonium Christmas Day morning; children of all ages running to-and-fro, making all manner of noise. A big Christmas lunch. Lots of TV. Enough children around all day long to ensure lots of bickering and falling out. The whole nine yards. An ideal Christmas Day.

I know this because I've been up to visit for Christmas in the past. It's guaranteed chaos but it is also guaranteed to be a good time.

But I won't be going this year. It costs nigh-on sixty quid to travel up there, and that's using National Express, to travel out of London. This is without buying any presents. I'm a great uncle six times over, so that's six little kiddies who wouldn't understand. So I'll keep away, feeling inadequate.

Moving on up

I’m at the job centre. My adviser tells me that I'm going to be put on a 13-week programme. “This programme aims to prepare you for employment and help you find work.” Since when did I become a mind reader? I knew my adviser would say those specific words. I've been told that ever since I have been claiming jobseekers allowance but there hasn’t been any progress.

Starting the 13-week program, I wasn’t sure what to expect. My first thought was this would be a waste of my time. It was going to be like the jobcentre. Walking into a room full of people with gloomy faces and downbeat attitudes, I thought this was a depressing atmosphere. I just felt like I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but here.

After the first four or five weeks on the programme I met the placement officer. I was told that after being on the programme for a while I would be sent on work experience. The placement officer was really nice and supportive. When I said I wanted to be a writer I wasn’t put down like I was at the job centre or told I wouldn’t make it.

The placement officer referred me to Poached Creative (a writing and design company for charities and the social sector). She told me that if I worked hard a lot of positives would come from this opportunity.

I joined as a trainee at Poached Creative. I was there two days a week. I actually got a taste of what it was like to be a writer in a working environment. It was so much better than sitting in a room full of computers and job searching all day, which I had to do for the three other days of the week.

I feIt I was, for once, moving forward in my life. Learning new things about the creative industry, picking up new skills. This was a whole new experience for me. The people at Poached Creative were very positive and supportive. I felt that this would be a chance to really show what I have to offer.

It was getting frustrating, sending out dozens of CVs to employers. Not hearing anything back. Here I was actually learning new things and getting a taste of the real working environment.

Coming to the end of my six-week training programme, I got offered a job at Poached Creative as a junior writer. At first it took me a while to get my head around it. I didn’t expect to get a job out of it.

After a couple of days I got back to them. This would be my first ever job; I’d be doing what I wanted for a long time. I was excited. I eventually got back to Poached Creative and took the job. For me a job offer like this doesn’t come every day. I’d be crazy to turn this offer down and I would regret this later.

Cockroaches!

I have got false teeth - only three at the front, a result of an accident on a pushbike. Night-time I put them to soak in water, in a little yoghurt pot on the side. This is on the dentist's advice to stop them from becoming brittle. The other morning I went to take them out of the pot only to find a cockroach floating in the pot right next to my false teeth, gross!

These things get everywhere. There was the time I was at college and I saw this big, shiny, brown, cockroach scurry across the carpet. I pointed this out and one of my fellow students shrieked. It was only on the lunchbreak that I realised I'd probably brought the thing along in my bag.

I have lived in London very nearly 26 years and in that time have had 11 addresses. That doesn't sound too bad, except on closer reflection four of those addresses lasted 22 years which means seven of those addresses lasted four years.

As I'm sure you can imagine these have varied hugely in quality. Of those 11 addresses, there's only been two premises that have had cockroaches. I think we all know that they say that cockroaches would survive a nuclear war.

Where I live now and have been for five years, is infested with cockroaches and I can hardly blame the landlord. Regular as clockwork, the bloke from the pest control people comes round and sprays some chemical gunk under the sink in my room and he visits every single room in the entire building.

The thing I wanted to mention is we get used to what life serves us up, we become inured, we become immune. This isn't right. But it is what you become accustomed to, so even though I now know more than I want to know about the life of a cockroach: I have seen them mate, I know how big their eggs are, I know the places in my room where they like to congregate, I even know that on occasion they will bite humans, I just shrug and put up with it.

People don't choose to live second class lives, but they come to understand sometimes they have no other option.

Money, money, money

My fortnightly outgoings:


£50.00 - rent surcharge.
£22.50 - fags (3x£7.50, 2 ounce packets of rolling tobacco, duty free).
£10.00 - Money owed to my friend round the corner. (Nine times out of ten I owe my mate money).
£2.00 - Rizlas and filters.
£5.00 - phone.

Total spend - £89.50.

Given my fortnightly payment for jobseeker's allowance (JSA) comes to £130, the balance to last me two weeks is £40.50, this works out at slightly less than £3.00 per day.


I'm not angling for your sympathy here. You can call me scrounger, you can call me a lifestyle benefit claimant. You can think what you want. You can think I lie in bed til lunchtime every day and then get up and watch Neighbours. You can think I belong on the Jeremy Kyle Show. You can think I smoke too much. You can think what you want.

This is not a lifestyle choice, this is not enough.



£3 per day - how much pocket money do teenagers get?


As our cousins across the pond would say, you do the math.

Time management skills

I think most of us realise that you mess the dole office around at your peril. For instance, if you don't sign on when they've asked you to, you run a serious risk of not getting your money. This is hardly surprising and it's guaranteed to take much grovelling and a kosher excuse to ensure that you do get your money, albeit a few days late. I guess that this isn't especially onerous, after all they only ask you to turn up once every two weeks!

Photo courtesy of Basher Eyre and licensed
for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

I sign on on a Monday at three-ish, which is hardly a struggle. A couple of months back they were asking me to sign on at 9.30am and travelling at that time of day is just.....worse. It's swings and roundabouts though; now, mid-afternoon, I always catch the schoolchildren and loud teenagers, who I find a little scary. The girls strike me as louder and scarier.

The other day, six days before I was due to sign on, the dole office rang me. They said I had to come into their office at 9.30 the next morning for some reason or other - I wasn't sure why, I'd tuned out by that point to be honest, but I'd written down the time and assured the woman that I'd be there.

So, up and out the next day quite early (quite early for the unemployed - as you know we have quite leisurely mornings) to walk to the dole office. I was walking due to the fact I can no longer catch the "free bus" because London Buses have discontinued the bendy bus on that route. This has inevitably led to a fitter local populace.

At the dole office I queue up, give my name and NI number and tell them about the appointment. "No sorry, Mr. ......no appointment for you here on my list." I knew that the woman who rang me the day before hadn't done so for her own entertainment and knew the consequences for missing an appointment meant that they would bugger up my claim and I'd not get the money due next week. "Could you please check on the system for me?" I asked. Much huffing and puffing and then the receptionist bod nipped behind the screen to ask one of her colleagues to look me up on the computer.

Then the landlord rings me up. I live in a bed and breakfast that has two managers; a kind of good cop, bad cop arrangement. This was bad cop in his usual shouty mode. Everyone who lives in the bed and breakfast pays a surcharge, if you're on jobseeker's allowance this is 40 per cent of your money. I always pay the day or the day after I get my money. I tried to assure Mr Shouty that I had done this, as usual, then explained where I was, he shouts that I must come back when I have finished at the dole.

By this time the woman who has looked me up on the computer is standing there. I explain the nature of the phone call to assure her I wasn't being rude. "Sorry Mr. ...... I can find nothing about an appointment, what was it about?" Obviously I feel a lemon because I can't tell her (I wasn't paying attention on the phone the day before). I mumble that I'm not too sure, look suitably sheepish and ask if I can have a receipt to say that I have visited the office for this appointment that now doesn't appear to exist. I am asked to wait and the woman goes back to her computer. A quarter of an hour goes by and the woman returns. "Sorry sir I can find no record of an appointment so I can't really give you a receipt, you could ask at reception."

I rejoin the queue, (at the back) it is now nearly 10.30. At 10.50 I patiently explain my situation all over again to the same woman I had spoken to at 9.25 and point out the last thing I want to do is mess up my claim and stress that this would be inconvenient for everyone as it would involve new appointments. The receptionist sighs deeply and says she'll see what she can do and disappears round the screen to speak to her colleague again. I go and sit down and wait, again. After another quarter of an hour this woman comes back with a slip of paper - my precious receipt. I tell her thanks very much and am apologetic for giving her extra work to do. I get out at 11.35. Something that should've taken maybe twenty minutes at most has taken over two hours and I have managed to piss off two of their staff.

All of this is normal for the dole office. If they were in any other line of business, they'd go bust within three months or sooner, and we'd all take our business elsewhere. Except we can't. We're a captive audience, to staggering levels of inefficiency and piss-poor organisation.

So I get back to the bed and breakfast and Mr Shouty says: "Sorry, I was reading the wrong line in the book, you're OK with your rent." I trudge upstairs and sit down, it's 12.15. What a complete waste of everybody's time. I'm worn out. Next Monday I sign on as per with my little receipt tucked inside my signing book. Nobody says a word about the appointment that never was.