Homeless and hungry, tent couple bring their harrowing plight to No10
WALKERS in the Fulford Ings beauty spot near York have become used to small encampments dotted between trees.
Until recently, one of these modest homesteads – a small tent with two fly-tipped sofas and a makeshift washing area – belonged to Sue Rimington, her fiance Tony Carson and their dog Buster.
When Sue lost her live-in chef ’s job in a pub in York last winter amid serious health problems, she and Tony – who has a heart problem – went to the Jobcentre to find they now live in a Universal Credit area.
By last summer, the standard ‘fiveweek wait’ for help built into the hated benefit had tipped the couple from struggling to destitute.
“Before that we honestly believed there was a safety net for people like us,” Tony, 50, a web designer, says. “We’d worked 80-hour weeks in our previous jobs. But there is no safety net with Universal Credit.”
Sue, 52, shakes her head. “The irony is with Universal Credit you are never in credit. You are just always in arrears.”
Yesterday, the couple delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street on behalf of the End Hunger UK campaign – a network that includes Church Action on Poverty, the Church of England, the Trussell Trust, the Independent Food Aid Network and Child Poverty Action Group.
The petition was important because of who had signed it – 18,000 mainly foodbank users from across the country. “I hope the Prime Minister reads it,” Sue says, “and listens to what we have to say.”
The couple, who have now finally been rehoused by the council, had previously been in a hostel but were unable to manage payments because of problems with UC, and had nowhere to keep their beloved rescue dog. They ended up spending seven weeks living in the tent through one of the hottest summers on record.
“The heat really got to us,” Sue says. “We struggled with water. The nearest free tap at a local community allotment was a mile away, so it was a long
way to carry what we needed.” They were able to harvest some free food from the allotment too. “I don’t know how we would have managed without Sue being a chef,” Tony says. “She was able to recognise all sorts of things we could forage, and make meals from that and stuff from the ‘reduced’ aisle.”
The couple say they were aware of other people living on the Ings, by the River Ouse. “We found a chap collapsed on a lane near us,”
Tony says. “We thought he had died. When he woke up, he produced this big bag of swan mussels that he’d been collecting from the Ouse.
“He had just been smashing the shells and eating them raw because he was so desperate. We cooked him a meal, but the system is potentially killing people.”
Once homeless, Sue and Tony found their situation compounded by not having an address or electricity to charge their phones to keep in touch with the authorities.
“Universal Credit is entirely online,” Tony says. “But if you’re homeless you can’t charge your phone or afford to call someone. If you miss a message you’re under threat of being sanctioned.” UC is supposed to be a flexible benefit. “But when I managed to get some work one month, they took 63p in the pound out of our payment – but then they assumed we were getting that income again the next month,” Tony says.
Now the couple are housed, they are still struggling on a low income, with Sue signed off work after a back operation and with flare-ups of Crohn’s disease not helped by the stress. Tony is waiting for a heart assessment.
“Still, it’s all a lot better than being in a tent,” he says.
It’s taken five years but this week the Tories finally recognised the slow-motion car crash of UC, pouring in £4.5billion over five years through the Budget. The DWP points out these measures include “a twoweek ‘run on’ for those on legacy benefits and increasing the amount people can earn on Universal Credit by £1,000 before their payment starts reducing”.
A spokeswoman adds: “This is on top of the improvements we have already made.”
However, data analytics company Policy in Practice says low income households on UC are still likely to lose up to £7,500 a year. And Church Action on Poverty points out “by the time these changes take effect next autumn or in 2020, countless thousands more people will have experienced needless hunger, debt and anxiety”.
Sue has only recently found herself able to tell her grown-up children what she and Tony have been through. “I didn’t want them to know their mother was a failure,” she says. “But now I’m starting to realise it’s the system that failed.”
This week, the benefit rollout reached Leeds, Greenwich and more areas of Liverpool. Everywhere it goes, foodbanks grow and moneylenders follow in its heartless wake.
The Mirror has its own petition to fix Universal Credit – you can sign it at mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ stop-universal-credit-crueltypetition-13392101.
We’d worked 80hr weeks. We thought there would be a safety net