Dispossessed, according to the meaning ascribed to it by the Oxford Concise Dictionary, is someone or something which is physically or spiritually homeless or deprived of security. It comes from the French- de possesser- which literally means to take something off someone or something. In the strictest sense of the term, it means having nothing. I write this piece because I have always been taught that we should be careful how we define ourselves and each other- in my Caribbean tradition, speaking “on” someone or something, especially if the connotation was negative, was frowned upon- one should never willingly open one’s doors to a sense of the malaise, sometimes even if that malaise in fact exists. This is why us poor folks never swept at night- we would be sweeping all our "riches" out into the yard.
Like many other Londoners, I have been reading about the Evening Standard’s Dispossessed Fund and I too, am deeply embarrassed by the fact that this city of opportunity in which I live has allowed pockets of poverty and deprivation to exist alongside areas where flashy displays of obscene wealth is de rigueur . I have made a donation to the fund and I hope that others will too but by way of constructive criticism I have to admit that I have been reading along with a rude dose of discomfort which I will explain in this piece.
This is not because I deny that persons live in relative poverty in London, but because firstly, I am amazed that this is not already common knowledge. Secondly, I believe that the campaign has been watered down somewhat because the “real life” stories in questions do not really feature the people whom I know who are actually “dispossessed” if I use that term loosely. Thirdly, I believe that individuals who live in what I call “relative poverty” in a First World Country, with free access to health care, education and in most cases housing and relatively cheap food, are not dispossessed in the true sense of the word and should not be so labelled. I would suggest the term “disadvantaged”. Careful what we wish on ourselves.
In a lawyerly way, I will take these points in turn.
First, I am not surprised that poverty and the concept of the working poor actually exist and I am shocked that some people appear to be surprised. Maybe it is because I don’t live in the expected lawyerly up and coming areas of Hampstead or Angel. This is deliberate. The fact that I live in South London, which has no tube, is often perceived with a mixture of wry amusement and brief confusion by my colleagues. I have been told I need to be closer to work. For what? I love where I live. Apart from the fact that I need to live somewhere where I can buy plantains and yams and green bananas and locking gel when those pangs of nostalgia hit like a crazy bitch on crack, I get to see and talk to people who are struggling to get by every day- from my drycleaner whose immigration matter is under appeal, to the Cockney market sellers who sell fruit a pound a bowl on the weekends, to the woman who spends her Saturdays raising funds outside Lewisham shopping centre so her son could have a new prosthetic leg every two years. It gives me a rock solid sense of perspective. Yes, the tower blocks in Peckham and Elephant & Castle are within extremely close proximity to East Dulwich, and the depravity of Deptford lies only a stone’s throw away from Roka and Smollenskys and Carluccios in Canary Wharf. Did people really think all of London went to the theatre and plays in the evening after supper at Pizza Express? I would posit that the cause of the London poor is not new and the yuppies pretending that they have just noticed this are just as bad as commuters who fail to meet hungry buskers’ eyes just because they can’t be bothered to stop and open their purses and wallets to find a one pound coin.
The London Living Wage has always been a cause I have believed in and will unwaveringly support. If a business cannot afford to pay its employees a wage that they can live on, it should not be in business. End of. The stories of people like Sandra Sanchez should send a stiff jolt up the ass to all employees who moan about pay freezes in this economic climate. Present it how you may, a derisory £5.80 per hour in London is not by any means enough for any individual to earn an honest day’s work.
However, while I am grateful for the fact that London is finally sensitised that there are people existing solely on the minimum wage and that companies should be paying employees a living wage, I am not sure that the Evening Standard or Cohen went far enough in its search for London’s true “dispossessed”. He cites the stories of cleaner- immigrants who start work at 4:30 am in the morning, travelling in on London’s nightbuses and who return home by 10 and who sometimes do a second shift from 10 pm. Is an early shift a sign now of being dispossessed? As a student, I did many an early shift with a friend’s cleaning company to earn money. What of the “hairdressers” in Peckham who work in excess of 20 hrs (I am open as long as you come to do your hair), who have no guarantee of receiving even the minimum wage on a day to day basis because rent needs to be paid for their chairs, electricity and products? They come to work on a diet of little more than rice and eggs and stand all day, pleading with potential customers for work. 75% of their income goes towards unscrupulous bosses and sometimes, they do not make more than £100 a week.
The Evening Standard then tells us about Vincent Maduabueke who could not raise nineteen pounds for his UCAS application and who has never visisted a restaurant in his entire life. They hit closer to home here but again, the story falters. Vincent is in receipt of benefit from the State at £1560 per annum. That equates to 30 pounds a week. Surely, if he really wanted to, he could have saved 40p a week to come up with the money for his UCAS application himself? What about my friend in Catford who is not entitled to benefits, who had to drop out of his carpentry apprentice course because he couldn’t afford the fees, and who had to find work as a cleaner in a theatre in Bromley to be able to continue paying those fees the following term? Surely, Vincent, who is 17, could have done what any other lad in his situation could have done, and have attempted to find a part time job. The term “dispossessed” should not mask laziness.
Similarly, Barbara Elliott, another of Cohen’s interviewee who opened her life up to scrutiny, complained that she lives on only £7 a day per child. She is on her 11th child and has a grocery bill of £350 a week, and has Sky and hefty mobile phone bills and so many clothes they are scattered in garbage bags in her house. She lives in a house provided by the State. What about people with mental and physical difficulties who cannot get on a waiting list for council housing? What about women working 2 or 3 jobs and weekend shifts to feed and clothe one or two children? Expecting Barbara’s story to rouse sympathy is a stretch for countless women who have delayed childbirth because they simply cannot afford it, who have always been taught that our own resources should inform our choices. Barbara is not dispossessed- she is lucky that she lives in a welfare state that would assure that her children are fed and clothed. To find the real dispossessed, Cohen needed only walk through the adjoining streets of New Cross and Peckham Rye to find out who were the tenants to a few of the flats. He would find that some families, having no other option and no access to benefits, rent a single room within a flat and that mother, father, and children occupy the very same room. Had Cohen dug deeper, he would have found examples of families outside the safety net of the State.
Occasionally, he got it right. There were individuals like Nabil Ahmed who was left with the charge of taking care of his two older disabled brothers when both his parents died, and Ade, the Nigerian refugee who resigned herself to sleeping in a barber shop with her children and her 79 year old mother. These are examples of persons who do not have the sense of security that is a crying shame in our communities today. By attempting to paint all families who do not have a lot as dispossessed, we do a grave disservice to persons like Nabil and Ade, who do, in fact need our help.
I am also not a fan of the way in which we believe we can throw money at problems. At the moment, the Dispossessed Fund is just a fund. Many of the individuals targeted need more than money. 10 years of Labour should have taught us this lesson by now. These individuals need support, mentoring, and in most cases, counselling. I hate to use Cameron’s amorphous term Big Society but isn’t this the whole point? A £50 voucher a week for Ade, as provided by Kids’ Company will not assist Ade long term. What will assist her is Home Office empathy for her cause and policies that allow women who have suffered domestic violence to be entitled to assistance. The adjunct to the Fund should be a virtual “Army” of individuals who are willing to sacrifice their time and efforts into caring for the more disadvantaged individuals in our society.
I am also worried and afraid of what this Dispossessed Fund means for deprived persons outside of London and outside of the UK in general. It is common knowledge that a poor person in the UK does not live the same life as a poor person in Pakistan. Does this mean that now that we are convinced that poverty exists in London, we are now more than ever focussed on home, to the exclusion of people around the world who are probably more in need of our assistance? We have a common duty to humanity that does not depend on our nationality and/or geographical borders. We must never forget that a little girl in Karachi would literally die to be Vincent and a woman who experienced famine in Niger would give her life to be in Ade’s position. Outside the hallowed shores of the Developed World, dispossessed literally means not to have a single thing- not the right to State assistance, no food in the cupboard or pantry and no roof over one’s head. This is something we should not ever forget nor lose sight of.
