Dear readers, it’s Thursday again. I hope that you’re all ok and doing your best to survive the cruel DWP system.

Today was a busy day and we helped lots of people. The food parcels went straight away as usual, it’s awful that it is this is happening in the first place. The governments persecution of poor and disabled people is never ending isn’t it and there’s an endless pot of money available for it as well.

I’ll try to be as brief as possible and as usual I won’t divulge the identity of anyone that I spoke to today out of respect.

We spoke to lots of people with varied problems and concerns, not one of them told us that they liked the system and nor is it helping them either. Most of the people that I spoke to also expressed their concerns about how much more worse off they are now. Basically it’s extremely hard to manage and it’s even worse when it’s winter and they have to find extra money to heat their homes.

Most of the people that we spoke to had or have had confusion and problems with the system and this has resulted in them suffering financially which then also affected their heath and mental wellbeing. I truly believe that there are thousands of people now suffering with PTSD as a result of the pernicious DWP system, many people want to run and hide.

This brings me to a conversation that I had with a woman that has luckily now found a job. As I offered her a leaflet she expressed her concerns about the system and how vulnerable people are expected to cope. She herself found the computer application daunting and even she struggled with it and stressed that it would be near impossible for many people.

Later in the conversation she told me that she is a volunteer for The Samaritans and that she speaks to far more people that are worried about Universal Credit and PIP ESA assessments, in fact most of the people that she speaks to are concerned about this.

The reality is that more and more of us are questioning our own mortality and that of others, years ago it wouldn’t have really crossed our minds because we knew that we’d be ok and would get through any problems that we had.

The introduction of the new DWP system and the introduction of so called medical assessments has completely taken any hope away that they ever had and I’m not sure if we’ll ever be able to get over this.

We’re still having problems with the huge stairs to the Jobcentre, there isn’t enough signage to say that there’s a lift inside that people can use. I hope that this is rectified soon because disabled people are having to use the stairs leaving them exhausted.

Some of the conversations that we have with people can be very disheartening and concerning. I handed Liz a leaflet and I asked her if she was ok. She told me that she’d just had a tough time in the Jobcentre and I asked her why. Her situation is this;

Liz cares for her daughter who is disabled. Her daughter has to go into hospital for a sixteen hour operation, the date of the operation clashes with her next signing on appointment.

Liz asked if she could change the date of the appointment because she had to be at the hospital with her daughter.

Liz told me that she was treated awfully by her job coach and at first they denied this request so she had to plead her case, telling me that she was spoken to like rubbish and it was inferred that the Jobcentre appointment was more important.

Eventually her job coach agreed to changing the appointment date to wait for it…. The next day. No consideration was given for the fact that she’s going to be both physically and mentally exhausted.

It’s overwhelmingly obvious that the DWP don’t give a stuff, but we hope that the operation is a success. Their nothing but a bunch of heartless cowards.

Sanctions are still happening folks, I spoke to a young man that was midway through a long sanction. He had been ill with depression and he had given up on life. He hadn’t been told that he could appeal so I advised him that he could do so. He’s got another 18 weeks of his sanction left. Horrible isn’t it.

I had a conversation with a woman that I had recently taken to a PIP assessment. I thought that she had come to tell me about the decision about the assessment but no, it was further persecution from the DWP.

This morning she had received a letter stating that she has to attend a telephone compliance interview, failure to do this would ensure that her payments would be stopped straight away.

Whilst this is not unusual, I want to highlight this. The persecution of disabled people never ends and despite empty promises from Amber Rudd etc nothing really is changing. It’s hard enough being disabled combined with the worry that the DWP are going to stop your payments at any time is far too much for many to cope with.

Both myself and Gordon spoke to the family of an 87 year old woman’s family that are having problems trying to get a new bin for their mother. Basically what happened is this.

The family had arranged for the local council to have her bin collected from inside her garden and they bring it back to save her the job of collecting her bin. She’s unable to do this and this arrangement had worked well for ages.

This week however her bin wasn’t returned and it was promptly stolen so they went to the council offices to request a replacement. They were told that they wouldn’t be replacing the bin ad they’d have to pay for a new one.

I suggested that they contact their local MP who hopefully can rectify this.

Last but not least I spoke to a young man who us completely baffled by the system and had problems with both his DWP claim and his council tax. I advised him and signposted him and I really hope that he does get a resolution to this.

I can’t stress how important it is that we continue our work because it has proved to be essential. We often speak to people when they’re in a state of crisis and often shock and we will be returning next week to do the same.

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