Taking food off the table for the working class.

An article posted today on BBC News UK highlights a report by The Children’s Food Trust into what children in British public schools are bringing in as a packed lunch. Using the accounts of teachers and school workers rather than actually go through the lunch boxes of kids, the picture painted by the report was not encouraging. Almost fifty percent of teachers said they had seen a change in pupils’ lunches as household budgets got tighter, while 84.6 percent said they had seen children who were coming to school without enough to eat.

According to the teachers’ personal accounts, some kids were turning up to school with a baggie full of cold chips and nothing else. Looking at the label of popular frozen chip brand McCain’s, a single serving of oven chips equal to 100 grams in weight provides the eater with 138 calories, 4 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of protein and 1.6 grams of fiber. A bag weighing just over 900 grams costs £2.00 at Tesco Online, so a single serve will cost about 25 pence. For a family of five trying to subsist on unemployment benefits or a single minimum wage earning parent, 25 pence per lunch might just be too good to resist, despite the consequences on a child’s health and well being. After all, 25 pence only covers about a third of the price of an apple. If given the choice between a bag of chips or a third of an apple, I know what I would choose if I was a hungry seven year old. 

Food has always been the mark of poverty and lavish wealth. On the one hand, we associate feasting and gluttonous abandon with the very richest of our society, but we also associate the ability to eat from the best producers and of the best quality with the upper echelons as well. Any one can tell you that Whole Foods really does have the best smoked salmon on offer in a high street chain, but these exclamations of admiration are often quickly followed with a caveat: “But I can’t afford to eat there!” Rather, if you are a student like me, you can afford to buy basic groceries, never organic, and rely on a handy halal cart or bagel shop to see you through the day on a budget. But even students have it easy. If you are an individual who is struggling through their week with only food stamps and unemployment checks to get them to the week’s end, then even this life style is mostly denied to you. 

Instead, you can try and shop the bargains at your local discount store and scrimp by with your food stamps. But believe me, eating healthily and food stamps are nigh on anathema to each other. Say your food stamp budget for a week is $68.88, and you have a family of four to feed. That is $17.22 per person per week. That puts a $5 street corner halal cart dinner immediately out of your price range. A Starbucks coffee would bring the budget down to just below $15, or the cost of a large carton of milk, a box of eggs and a loaf of bread. If you resist the coffee, as surely you must, then $17.22 per week gives a person $2.46 per day to live on. There are sports drinks that cost more than this. Even simple groceries like a large can of tomatoes costs on average $2.99.

When living in a situation where all of these factors, not to mention how to pay the rent, utilities, do the laundry, get your kid to school, keep them in clothing, pay for medicines when they are needed and all of the other little expenses like toothpaste, shower gel and toilet roll, the level of stress an individual comes under is often blinding. I feel so irritated when I see people who have never experienced the realities of living day in and day out on this kind of meager money bragging about their week or month spent “surviving” on food stamps. Often, the writer will crow about how well they did, managing to develop some excellent “cheap and cheerful” dahl recipes along the way. Now, I am not saying it is impossible to live on food stamps or benefits and eat healthily. It is possible, but it is also exhausting, time consuming, and takes a level of invention and resourcefulness that I can’t muster after a long day at work. 

The pressure of this socio-economic context is overwhelming for most people. When presented with the choice of feeding your child a large plate of processed, frozen, or take away food, or a tiny plate of prohibitively expensive salad greens, there is only one logical choice. Parents and carers don’t want the added concern of an angry and hungry child piled on top of their own day-to-day struggles. 

Contributing to this trend is the fact that in many inner cities, there just isn’t any other option but to eat cheap fast food for people who cannot afford to do their grocery shopping in small delis or high-end grocery stores. Instead, there is a planned food desert, restricting people to food choices that merely feed their unhealthiness, and their depressed social context. As a society we associate the people that eat regularly at fast food stations either as poor or as unhealthy. Often, the two stereotypes go hand in hand, the one affirming the other. And institutionally, it may well be doing so. With an unhealthy diet comes less psychological motivation for change, as it can lead to comfort eating habits and a lack of nutrition often results in a physiological effect on our bodies. At the same time, an unhealthy diet often feeds some of the largest urban killers in the country, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and chronic kidney disease. In Mott Haven and Hunts Point in the Bronx, one out of every six people has diabetes. Almost half live below the poverty line. The correlation between diet, health and economic status in such a stark situation as this cannot be ignored.

Studies such as the Children’s Food Trust highlight the problem, and by turning the focus on the accounts of teachers, it gives a legitimacy to the statistics we have learned as a public to brush off as yet another meaningless number. School is supposed to act as a refuge for children, a place where even if they don’t want to or don’t have the option of eating healthily at home they can do so within the safety of the school house. What we don’t need are more articles telling people “how to survive” on less than $3 a day and be vegan. We need to put in the infrastructural changes that take the pressure off the parents and the kids. Good food should not come with the stigma of the benefit hand out: the government needs to give children the opportunity to eat well, and without judgement, if it wants to change their attitudes to food and alleviate the pressure of poverty for them and for their cash-strapped parents’ sake. 

No place like home: Britain’s coming social housing crisis.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19429936

Courtesy of nhwnc.org. A squatter among her belongings.

The UK government announced today that squatting would become a criminal offense on Saturday, meaning squatters could face a fine or jail sentence if found on empty properties. Currently squatting is a matter for the civil courts. Landlords and owners can have squatters moved on and removed from property, but they cannot charge them with a criminal act.

The government claims the new law, which will allow a homeowner or landlord to appeal directly to the police to arrest the squatters and have them immediately removed, will protect these homeowners and “shut the door on squatters once and for all”. The maximum sentence would be 6 months in jail, or, if you can pay, a 5000 pound fine.

The bitter irony of the phrase “shut the door on squatters once and for all” cannot have been lost on those writing that press release. The problem is: all the other doors are already shut. These are vulnerable people who feel the need to trespass on private property and live there as they have nowhere else to go. It is often not the case that they want a free and easy life where they don’t need to pay rent or take responsibility for their own home. There is a commonly held view of squatters as unwashed hippies seeking the true communal off-grid living experience, or as freeloading gypsies and ne’er-do-wells. There is some truth here, but there is also a majority of people who have no choice but to squat in homes that are not their own. These people have the option of squatting, and having a roof over their heads in an otherwise empty and derelict space, or of sleeping on the street. I know which option I would take.

Now that it has become a criminal offense, hundreds of people will become immediately more vulnerable than they already are. Under threat of arrest and jail time, these people now have to turn to the streets. On the streets they invite yet more problems: living on the sidewalk comes with a higher instance of assault, theft and illness. It also comes with a higher risk of being arrested as a public nuisance.

There are many housing developments that lie empty in the UK. In the wake of the mortgage bubble, these ghost-town developments are too expensive for most people to afford to live in, and too far removed from resources such as supermarkets and recreation spots that even if you can afford the deposit, the place is not all that attractive anyway. The UK currently has a social housing crisis. With inner city social housing over crowded and creating a massive strain on public resources such as schools and hospitals, there is less opportunity for homeless people to enter into the social housing system in a meaningful way. With those eligible for housing benefits under close scrutiny as the government tries to make more cuts to the welfare bill, there is a distinct possibility that more people will soon enter the social housing system, and more importantly, that more people will become homeless. There are homeless shelters in Britain, and charitable organisations designed to pick up the tab, but there is not enough to account for our current homeless population, never mind one set to dramatically increase over the next couple of years.

When the numbers of homeless increase, so do social issues at large. Standard of living falls for the whole of society, as there are less people contributing and actively participating in it. And what then for our supposedly cost-effective government? A huge number of vulnerable and homeless people on the streets, needing far more help and support than they ever have before. Shutting people out doesn’t solve the problem of lack of affordable housing or of successful homeless initiatives. It merely perpetuates the problem and increases the strain on our public services. If the government wants a lasting solution, then actually acknowledging these people and bringing them further into our social system is the only way to ensure they will not fall off the grid again.

Let us not shut the door and leave hundreds on the streets. Criminalizing the homeless for their state is not the answer. Criminalization only leads to greater marginalization, decreasing chances of getting paid work or other employment. Employers don’t hire criminals, so why would they hire these people and help them out of their situation? We need a long term social housing boost to combat these issues, not to just close our eyes and pretend that they don’t exist.

 

 

Have we lost the taste for “boring” news? Gossip dominates in UK news audience wars.

Celebrity hang ups and musicians moaning wins out over politicians and current affairs in UK news popularity.

A recent study by YouGov across a number of European countries and the US found that Britains prefer celeb gossip and lifestyle news over the more “serious” current affairs.

Highlighting the relationship between production and consumer tastes, the study cited websites such as the Mail Online’s Femail as key to the trend.

Strike a pose. Courtesy of Mail Online.

Certainly, many of us would hold our hand up rather sheepishly when asked if we had accessed the Femail site. The strange allure of the blue right hand column on Mail Online’s homepage bewitches even the most sensible, somehow transforming an inane piece of non-information about Kim Kardashian’s latest VPL into something the reader just HAS to know.

However, it is worrying that the UK lags behind in terms on people reading or watching the news. Of those surveyed, only 75% of Britons said that they read the news each day. In contrast, 9 out of every 10 Germans reads the news every day. Of those Brits accessing the news, almost 85% of them got their news online via various websites and subscriptions. On one hand, the trend demonstrated the importance of Twitter and Facebook as a means of sharing information and broadcasting, highlighting the push towards social media as a powerful medium of journalism. It also highlighted the BBC website as a key factor in the number of people reading online, illustrating that it is not merely gossip and scandal that we Britons enjoy. By moving towards an online audience, news producers are starting to cater more selectively, encouraging more people to seek the information they want and are interested in via less conventional avenues.

The BBC website has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, demonstrating the growth of online audiences. Courtesy of BBC.

However, if more people are accessing their news online, the opportunity for journalists to critically analyse that information in a way that is useful and valuable diminishes. There is a higher chance of inaccurate or biased information reaching the reader before and on a higher scale than neutral and factual reporting. This could in turn lead to the polemicising of “normal” news outlets, such as the television bulletins and newspapers, as they seek to recapture their falling audience numbers.

There is also something to be said about instant access here: breaking news needs to be improved across the board if current affairs wants to keep up with what is actually considered ‘current’. Musicians and celebrities use mediums like Twitter to great effect when publicizing their latest happenings. Often I find stories breaking on Twitter across a number of news sites sometimes hours after the first mention. That lag in response time is just not acceptable any more. The study highlights that most people click links on Twitter and other social media when referred by a friend. In order to create the initial buzz, the publication time needs to be a lot faster or audiences will be lost in favour of the more instantaneous society news.

News anchor of the future? Courtesy Richmond Magazine.

Journalists need to take these trends and work with them in order to ensure that the information being made widely available on the internet does not contravene the standards of accuracy and value. Harnessing social media and the ability people have to quickly share information with huge numbers of people will enable some regulation, but more importantly, those offering news and current affairs need to look to their scandal-rag competitors and learn from their popularity. The reason why people enjoy reading whether or not Brad and Ange have got back together again following the traumatic death of a pet tortoise is not because of the information itself, but the dynamic way in which it is presented. Hard news doesn’t need to be “boring” and fall out of favour with developing technology. News and current affairs doesn’t need to lose any of its serious tone or value, but it does need to start giving in to the tastes of consumerism without losing its integrity if it wants to survive and grow. Journalists and editors across the board need to swallow the bitter pill and begin appealing to the mass market if they want readers and audience figures to grow.

Talkin Bout Ma Generation

Brought up in the boom time of the 1990s and the excesses of a Labour government determined to spend its way to success, you would be forgive for thinking that young people have a distorted idea of personal entitlement and individual opportunity. Young people were told that their education would be a lower price, more widely accessible and provide them with the necessary tools to secure a highly paid and exciting job at the end of the day. We would never be homeless, we would be supported in our every endeavour, and we would not be left, abandoned and struggling to survive in our rich and noble democracy. In reality, there are so few jobs that a quarter of 16-25 year olds are unemployed. In reality, more and more young people are turning to drug abuse, violence and petty crime as a way to pass the time. In reality, thousands of young people are facing the reality of homelessness and lives defined not by wealth of opportunity, but by terrible poverty and abandonment.  

Listening in shock and awe to David Cameron’s proposals for the new Conservative manifesto, I was struck by the deliberate targetting of the younger generations. The Prime Minister proposed taking housing benefit away from under-25 year olds and scrapping employment benefits for under-21s, citing a “culture of entitlement” that had led young people to believe they should be paid by the state to have many babies and live in a nice house in a good area without doing a day’s real work. These reforms would save the government hundreds of millions of pounds in welfare costs each year, should the cost of welfare remain static. When challenged on where these young people would go when they had lost tehir housing benefits, the Prime Minister glibly replied that they should just move back in with their parents until they could afford to move out permanently. The under 21s who would lose employment benefits should enter into training schemes or further education, or live with their parents and be supported by them. Not only would this put pressure on parents to encourage their children to go into employment and further education, but it may also keep young people at home and in school for longer. It would also remove all expectation that leaving home and starting a family you could not personally afford to support should be a viable option.

The reality, however, is not so rosy. Expecting people under the age of 25 to just move back into the parental nest creates pressure upon the individual and their family. Perhaps the individual’s parents are dead. Perhaps they had lived with a legal guardian or foster care organisation. Maybe they have a terrible relationship with their parents. And the parents themselves: what happens if they refuse? Perhaps they can’t afford to keep their child in adulthood; they may never have had a steady job themselves, or may even have become the latest casualty of the recession. Perhaps in the intervening time between the child leaving and then being forced to return, the parents have sold the family home and moved to a smaller one bedroom apartment, with no physical space available to keep another adult in. Hell, maybe they went to France to become onion farmers. Whatever the reason, the government cannto seriously expect under-25s who cannot afford to pay rent or a mortgage to automatically be able to move home.

It sounds great though, doesn’t it? Stop those 19 year old beenfit scroungers having babies to get more cash and put them back in the parental home to get a Proper Job. Justice will be done.  Certainly, to many traditional Conservative supporters, such a proposal seems like a great idea. Teach the hoodies a lesson, make their feckless parents pay for their sins in not bringing them up properly. More money will then be freed up and made available to those who have worked hard and deserve the state’s support in their old age. Many of these young people don’t vote, and if they do it is often not for the Conservatives. The youth support base for the party is relatively small, and this overall apathy is often exploited in policy decisions, leaving young people to face the consequences of decisions on their future without any real appreciation of what the realities of that future are.

Blaming young people for unrealistic expectations will not solve our welfare issue. The welfare state in Britain is unsustainable, true. But the move to blame young people, and then leaving older generations to choose between “us and them” in the cut backs is not a solution. If David Cameron’s proposals ever see the light of day in the legislature, then thousands could be left homeless, creating a new and wholly more challenging issue for the government to struggle with. Young people will never leave their home town, struggling to find employment in skilled or unskilled jobs within a specific locality dictated by the location of their parents’ home. And, even if they do make enough money to afford rent, how then can they help themselves to move out when there is a housing shortage, rent rates soar above general inflation and no one is building new homes? Even if they were to commute from less expensive areas, with fuel prices also hitting the high notes it is practically pointless trying to save money this way.

Suzanne Moore at the Guardian has written a brilliant comment piece on the issue of turning generations against each other in the face of financial and social hardship. The government has momentarily forgotten that young people will soon be those leading the country. If they want it to be a pathway out of recession on a long term basis, then they need to be prepared to drop this outdated notion of Towerblock Tracey and actually face the realities of a highly ambitious, over-qualified and abandoned generation trying to face up to a life defined by an employment, housing and social crisis not of their making. Of course Cameron’s reforms would cut the deficit, but they would wreak such damage on the economic and social future of our country that any hope of sustainable recovery will be futile.