I'm the 'deserving poor' and you could easily become me

When you're the political football....

My friend Helen Gilby is amazing. She’s the best mum ever and I adore her - we’ve been friends for a long time and I could gush over how funny and smart and kind she is for an eternity. We’ve been talking a lot about the election and how bloody brutal it is on anyone who gets Government support. There’s also been a lot of talk about ‘the deserving poor’. Helen wrote about what it feels like to be the one who is being talked about, and the one whose life is at the mercy of political parties that loathe anyone who seeks Government aide.

Before I hand over to Helen and her brave words - I’d like to say that we have used the term ‘deserving poor’ because it says the quiet part out loud that National and ACT won’t say. Categorising people into worthy and unworthy of support, dividing people into ‘with value’ and ‘without value’ is abhorrent. And we have seen it so much in this election cycle.

If you separate people into deserving or undeserving of shelter - it’s easy to support policies that protect people from homelessness for the ‘deserving’. If you think people are deserving or undeserving of government assistance - it’s easy to support policies that remove from school lunches for the ‘undeserving’, or cut income support for the ‘undeserving’.

[Edited post-publishing because I am super tired].

Helen is a poster-child for the ‘we don’t mean people like her’ policies - but she’s always resisted that label and fought to support others. And even if you think she is uniquely different, she (and her beautiful family) will be severely impacted by the slaughtering of welfare supports proposed by National and ACT. OK, enough from me - over to Helen:

Voting opens today for the New Zealand election. For a lucky few, whatever the result is - their lives won’t change.

My life, and the life of my tamariki is at risk. Because I’m the political football they’re kicking around - my whānau and I are vulnerable to every change that gets floated to rile up a crowd that feels disdain for the poor, without thought to the real people behind the rhetoric.

National are proposing changes to the welfare system. Changes that are old, tired and not supported by any evidence.

It is a cheap political trick to imply that the reason most of us are struggling with the cost of living is because of benefit spending. This is simply not true and ultimately will just add more burden on the already strained system and low income people who are an easy target for misplaced blame.

Six years ago, I wrote about the controversy that was surrounding then Green MP Metiria Turei, and the additional benefit she claimed while a solo parent. I shared what it was like to grow up as the child of a young solo Mum, during the height of ‘Ruthanasia’ and the major overhaul of the benefit system that happened under Ruth Richardson and the fourth National government from 1990 – 1993.

Devastatingly, the things we try the hardest to avoid end up becoming our reality. I tried hard to create the type of family that would be stable and supportive, but as life happens – I have ended up as a widow and solo mum, raising two children.

Six years ago, my life was so different to what I had grown up with – my husband and I both worked hard, albeit not in highly paid jobs, but we were okay. We had the immense privilege of being able to buy a modest first home and provide the basics for our kids.

When I wrote that piece, I had no idea how much my life would change in less than a year.

Photo by Manny Becerra

The irony is not lost on me, that I too now share many of the same struggles my Mum did - just 30 years on. I too am struggling on a lower income, having the sole responsibility of my children and being at the mercy of punitive government policy that gets trotted out as a way to score shallow political points.

Now, I too have to actively monitor how much milk is left before pay day, because it is not in the budget to buy an extra bottle.

I’ve had to stress out when an expensive school jersey gets misplaced and doesn’t turn up in the lost property bin or when shoes wear out faster than I had budgeted to replace them.

‘Worrying about having enough’ is forever in my mind since my husband died, and I’ve carried the weight of it around ever since, along with the unending grief.

He was just 36 years old. He was the love of my life, an incredible partner and an astounding dad to our babies aged four and 22 months. And suddenly, without warning, he was gone.

Although my circumstances of becoming a solo parent are different from my Mums - our struggles are the same.

She carried, and I carry - the painful, unfair and unjust burden of being the ‘beneficiary’. A burden that doesn’t support better outcomes for family’s long term.

Its hard to adequately convey how vulnerable being a solo parent makes you – no matter the circumstances of becoming a sole or single parent. You cannot understand the weight of being your children’s only support, protector and provider, unless you’ve lived it. Imagine being the only person responsible for providing everything that they need emotionally and financially, while you try and exist within a system that grinds you down by being oppositional rather than supportive.

People are often shocked when I share anecdotes about interactions I’ve had with the Ministry of Social Development or issues I’ve had to struggle to resolve.

“But you need it” they cry!

“You’re a widow!” they say (as if I have forgotten).

“You’re not a bludger!” - as if there is a separate support system for those of us who are ‘deserving’ and ‘genuine’, that comes with a golden ticket to adequate support and a people centric system designed to support vulnerable people and children, rather than disenfranchise us.

It's uncomfortable and confronting for people to know that you won’t be supported in meaningful ways when you seek help from WINZ – no matter how temporary you know it will be or how traumatic the event was that’s caused you to need help from them.

In the early stages of my grief and navigating the new system that I was forced into, I had a case manager say to me in the middle of an office ‘you don’t have to be getting a benefit you know’, when I was simply trying to resolve an issue with a processing error, during the worst time of my life.

When I tell people, that even when you do work as a solo parent (like I did and do) but qualify for other, non-beneficiary assistance (such as child care subsidies), you will still have issues with processing errors or providing compliance documents, which can often take multiple phone calls to resolve.

Additional layers of stress and worry about if it is going to be paid on time or will you be put on hold for two hours while trying to juggle work and kids, listening to endless loops of ‘Welcome Home’, to speak to someone who may or may not be able to sort out the issue. You have to roll a dice to see if you will have to repeat this process an infinite number of times before it gets fixed.

‘But I don’t mean you, you’re one of the real ones, its other people who need to get off the benefit’ is another one I’ve heard – like that matters to the system and the processes that you have to interact with, to try and make ends meet financially.

It doesn't.

The Government’s own data tells us that almost all people on benefits are on them temporarily and for less than a year.

As National and Chris Luxon are using benefits and the work and income system as a cheap way to win votes, I want to scream at people to come and live with these systems and see the real time, ongoing impacts.

Because even when you’re the living poster child of ‘the deserving poor’, you will see the true cost and impact that cheap political footballs, have on real living people.

The people who will be harmed by a National and ACT government gutting the welfare system are real. I’m one of them.

I never thought my life would be like it is now. It could happen to you too. Your husband could die suddenly, well before his time.

You might think you have nothing in common with my life - but I didn’t think this is where I’d be. You never know what is around the corner.