AIBU to think this hardship payment is slightly unfair?

[RoseRedder]

An old friend of mine contacted me to ask if I would buy his asda vouchers from him so he could shop at farmfoods and put some money on his electricity meter.

It transpires that his ESA benefit has been stopped (no appeal) and he applied for a crisis loan however this no longer exist so was given a hardhip payment which was 2 cards for Asda each with £10 on that can be used for food (so no tobacco etc)

I had heard that this was being considered but I didn't realise it had happened?

Is this not the equivalent of saying benefit claimants can't be trusted, or I'm I reading to much in to it?

The other problem is he has no Asda within walking distance and no money to get the bus there and back to one (£3) but does have an Aldi, Lidl, farmfoods and Iceland close by.

Would it not make more sense to be able to use shops that offer more value for money?

YY, but lovely for ministers whose stables need heating, have to use hotels instead of going 1 mile to their London flat, and the owners of giant corporations ... they all need taxpayers' money so much more urgently than footsore families with hungry kids.

It's fucking awful. A trip to Asda for me (in the middle of a big city, not rural or isolated by any means) would mean 2 buses and a £4 return ticket. Which to me currently isn't much. To someone with nothing, it might as well be a million quid.

That has made me think too. I live in the middle of a big city (Nottingham) and I although there are 3 Asdas that I visit I could not walk to any of them.

Whilst I absolutely agree with most of the views on this thread and am equally despairing about the current situation, I must point out that all social housing that is funded by the HCA has to meet at least the Code For Sustainable Homes Level 3 in order to be able to draw down the money. Within that are manadatory elements relating to energy efficiency, surface water management and waste management. Whilst they are always built economically, building regs and the code do require that certain standards are maintained and the requirements I see laid down by the HAs are very much with the occupier in mind. Sadly, the government are probably scrapping the Code, but building regs are being enhanced energy-wise. In fact, almost too well and over-heating is a challenge to be met.

They probably cheat round here, Debris. We have a notoriously corrupt council.

over-heating is a challenge to be met. - Man, I'd kill for that problem

You see, when my mum had me, my parents rented a reasonably decent place very cheaply in the middle of nowhere, which had a range to keep us warm and dry my cloth nappies, and my mum pushed me 3 miles there and back to a local food shop in a massive old Silver Cross pram with a big shopping basket underneath that she was able to buy second hand comparatively cheaply. You simply couldn't do that now. The place they rented has been knocked down and replaced with two modern houses selling for around the half million mark each, the local shop has gone, and if you haven't got a car around there you're buggered basically.

So I am not very sympathetic when people start banging on about 'in my day' because it many respects people between WW2 and about 1975 were much better equipped to get by, compared to how people have to try to survive on very little now.

Nothing to do with the Council - it's an independent assessment. Lots of HAs insist on things such as Lifetime Homes and Secured By Design, which they don't have to do. They also insist that the contractors have to design in the energy efficiencies rather than use removable solutions like photovoltaics, so that the occupiers can benefit for the life of the property. Lots of dodgy stuff goes on with property development (paticularly in the granting of planning permissions for the private sector), but the actual build of social housing is pretty good.

Anyway, food vouchers stink.

Debris, those regulations are pathetic when it comes to things like:

Where to hang washing to dry on a wet day
Storage of big prams and bikes with child seats
Possibility of charging electric bikes
Freezer provision for batch cooking

Even the so-called social and community space that is provided usually works on other people's terms - usually bland, characterless places you have to book, where in actual fact people would probably prefer a pub and a shop.

I spent a few years on the board of a Housing Association and I think the standards are good, but the implementation and build quality can often be as crap as the private sector (electrics, plumbing, brickwork, plastering, etc).

With you all the way, BoffinMum.

Isn’t it time that we stopped just pulling people out of the river, and instead, let’s go upstream, and stop pushing them in.

And garlicbaubles

Brilliant posts Boffin My mum is one for going on about "in my day"
My DH (23 yrs my senior) however says the same as you. That it was much easier back then.

Shyla- love that link, agree with every word, going to circulate it around my teams support workers on Monday.

Thanks scarlettsmummy. I am a Facebook and Twitter denier so it's good that someone can share these things.

I have sent it on already, along with a request that we provide soup and sandwiches at our group sessions starting in January.

You see, I could buy this, because being a driver and well off enough to afford petrol, I could collect in person, but how would you buy a cheap pram like this otherwise? Unless someone around the corner just happened to have one? And where would you park it at home?

Shopping friendly pram

The place I was born in, rented by my rather young parents on one wage, was recently sold for £285,000, or 15x the average national wage.

Seadevils I used to live 10 minutes' walk away from the hyson green one.(asda)
if I'm going to shop in hyson green, i'd sooner use the cheaper and better asian food shops, but if I had vouchers I wouldn't be able to.
)
I used to cycle there and back once a week with a rucksack.
i did have s bus pass but iwasn't on the bus route.

Again harking back to when DH got made redundant, didn't get redundancy as company bust but couldn't get JSA as company didn't give him his redundancy notice in writing...

HVs gave us formula. SS grudgingly gave us £20 Sainsburys vouchers threatening that if we asked again they'd consider the kids 'at risk'. Problem us Sainsburys was 7 mikes away, no direct bus and no money for petrol...

It took getting the MP involved to budge ANYTHING. Six weeks without a penny. DH got his first wage from new job before we got backdated JSA etc.

It is a 3 hour walk each way from my parents' former rented cottage to the nearest Asda
3 hrs 18 minutes from Tesco
6 hrs 12 minutes from Aldi
2 hrs 43 minutes to Lidl
2 hrs 50 minutes to Sainsbury
The nearest bus stop is 3.6 miles away.

TBH in the day of the internet can't SS just google people's postcodes and come up with a realistic arrangement for basic levels of support based on local geography? It takes all of about 2 minutes FFS.

And then SS wonder why ppl dont trust them Gobby. Im sorry you had to go through all that That was SHIT Hope things are better now

Yes that was 8 years ago now.
Mind you we're now entirely reliant on benefits, so that's a bit scary.

It's all a bit Ryanair, really, isn't it? Benefits administration. I can't really fathom why it has to be like that when you could probably run the DWP on the same budget and be logical about how rules and regulations are applied.