Hundreds of disabled people who are now homeless on London’s streets have told how they ended up living in tents just yards from where many of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) once had offices.
In central London, an area behind the historic Adelphi Building overlooking the River Thames has become a temporary home for several disabled people, with a row of tents in the shadow of the huge office blocks.
As recently as 2012, some departments of the DWP were based at the Grade II-listed Adelphi.
One of the building’s current tenants is The Economist magazine.
When Disability News Service (DNS) visited Adelphi late last month, there were around 10 tents pitched against a wall just metres from the back entrance.
All four passengers DNS spoke to were disabled.
None of them knew of the building’s historical connection to the DWP.
Iesha Muhammad, who lives in a tent with her autistic husband Dominic and has life-limiting ALS, said her experience of Universal Credit had been “terrible” despite “they understand I’m a vulnerable person”.
She says the employment agency scheduled an early morning interview for her, but when she explained that her health condition meant it would take her a long time to get up and get to the interview, they told her, “If you could survive on the streets, you could get here on time.”
She said: “We are receiving Universal Credit but it’s less than we should be getting.”
“We were told time and time again that we could not get emergency loans. It’s either life or death on the streets.”
Despite receiving Universal Credit, the couple have been unable to find housing.
She says landlords will not accept people claiming benefits without a guarantor.
Another tent resident, Alex, came to the UK 13 years ago and worked as a construction worker but developed heart disease which required him to wear an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), as well as mental health issues and epilepsy.
He has had to rely on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) while council key workers are helping him apply for his long-delayed Universal Credit.
He receives £500 a month through PIP but says it is “not enough at all” and he cannot afford all the medicines he needs.
He said: “I’m trying to stay positive. [homeless people]. “
Neighbour Brian Smith has a complicated housing situation and says he doesn’t blame the DWP.
Ms Smith has both mental and physical disabilities, including schizophrenia, and left her Oxfordshire flat after being committed to a psychiatric hospital due to feelings of increasing isolation and medication problems following her brother’s death.
He says that although he receives both Employment and Support Allowance and PIP daily living and mobility benefits until his tenancy ends, he is unable to ask the DWP for financial help with his housing.
He says he enjoys the company of other homeless people who have set up tents behind the Adelphi.
He said, “I’ve never felt this good before. For me, spending too much time alone is not good.”
“I need people around me. I’m lonely here. [by the authorities]. “
But other disabled people living in tents have it much harder, he told DNS.
He said: “There are people who don’t get benefits. Those of us who do get benefits are trying to help them.”
“I can’t see any of my peers struggling for a sandwich or a cup of tea.
“I know there are quite a few people here who are not receiving benefits or who have been suspended for one reason or another.”
When asked how he felt about there being so many homeless people living on the streets, he replied: “I hate to see this in the 21st century.”
He believes about 90 percent of the people living in tents behind the Adelphi are disabled.
He receives support from nearby St Martin-in-the-Fields day centre.
He said, “If you get there between 8 and 9 o’clock, [in the morning] I can see everyone queuing up inside.
“It shows how many disabled people there are on the streets.
“The majority of people you speak to are people with disabilities in some way.”
DNS has contacted the DWP, Westminster City Council, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan about the presence of so many disabled people on London’s streets and whether Universal Credit is making the situation worse.
A Westminster City Council spokesman said: “As central London, Westminster is a destination for homeless people from across the UK and around the world and the council spends far more than any other council – £7 million a year – to support people who arrive here.”
“We are working with our charity partners to send out outreach teams across the city.
“These teams work day and night to locate people sleeping on the streets and offer them assistance, frequently visiting known meeting points.
“We aim to assess every person on the streets based on their individual disabilities and vulnerabilities and then the council or our charity partners offer support based on their individual needs.
“We understand that each person has their own unique and complex needs and that many people have physical disabilities or serious mental illnesses that create barriers to accessing support.
“Our staff do their best to cater for these specific needs. Unfortunately, not everyone with complex needs is receptive to support.”
The council said it recognised a correlation between spending more time on the streets and developing complex needs, including mental and physical health problems, and that while many people do not have a disability when they start living on the streets, the longer they remain in the situation the more their disability will almost inevitably worsen.
The council said that’s why its goal has always been to help people access support and ultimately get them off the streets and into housing.
St. Martin in the Fields did not respond to a request for comment by midday today (Thursday).
Figures presented to the London Assembly by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan two years ago showed that there were 786 people with a “learning or physical disability” living on the streets in London in 2021-22.
A spokesman for the Mayor, who is standing for re-election next month, said he has made tackling homelessness a priority since he was first elected in 2016, quadrupling London’s homelessness budget and “delivering record funding to homelessness organisations and service providers across the capital, helping to take more than 16,000 people off the streets”.
She also said he has delivered “record-breaking affordable housing construction, including the highest levels of municipal housing construction since the 1970s” and “invested in specialized and supported housing programs.”
She added: “But Sadiq is well aware that he needs further support.”
“Disabled people have been disproportionately affected by Conservative cuts to social care and local government budgets, and ministers’ continued failure to ban ‘no-fault’ evictions to ensure tenants are safe in their homes.”
“That’s why he has repeatedly called on the Government to provide the funding London needs to continue delivering truly affordable housing.”
“If Sadiq is re-elected on May 2nd, he will continue to work hard to end street homelessness in our city and support people with disabilities who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.”
In a statement to DNS, a government spokesman said: “We understand the challenges many people face, which is why we are increasing disability pay by 6.7% and providing an unprecedented £108 billion package of cost of living support.”
“We are also spending £2.4 billion to support people at risk of homelessness and those living on the streets, and we will continue to work with local authorities to help get people off the streets for good.”
The DWP declined to comment on whether it believed issues with Universal Credit were partly responsible for the number of disabled people who are homeless in London.
However, after deducting housing costs, the number of people living in poverty with a disabled person is reported to fall by 100,000 between 2022 and 2023.
DNS reported in January that the proportion of families with disabled children living in poverty had increased by nearly a third in the two years before the cost of living crisis, according to new poverty measures being developed by the DWP.
The measure, which aims to provide a more accurate way of calculating poverty, showed that almost half of families in England with at least one disabled child and one disabled adult will be living in poverty by 2021-22.
The new measure to calculate “low-resource individuals” found that the proportion of families with children with disabilities living in poverty increased from 33% in 2019-20 to 43% in 2021-22.
The new indicators also show that the proportion of families with at least one child and one adult with a disability living in poverty rose from 39% in 2019-20 to 46% in 2021-22.
Photo: Brian Smith (left) and Iesha Muhammad
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