To think it won't be long before we have workhouses again?

[MrsTawdry]

I really know very little about politics but I know that there's a proportion of people who love benefits bashing and love abusing those who receive housing benefit etc.

It occurred to me recently that one "answer" to the housing crisis might be a sort of "Housing Centre" ....basic blocks of flats sort of thing...where occupants lose a portion of their JSA in return for a roof...and from there it's a step to being given food vouchers as part of benefits and working on a voluntary basis....litter picking etc.

Could this happen? Could a government legislate and make this happen?

I just read that though some disagree with when workhouses were phased out, some say it was during the 40s when the National Health came into being and old workhouses became hospitals.

Many accounts of older people in 20s/30s/40s and beyond being terrified of the hospital. I was reading some recently. Someone posted here last year saying they remembered their gran having that fear (that if they went in, they wouldn't get out).

Even now Betty?

Yes. My Nan didn't like the idea of hospitals. She grew up literally in the shadow of a big workhouse.

Brighton General was a workhouse too.

Interesting isn't it? Almost as though they need to be out of living memory before a gov't can try anything similar

This is exactly what divide and conquer achieves though.
It might not be as bleak as it was in the past because they were awful places lest we forget the many who died in there.
It is scary when you look at the social propaganda of the past, not just the poor, but single parents/unmarried mothers, mh, disabled, pensioners.
The vulnerable in society were treated like shit and society allowed it because they were fed a load of shit.

Yes...but they're not out of living memory in a way. My Nan told me all about them...I know they're not my memories but they sort of are aren't they?

But the masses...those people who shout "Why shouldn't THEY work for what they get!??" seem to have awfully short memories.

I read that there have been a lot more deaths due to benefit sanctions than we hear about too.

Bollocks is it 'juvenile'to bring up cuts to HMRC, of course it's relevant. Just because it doesn't fit with your political agenda doesn't make it 'juvenile'. That plus lack of political will ( the Chancellor keeps some of his family holdings in the Channel Islands, no wonder he isn't expending effort to deal with it) means nothing is currently being done. Perhaps the government should lobby the EU, instead of protecting the interests of those in the City of London? I'm not holding my breath.
The only pressure is being applied by grassroots organisations that are trying to raise awareness, and make tax avoidance and evasion morally repugnant in the eyes of the public, through protests and boycotts.
If you shrug your shoulders, say 'it's ever been thus', and accept this shitty situation, then nothing ever changes at all. Meanwhile, the screw on the poor and disabled gets tighter and tighter.

I know they're not my memories but they sort of are aren't they?

True

Unfortunately, IDS is a cunt. He's a cunt for ideological reasons too. All that 'what about the poor?' hand-wringing while in opposition, all the time planning his neo-Victorian punitive bullshit.

@ Random

But he's such a role model. He bravely survived redundancy with just grit and a millionaire FIL to fall back on

Arsenic - yes

IDS is not just a bastard, he's incompetent as well. The introduction of Universal Credit has been a fiasco, it's cost hundreds of millions so far. Anyone in any other sphere would get the sack, but not him. Add this to the billions spent on the Health and Social Care Act, designed in the back of a fag packet by that lunatic Andrew Lansley ( who even the Tories have practically disowned).
The Right in this country are forever disparaging anyone who talks about social justice as wanting a 'magic money tree'. It's amazing how they can produce such a tree when they have one of their bizarre ideological 'introduce at all costs' meltdown, or when we need to bomb someone. It's money no object then.

St James' in Leeds was built next to the old workhouse, too.

Doing genealogy, I found some old Poor Law records. One orphaned 12 year old was denied 'outdoor relief' (dole) because, the church worthies decided, she was "perfectly capable of finding work".

Ancestor of mine died in the workhouse hospital. Many working class people did especially if they lived to be elderly. If you went senile or were in the final stages of cancer - of your kids, who'd be able to afford to give up work to look after you? This man worked hard all his life.

I'm sure our government would love the OP's "Housing Centres".

I do think social housing should now only go to working people on minimum wage or close to it, having seen the arseholes my local council is now rushing to the top of the waiting list. But that's as close to Scrooge as I intend to get.

While we're in the same ballpark, this still needs signatures;

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/re-think-pre-paid-benefit-cards

I do think social housing should now only go to working people on minimum wage or close to it, having seen the arseholes my local council is now rushing to the top of the waiting list. But that's as close to Scrooge as I intend to get.

Do you mean not to better paid tenants or not to the unwaged Joff?

Random, if it's any comfort my bestmate used to work at the Houses of Parliament and took me behind the scenes. Her boss's office was along the way from IDS's. I found a biro on the floor right outside his office door - and I took it. ;o) That'll teach the bastard. (Not that I'm convinced any tory alive can read or write so he probably lobbed the pen as he didn't need it or wanted to claim a new one on expenses).

I'm all for not just making the wealthier MPs live in a tower block but actually ending their expenses entirely. Those who have stocks and shares and money and fingers in various ££££ pies. Should not get a penny of our taxes for their rent boys and oranges or whatever they spend it on these days. Those who have fought their way up to becoming MPs from having 'normal' jobs and being in the real world where they don't own a portfolio of property and daddy isn't a millionaire - should get a minimal amount, comparable to anyone else doing an office job in London, say.

Joff, fight the power!

I like the towerblock plan.

THEN:- Make all MPs compulsorily register on homeswapper and don't let them turn down reasonable offers . That would mix things up nicely

So what happens if they lose their job Joff Do they then lose their home too?

What's wrong with a block of flats to house people who need housing?
I'm also failing to see what is so bad about picking litter if long term unemployed. It;s still work and getting yourself out there.

Would you be keen on living in a gulag then Sally?