Do they know its christmas?,women and children homeless at christmas

antrim | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Monday December 08, 2003 00:16 by Oona deathlist

Spare a thought for families homeless at christmas.
Half of all registered homeless people are women and children.
70% of all homeless people are women. There are over 300,000 people homeless. The great majority of people earning the minimum wage are women. Statistics from Shelter and the National council for One parent families.

Children are 75% more likely to grow up in absolute poverty if they live with a lone mother. This is because welfare benefits such as income support are set so low.
Women and children who are lucky enough to get into a hostel, must wait up to 2 years before being allocated a council house.
One lone mother's account of trying to escape the downward spiral of poverty, Is that of Charlotte Armstrong featured in the guardian article 'what an education'. Charlotte wanted a university degree, eventually a well paid job, a future for herself and her daughter, but everykind of obstacle blocked her path. Charlotte had initially wanted to take a low paid job, to support herself, but being a lone parent could not afford to pay for creche facilities for her daughter, after paying transport, living and rental costs. Charlotte then decided to do a degree, in order to get a well paid job to support herself and her daughter. As you would expect a university grant,doesn't stretch as far as covering child care, transport and other living costs. If you're living in private rental property, a university grant that can barely sustain one student, will not stretch to cover 2 people or a family, such as women and children. If you choose to do a full time degree course, you are not entitled to claim income support. As a lone parent you cannot take up a low paid job to supplement the university grant because you will have to pay for creche facilities in order to do the low paid job. Tragically Charlotte's daughter became desperately ill, forcing charlotte to discontinue her studies, 'my daughter needed me, more than I needed my exams'. Eventually Charlotte found herself and her daughter homeless, unable to juggle the rent, transport and child care costs. The establishment still believes that poverty is caused by reckless spending on superluous items rather than the trap of low welfare benefits, low wages and higher living costs. People live in poverty because they are deprived of opportunities, mostly the opportunity to go through education, whether or not they have children, and because most local employment is poorly paid often at the the minimum wage. The government has spent at least £8billion on going to war in Iraq, yet it claims that to pay decent wages to public sector workers would bankrupt the country. We cannot claim to live in an equal society when a third of children live in poverty.
These issues gave rise to Charlotte joining the Lone parent campaign group in Basildon, which raises support for localised, affordable childcare, the return of council housing, greater access for women with children to further and higher education, an end to mother and child homelessness, increases in income support and immediate support for victims of domestic violence.