‘No-hopers’ in a ‘mythical society’

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 21

‘No-hopers’ in a ‘mythical society’

Many of the poor stay in hiding because of the bad name given to the unemployed by the Prime Minister and the Employers’ Federation. “They don’t want to identify themselves with those people who are described as lazy bludgers,” says one social worker, “so they use up whatever life savings they have rather than ask for the benefit and jub shoulders with the ‘nohopers’.” Brian Easton believes that politicians and intellectuals are entrapped by the myth of the completed and perfect Welfare State and consequently ignore the evidence of family

poverty. “It is possible.” he says, "that our traditional leadership on both the left and the right is so separated from the mass of the population that it is unaware of their condition.” Even some welfare workers are unsympathetic. The Salva.ion Army’s officers most closely involved with needy families' seem to take the view that people who are living in relative poverty on low wages would be able to cope if they tried harder. "We all have the same basic needs,” says Major Gilbert Beale, the Salvation Army’s

community social services officer, “and it makes me cross, the number of homes I go to where they are definitely not helping themselves. “One house I went to had a big back section but the grass was waist-high. I produce everything in my garden, but this solo father was doing nothing to grow food. Seventy-five per cent of those I help have not got a vege garden.” Major Beale says he knows families which say they can afford meat only once a week, yet he believes they are wasting money on cheap. “fast foods.” Poverty is not an

economic problem, in the view of Captain Rodney Knight, the Salvation Army’s public relations officer; it is a problem of family values and philosophy. “We need backbone in the people,” he says. “Even if wages were doubled overnight, the consumer society would soon catch up with it. You’ve got to look at the tremendous advantage that young people have in getting mortgages and things on hire purchase, which their parents only got by the sweat of their brow.

“They'll spend all they've got ■ — and want more. We won’t solve it

by any more handouts.” ‘ But to sav that the poor are bad managers is totally simplistic and unfair in the opinion of a woman working among poor families. “The poor are expected to be paragons of virtue,” she says, “but their needs and wants are the same as everyone else’s. If you haven’t got much money and have no chance of saving, you tend to spend. “The poor keep the taxis in business. They can’t afford cars and they have to organise their travel around the bus service. If' the Welfare Department says come in about the benefit, it may cost $5 to ge: there —

and you go in straight away when the Welfare ; calls.” She says the poor are also expected to have ; more resistance than ordinary mortals to the i persuasive kind of advertising which says 1 that you cannot have a ; good life unless you buy i their wares. “The more society talks f about why they should be coping, and why should : the taxpayer have to pay, ' the more we damage them,” says Captain Jim " Coughlan, the City ; Missioner. “They feel less : worthy, and when they i are unable to cope they i get frustrated. And some tend to lash out.”