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Men more likely than women to be cut off benefits due to “cruel” and “unfair” reasons, survey suggests

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Men are far more likely than women to have their benefits stopped for unfair or unjust reasons, a survey by a UK-wide food bank charity strongly suggests.

The Trussell Trust survey, submitted to a recent MPs’ inquiry into benefit sanctions, asked food banks if they had seen people coming to them because they were “sanctioned for seemingly unfair reasons” and if so to give specific examples.

Responses cited twice as many men as women who had been cut off benefits unreasonably, including as a result of missing job centre appointments due the deaths of family members.

Wimbledon food bank told the survey: “Single people are hit the hardest, with no money and housing benefit stopped for 12 weeks, many are being evicted and becoming homeless. A lot of homeless men we see have been put on the streets due to sanctioning.”

‘It has totally broken my spirit’

Renfrewshire Food bank cited nine cases, seven of which were men. They included: “Young man who only completed five searches when it should have been six. His words, ‘It has totally broken my spirit’. Young man with learning difficulties wrote, ‘My money keeps getting stopped for some reason and I don’t know why’.”

A Guardian report on the MPs inquiry, included a top-ten list from the Trussell Trust survey of what the paper described as “capricious, cruel and often absurd” reasons for which people had their benefits cut – eight out of 10 cases referred to were men.

The Guardian also cited further evidence submitted to the inquiry from sources other than the Trussell Trust – three out of four of these examples also referred to male claimants.

Despite this glaring evidence that men are being disproportionately affected, neither the Guardian story nor The Trussell trust survey acknowledged that vulnerable men appear to be being penalised far more harshly than women.

Repeated pattern

The Trussell Trust initially told insideMAN: “Anecdotally we are seeing an increase of single young men coming to food banks”.

However a spokeswoman then said they were not willing to officially confirm this statement, as the survey had not specifically gathered data on gender. She added that the charity believed that overall there was a 50/50 gender split in people who use food banks.

The apparent lack of interest in examining further whether men are hit hardest by benefit sanctions, despite evidence that clearly suggests they are, follows the same pattern as coverage at this time last year of government figures showing there had been a 37% rise in the number of people sleeping rough on the streets in England since the Coalition came into power.

The news triggered widespread headlines condemning the data as evidence benefit cuts were hitting the poorest and most-vulnerable in society hardest.

‘Extra burden’

However none of the articles mentioned that nearly all of those who sleep rough are men. According to the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), in London just under 90% of rough sleepers are male.

At the time, I contacted the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the department that released the data, to ask if they had figures on the gendered breakdown of rough sleepers and if not, why not.

They said: “It’s simply a count – the national rough sleeping statistics – there’s no other information required from councils as that would be an extra burden and every extra burden we need to compensate with extra funding.”

If 90% of rough sleepers and eight out of 10 people listed by the Guardian as being hit by “capricious and cruel” benefit sanctions were women, it would be a cause of national outrage and immediate action.

Why is the fact these people are nearly all men something that’s not even worth mentioning at all?

By Dan Bell

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Thanks Crisis for putting real homeless men in your TV adverts

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We’ve been critical of homeless charities who don’t treat the issues as a gender problem or remove men from their advertising campaigns this year.

So it’s only fair that we give credit where credit is due to the homeless charity, Crisis, whose Christmas advert features real film of real homeless men (who account for around 90% of rough sleepers in the UK. Here’s their TV advert for this Christmas which is narrated by the actor Sir Ian McKellan:

http://youtu.be/f7M_dMosJPo

You can also see a longer film showing some of the homeless men in the advert speaking about the experience of sleeping below:

If you want to make a charity donation and help homeless men this Christmas visit the Crisis website today.

—Photo Credit: Crisis

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Is this homeless charity appeal perpetuating the objectification of women and the invisibility of male victims?

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A Christmas campaign for a youth homeless charity ignores male rough sleepers and glamourises homeless women writes Glen Poole.

A strange thing happened to me this week. The charity Centrepoint started pushing what I can only describe as “rough sleeper porn” at me via facebook.

It began quite abruptly with this image of a dead woman bearing her sole, presumably designed to attract any necrophiliacs who also happen to have a foot fetish.

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Next up was the lovely Gemma with her big Disney-esque eyes and luscious lips, looking more like a grunge glamour shoot than a realistic portrayal of a young homeless woman.

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All that was missing a Sun-style caption saying “how’d you like to take this tramp home for a spot of rough sleeping fellas?”

http://youtu.be/WCT47ZUQMIQ?t=21s

Next up was the very sexy Sally who spent last Christmas without a roof over her head and to prove that a girl can look both hot AND homeless, Centrepoint shared a sultry picture showing Sally begging for it on the streets of London:

This year Centrepoint is pleased to show us that Sally scrubs up well and will be spending Christmas at their place. You can almost hear them gloating “I bet you’d love to pull this cracker wouldn’t you lads”?

And just when I was about to complain about the lack of men in the Christmas campaign, up  popped a new image to prove me wrong. First there was Emma rolling her “come and give me a bed for the night” eyes at me:

Secondly there was a man hanging out with Emma. This shouldn’t be surprising as around nine out of ten rough sleepers are male. But this wasn’t a homeless man, no this was a graffiti version of a man who seemed to personify pure evil—everything that horny homeless girls like Emma, Gemma, Lucy and Sally need protecing from.

Next up in this sidewalk cat walk was the teenager Lianne whose step dad made her do things she didn’t want to do.

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Her step dad appeared to be the same evil figure who was haunting Emma—why are men such bastards? Why can’t we leave sexy homeless girls alone?

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Poor Lianne told me that she was homeless at 17 and there were lots of scary people about.

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Look closely at the images on the video and you’ll be left in no doubt that all of these scary people were men:

http://youtu.be/97mf2-5olMo

If you look in more detail at the Centrepoint website you’ll find they do actually help young homeless people who are both female AND male—and no doubt they do some great work for their clients.

But why are they using such sexy, sexist advertising to try and get people to give them money at Christmas—does pushing rough sleeper porn raise more pounds than telling the truth?

The truth is nine out of ten rough sleepers are male and men are nine times more likely to die homeless than women. So why are homeless men so invisible in Centrepoint’s Christmas campaign?

It seems like a ruthless way to treat the roofless.

Is it because we’re collectively more tolerant of men being harmed?

Is it because we’re all more likely to help and protect women?

Is the reason Centrepoint are raising money by objectifying homeless women and making homeless men invisible, the same reason more men are homeless in the first place?

Men are invisible, disposable, unworthy of our help. There’s no point putting men at the front of your fundraising appeal because men make terrible victims.

Much better to use female victims to promote your cause, even if they represent a tiny minority of the problem you’re trying to solve. And if your female victims look fit, well that’s great news because you can pimp them in your advertising campaign and watch the charitable donations roll in like tips at a Vegas titty bar.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Men are nine times more likely to die homeless

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Men are nine times more likely to die homeless according to a report by the University of Sheffield by the charity Crisis.

According to the report’s author, in the records of deaths in England between 2001-2009, 1,731 were identified as having been homeless people and 90% of these were male.

On average, four men die homeless every week in England compared with 2 women every month.

The report says: “Females ‘do better’ than males, at age 16-24 they are one and a half times more likely to die than their housed counterparts while males are twice as likely. At age 25-34 females have double and males quadruple the chances of dying as the general population of that age.

“By early middle age, 35-44, females are nearly three times and males nearly five times as likely to die, while for 45-54 year olds the ratio falls back to twice for females and nearly three times for males. It is not until we reach 55-64 that the ratio approaches the national average, with females having the same chance of dying as the general population and males only having a third higher risk.”

The report found that homeless people are more likely to die young, with an average age of death of 47 years old and even lower for homeless women at 43, compared to 77 for the general population, 74 for men and 80 for women.

Homeless people are particularly vulnerable to deaths due to drugs, with men being seventeen times, and women thirteen times, more likely to die than the general population.

The authors of the report speculated that that one of the reasons more men die homeless is that they are less likely to be given help and support.

They said: “It may be that local authorities are more likely to rehouse single women than men as they may be seen to be at greater risk sleeping on the streets”.

The proportion of men dying homeless compared to women is consistent with the number of men and women sleeping rough. The report found that 87% of rough sleepers are men.

—Photo Credit: flickr/Centrepoint

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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