Mon 20 Apr 2020, 05:29 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour Party member
A BBC documentary entitled, Hard Up gave an account of some young peoples’ lives in my own county of Devon. In 2018, Shelter reported that there were 1,540 people homeless or living in temporary accommodation. A rough sleeper outreach worker reported that north Devon has the highest number of rough sleepers in the whole of the UK.
Devon is a popular tourist destination. Its rural landscape and beaches hide the poverty that exist in the region. The programme interviewed a 24-year old who lives in shared accommodation and wants a home of his own. He can’t find anywhere cheap enough to rent. Many jobs are paid at minimum wage and are often seasonal. A further problem is that many homes are holiday lets with a rental period of six months. More than 2,400 homes are left empty in Devon. The demand for accommodation is so big, it gives private land lands the power to pick and choose tenants.
The Outreach worker’s job was to find accommodation for rough sleepers. That is easier said than done. According to Shelter, around 1,000 people are made homeless every day. The programme interviewed a young woman who leafleted homes for a living. She calculated that she earns 6p for every leaflet. Young people in Devon earn 25% less than the national average and has some of the highest rates of seasonal employment in the UK.
Around a million young people have left coastal towns in the last 30 years. The young woman has the dream of becoming a professional photographer. Most of her photography is of rough sleepers in the north Devon town of Barnstable and her work has been exhibited in the town. I hope that she can fulfil that dream.
The final episode interviews a 29-year old who is mixed race and lives in the neighbouring county of Cornwall. Here, average wages are even lower than in Devon. His dream is to become a professional boxer so that he could have a home and a family. As a teenager, he showed promise and was included in a pool for the Olympics. However, boxing proved problematic outside the ring. He relates a story from school days when he was racially abused by another pupil. He punched him and the abuse stopped.
He went out one evening with some friends and was involved in a brawl. This resulted in him being jailed for two years. He has been out of boxing for six years but is training hard to get back to the level he was before. A coach believed that a boxing club did give life skills. He added that it’s important that young men had jobs with a bit of money in their pockets. I agree entirely with his last sentiment.
The Labour Party was created to emancipate working people from poverty and poor social conditions. Labour should demand a minimum of £15 an hour for all and the immediate building of a million council houses. The Tories have announced that the furlough scheme will be extended until the end of June. The bosses are threatening mass redundancies. Whether this will prevent the return of mass unemployment remains to be seen. It’s more likely to just delay the inevitable. Labour will inherit the destruction caused by capitalism. Labour must implement a programme of public works to ensure full employment and an end to poverty.
