Last week, I reached crisis point.
It feels like this has been looming since I was sanctioned in 2013. Following my sanction, I struggled with depression and agoraphobia brought on by anxiety. I started overeating and put on weight. It’s been a long road back to work and full health - I now work part-time, but my income is not always enough to pay my bills. Bit by bit, I have been sliding into debt.
Then a delayed benefit payment due to a computer error led to bank charges, which put me overdrawn. When it came to going shopping I had no money for food. With no opportunity to get help from family I turned to my housing association. I was given a voucher for the local foodbank, but it didn't open for a few days so I had to wait. That afternoon, my electric ran out so I sat there in the dark, feeling very alone, with no food to eat, and memories of my sanction filling my mind.
I was sanctioned for not looking for work. Fair punishment you might think, but the reason I wasn’t job hunting was because I was doing a two-week training course in a neighbouring town, leaving home at 7am and returning home at 7pm. I had been instructed not to jobsearch or sign on during that time, but later another adviser disagreed. I lost my £71 a week Jobseekers Allowance for four weeks.
I went without electricity, heating and food for most of the sanction. It climaxed on Christmas day. I spent it watching happy families walk past my window, while I sat silently, dealing with diarrhoea and waiting for it to get dark so I could try to sleep. It wasn’t until I received a Christmas card from a relative with £20 in it that I was able to eat and buy electric for the meter.
Less than two weeks later, I was told by the same Jobcentre adviser that I needed to learn a ‘work ethic’ - something clearly not demonstrated by my 20-year work history. She put me on mandatory work activity – workfare – which meant working full-time for free for four weeks in order to receive my benefits. Effectively, I was being punished for being sanctioned. I didn’t argue with her. Instead I went home, emptied the bathroom cabinet of the various pills I had stored away and tried to end my life. Less than a year before I had been earning £35k at a university in London.
In the run-up to the Autumn Statement, the papers were filled with news about so-called JAMs. These six million families who are 'just about managing' will no doubt be hoping that the government will fulfil its promise to make their lives better. But there is another group of families who have lost that hope. They are the ones who have been on the receiving end of harsh cuts to their income, through austere welfare cuts. Most of them also work but live in fear that the government will make their lives even harder.
I am not alone in receiving a sanction. Since the Conservatives were elected in 2010 until June this year around three million individuals have received eight million sanctions. Some may have been able to overturn the decision, but more wouldn't. The 3m figure doesn't include family members – mostly children – who are also affected by sanctions. For children living in sanctioned households, schools and foodbanks have become a lifeline, with teachers reportedly using money meant for education to buy food and clothing.
Some people whose benefit entitlement has been cut turn to social media for support. When Lauren got a letter from the council to inform her that housing benefit was being cut by £103.99 a week because of changes to the benefit cap, she went online to seek help. However, what she got was hate from people who are themselves 'just about managing'. Too many people now see single mums who rely on benefits as unworthy of respect and are instead treated as ‘breeders’ who are responsible for their own misery.
I was lucky to receive a more positive response when I turned to social media last week. After a period of feeling sorry for myself, I wrote a blog post using my phone and wi-fi from a neighbour and was able to get enough support to overcome my immediate problem. But there are many people out there who don't have this luxury. Over Christmas last year 23,901 jobseekers and a further 3031 sick or disabled people were sanctioned, with many of those potentially spending that time living without food and heating. Others will not have a home at all and will have been sleeping rough.
Many families will be concerned about facing the biggest squeeze to their pay in 70 years, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies recently predicted - but another group will be worried about not having an income at all. Last week during a debate on cuts to Employment and Support Allowance, MP Ian Mearns highlighted a constituent who had been forced to heat soup tins with a tea light following redundancy. Debbie Abrahams MP recently brought attention to one of her constituents who suffered a heart attack during his work capability assessment, and was sanctioned for not completing the assessment. Benefit sanctions and austerity have forced many households into undignified situations in order to feed themselves and their loved ones. These families are not just about managing - it is much worse than that.