I have known her for a long time and in desperation she asked me to complain to the council for her, in the hope that someone with an English accent might make more headway.
I was taken aback by the council official's response, reporting back on a visit by the landlords to the flat: "They stated that they witnessed first-hand that the windows were shut and they saw a pan on the hob boiling food and generating steam. As you are aware, this is not conducive to a healthy house and will have a negative impact on the property."
So the message is: if you're poor, don't presume to cook in your own home and don't even think about keeping your windows closed even if it's below zero outside and you can't afford central heating. According to council advice, steamy baths or showers, along with drying clothes after they've been washed, are also high-risk activities in a damp home.Well, yes. They are. That’s sound advice, because while she waits to get the long-term problem seen to (by the council), she’s contributing to the growing requirements for the mould she’s complaining about!
But…hang on! Just why should an English accent make a difference?
Hawa is a new refugee housed in temporary accommodation by a London borough, while she, her toddler son and baby daughter endure the ever-lengthening wait for a council property... Hawa's English is poor and she was robbed of the opportunity to get an education by the circumstances that caused her to flee her home country.Ah! Now the penny drops. Since we aren't told anything about Hawa’s origins, we can’t say whether a mouldy & damp council flat paid for with the taxes of citizens of this country is a step up in the living conditions she’s been used to, but I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that it is.
And that’s before we get to the whole ‘taken in by country after she fled for her life’ stuff!
The Victorians divided the poor into the deserving and the undeserving. That was bad enough. But this government views poor people as collectively culpable for the things they suffer. Those who succeed in society are applauded, whether or not privileges conferred on them by social class, wealth and genes eased their path.Hasn’t she already ‘succeeded’ in society by abandoning her country & coming here to live at our expense?
Fewer and fewer adjustments are being made to support those who have the misfortune to be born and to grow up without this cluster of advantages.This is not a landlord complaint at all, is it? It's yet another front on the Open Borders ideological war...
'Hawa is a new refugee housed in temporary accommodation by a London borough, while she, her toddler son and baby daughter endure the ever-lengthening wait for a council property.'
ReplyDeleteYup, and for some poor Brit the queue in front of them just got longer by another three drains on the taxpayer.
Anon. Correct. Those who paid in for decades but who get a perfunctory service from disinterested and often arrogant public sector staff now know where the money they paid in tax and National Insurance went to. It went to wasters.
ReplyDeleteIn many Labour boroughs there seems to be a two tier system for help from the local authority. If you are British and have paid in and done all the right things then you are treated like dirt. If you are considered to be a 'minority' or a criminal or a waster then you have an easy life.
I wonder how many safe countries the woman featured in this story passed through before she got to the welfare shangri-la which is the United Kingdom? It will be quite a few I bet.
"Since we aren't told anything about Hawa’s origins..."
ReplyDeleteShe has an Arabic name, so take your pick.
But I'd sure like to know how a woman with nothing but the clothes on her back manages to even reach these shores with two babies in-tow?