We are not a third world country. We are one of the most advanced countries in the world. It is utterly completely and totally wrong to expect ppl to live in this kind of situation.
Did you look at the pictures? Did you see the mould? Did you read the story of how Betty Broken has tried to do what she can to fix the situation for herself and her children?
She didn’t ask to be disabled or a single parent. She isn’t a feckless benefits scrounger (I’m not sure that there are nearly as many of them around as the Daily Mail would have us believe) and all she wants is a better life for her children and herself. Some dignity. Somewhere healthy to live.
She’s attempted to get her MP involved in the situation, to see if he can help sort out the mess she is in. He doesn’t appear to be being particularly responsive – which is a huge flaw in our parliamentary democracy. If you’ve got a good MP, they are fantastic. If you’ve got one who is more interested in his portfolio or his party, you are up the creek, because no other MP is supposed to take you on. That can’t be right, either, can it? Surely we shouldn’t have such a postcode lottery on housing or responsiveness?
But I don’t want to do the Everybody, somebody, anybody, nobody saga here. I’d like to work out if there is something specific I can do to help. I can’t pop round and scrub mould – there’s rather a lot of distance between here and there. I don’t have cash to send – and there’s a question as to what that could do to benefits anyway. I can’t get in touch with her MP for her – like I said, they can’t respond to non constituents. So what can I do? I can blog. I can tweet, I can facebook. And if that doesn’t get us anywhere, I’ll write letters.
I’m aware Betty Broken isn’t the only person living in this sort of situation in this country. And I think that’s absolutely awful. But I can only highlight the stories I know about, and I’m starting with this one.
Is there anything you can do to help?
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