In Telling: Not knowing there is help for you

Not knowing your dues

Understanding how to get help can be a handicap for people who have generally been self-reliant and independent. Having been schooled on self-sufficiency through grit, determination, and hard work, one can so easily be lost when the tried and tested modes of living and existing fail.

When some thirteen years ago I fell so seriously ill with cancer and the treatment meant it was impossible for me to consider returning to work as I underwent chemotherapy. Living in the Netherlands with all the accoutrements of an EU citizen and fully paying my taxes, I was unaware of what support I might get from the state. In fact, I did not think I qualified.

There was one month when I literally had nothing, but for the generosity of friends, I might just have one day expired on the floor of my living room and then would have been the end of all my troubles. However, it was one of the unique elements of the Dutch health system that they were not just concerned about my physical health but also my mental health and how I was getting on with life.

Support beyond the medicine

On one of my hospital visits, the nurse asked if I was getting any income support and when I responded in the negative, she was quite taken aback. She insisted that having worked in the Netherlands for almost a decade, I should have contributed enough to the system for such situations as my inability to work because of ill health.

She did not leave it at that, she marched me to the social security support office in the hospital and asked that they take on my case. Immediately, I was given forms to fill and I typed out a cover letter explaining my circumstances. The office fast-tracked the application to the responsible department and within the week, much-needed financial support arrived at the highest accessible support payout, backdated 6 months, which was the maximum that could be allowed.

Getting the help needed

If I had known any better, that application should have gone in at least 8 months before. Yet, with that lesson learnt, it is not that practised. The default inclination is always to be actively and fruitfully engaged in employment than depending on welfare payments.

It delays the necessary work of seeking support because you have the mind that things are on the turn and the reality is as days turn to weeks and weeks to months, that passage of time means what could have been done, is not done.

By the time you realise or understand that there is more than adequate support available, your situation is almost hopelessly dire. It is strange, yet troubling, the many who need help sometimes just do not know what help is available and how to access it.

Thought Picnic: From Welfare to Well Being

The system we have

Ahead lies opportunity when it appears that one’s hand is shortened to grasp it. I sometimes feel like I have exhausted the channels that I once readily appealed to for a fillip.

The first few weeks of a new posting are not the easiest and when it is far away from home some things usually taken for granted are harder to manage from subsistence to accommodation and other essential things.

We have a system to tide us over during times of unemployment, it is the welfare state, hardly generous but useful. The system is primed to frustrate us off the queue with subtle tactics, like visiting our advisors weekly, filling in job search activity forms, attending courses that belittle you, but you persevere.

The system we work

In the process, you learn better job search skills in the hope that this help can become a thing of the past, and it does for some of us. They could not wait to get rid of us.

There are guidelines in terms of looking for work, I went further afield, looked at more options and presented myself for as many activities as I could.

I attended interviews until became routine, some stretched on, some gave feedback but most came back with disappointing news but one did not relent.

Now, I have an offer, one that took a month from the time of the interview to the signing of the contract to complete.

The system we leave

It is far away from home so I have to relocate but that is two weeks of scrimping and scraping before the first remuneration comes in.

You are then caught in the midst of a promise of opportunity and the lurking inability to do much about it.

One would think those who want us off the queue would open-handedly offer something to see the back of us. Fat chance!

The system we trust

Yes, we need to do the paperwork that we are coming off welfare but moving from welfare to wellbeing is like they are telling me, you’re on your own.

I go for a meeting now just to see whether much can be done, I get a loan or for the worst possible option, reject the offer because I cannot get there to start.

I am hopeful, the better would come of this.

Thought Picnic: The New Parable of the Prodigal Son

Angels of gathering

For angels abound that walk the earth in the form of people you and I see on the street, whose humanity has heart and soul, beating with compassion and empathy, leaving you speechless in gratitude, disarmed in thankfulness and helpless in the tenderness that can expressed by those who in their time have become another narrative of the Good Samaritan story.

As he left that office yesterday, having bit his lip in utter regret of the experience he had just suffered, you found on the busy street, a bench to sit, famished for hunger, he sat to gather his thoughts.

The gathering of the shards of his life shattered in a history that really had become a drama almost too liveable for words.

The new prodigal son

He left his country which had become his fatherland full of health, full of promise, full of hope and much else to the land of a different tongue, he lived, he prospered and he wasted his means – prodigal he had become that all he left with and what he had gained was lost – health, promise, prospect, status, job, home and desire – as each day appeared to hold no tomorrow, he came to himself like the prodigal son and decided to return home.

For he thought, at least at home they speak his tongue, his fatherland, maybe he might find shelter, boarding, sustenance and some new hope, he was not expecting open arms, but there were many open to arm him with much to see beyond the morrow – it started well, though with difficulty.

The truth is, unlike for the prodigal son, there was no father that ran into the fields having sighted his son from afar to fall upon his neck and cry for joy that the son that was lost was now found, no new robes, no welcome feast but a resentful and judgemental big brother with a long checklist of eligibility for this and for that.

Checking the boxes to hell

Single, no dependants, no local connections, able, no proof of address, no bank account, no local references, no recent utility bills, no priority, not eligible for security clearance, not our business, no way here – the list was as long as judgement day had arrived and the only way was the way to hell or without saying the words, what he did hear from them was – Go to hell.

And hell it would have been because as he sat on the bench before nightfall yesterday gathering his thoughts until his angels came by to bear him away to safety from crawling with the swineherd and enjoying the Michelin star gourmet of pigswill, he would have been on a bench through the night drenched by the watering of the heavens that fed the trees and he would have found no tears to flow with the flood of sorrow that would have overcome him.

Barely netting the whale of the problem

The times have changed, the rules have toughened, the righteous are resisted and the cunning have run rings round the system, whilst England has no place for prodigal sons – it is mercy of angels, far and near, in kind and in means that ushered in another day.

The new parable of the prodigal son is not reading like happily ever after, the assumptions we made about safety nets are fallacies because the below on the jagged rocks of life lie those who have fallen through holes bigger than the size of elephants, we see them daily, the ones that checkboxes discarded without consideration, the ones society forgot and the ones that have become invisible but are there, in rags of clothing and prospect, in hope for the next meal having had none for longer than they can remember – they probably were not prodigal but have been put on the speedway to hell by a system bereft of heart and soul.

Yet, the politician and the comfortable mounts soapbox, rostrum, podium and lectern preaching about those abusing the system but saying nothing about those abused by the system and they be many too bruised to ask for anything but for some spare change from you and I – what will be done for them – he asks, what?

England: How Lewisham Single Homeless Intervention Prevention humiliated me

Dead with connections

It was a shortcut, leading to a park and then a station unto the road I needed to walk up a hill to the place I had stayed until today.

On both sides of the path that seemed to split an old graveyard into two were tombstones of the long dead and buried, remembered by the names and the dates of birth and of death, sometimes with the years numbered, maybe with other family or information of relationships to those who put them there.

A father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, there were connections, with the place, with people and with a time, that is why they were there.

No protection for the living

Even then gravestones followed a trend, some were shaped in stone like Egyptian sarcophagi, maybe in celebration of the eternity of burial exemplified by the Pharaoh’s tombs of old, protected with curses and scripts that have no significance to the grave tampering archaeologists who brought us the remains of Tutankhamun and that cohort.

No, there is no protection for the dead as there seems to be no protection for the living if they do not tick the boxes of eligibility even if the person is in dire need representing an exception to the rule.

My grave circumstances were brought into stark relief when I strode down to the Lewisham Housing Services and there was nothing in my story, voice or plea that could made me a priority in their eyes, I had no connections with Lewisham apart from 5 weeks that I have lived here, but then I have no particular connections with anywhere else in the UK, I am as good as a just returned Englishman.

I’m no prodigal son

Maybe the lady was exasperated with the audacity I had to walk into any council office, talk less of the one she sat in to ask for help, I could have another set of phone numbers to add to the 5 I had called for advice and help – I was fast becoming a homeless switchboard.

Then I was asked why I had not made plans for my resettlement back in the UK before leaving the Netherlands last August, it is like asking the prodigal son in the Bible why he had not made plans for settling back at home when he literally had no claim to anything but the mercy and kindness of the people he left behind, especially his father.

The questions plumbed the depths of absurdity, there was no room for embarrassment but to state the facts and the fact is an Englishman who has generally lived an independent life and has now only resorted to state help in an emergency and desperate situation has no chance on God’s good earth of getting help today – there is no face of humanity or compassion to register in sympathy or empathy, rather you are met with obstinate indifference, apathy and checkboxes.

Scolded in my adversity

My humiliation was completed like the exhumation of the graves of yore when after I asked to make phone calls in a quiet corner of the empty waiting room, with the unfortunate result of not getting through a legal advice service but then called the hospital for help, I was curtly asked to leave, in the eyes of the doorman, I had become a vagrant, a nuisance and an inconvenience.

My voice trembled as I stepped out apologising profusely for taking up their time. I will come through this with my head held up high and for those who staff the Single Homeless Intervention Prevention office in Lewisham – I am single and homeless but you did little to intervene or prevent the predicament I was facing – we will meet again, God willing, I will be in better circumstances to say I saw the next day, in spite of and despite you.

Thank you.

Thought Picnic: Returnee Woes

This is pain

There is an interesting aspect of being a returnee that is quite uncomfortable and disconcerting. When you return home from another country after so many years away, the only thing you probably have is your identity and not much else.

The process of reintegration is being fraught by rules that do not seem to have exceptions. Resettlement is not easy and planning it depends on how you are able to leave where you were to where you want to be and the attendant responsibilities that come with it.

Soul destroyers

In my case, I am caught in a Catch-22 situation that is growing ridiculous by the day. Normally, on arrival in the UK one is to register as looking for work. My experience of the literally soul-destroying concept of being told you are not doing enough to find work that you are matched to jobs that demand nothing of you than to demean and depress you from over 20 years ago was job not what I needed at this time.

Recently, I read of the experience of a PhD holder expected to do menial jobs and not considered to be utilising his job-searching time productively if he was researching and preparing for interviews belying an inferior and pedestrian system in the UK whereas in the Netherlands they fully appreciated your skills and offered help and advice to job-seekers to help them flourish in what they really do know how to do.

Hitting the ground running

I arrived on a Friday and took temporary accommodation with a relation, by Sunday, I had obtained a mobile phone SIM and a new phone number that allowed me to update my CV with an address and number – enough to give it some freshness.

On Monday, I was getting calls and by Tuesday the inquiries were gaining traction that I landed an interview on Thursday after which I was offered a job, what had to follow were mere formalities – terms, contract and other essential personal details.

Proving an improbable

No one on entering a country within days is able to provide a proof of address in that country without exceptional circumstances to that effect. The social services will only consider a returnee habitually resident in the UK only after 3 months of arrival, before which that have no obligations though asylum seekers in dire need seem to get prompt attention.

I could not open a bank account without a proof of address and the company that was supposed to handle my payroll then said they will not release payments for my work until I could prove where I lived, however, I cannot claim many of the official documents like utility bills, job centre correspondence or government agency letters when I am in temporary residence still trying to find my feet.

Exceptionally unique circumstances

In essence, even though I am ready, able and engaged to contribute my bit to society, I am being treated like a homeless man, my independent streak to just get up and do not appreciated and there does not seem to be some exception to cater for people with my kind of unique circumstances.

The unintended consequence of anti-money laundering laws are hitting on honest and innocent persons ready to earn a living but frustrated by the system. Meanwhile, we read of looters of African treasuries washing their ill-gotten wealth through British banks with amazingly breath-taking ease.

Do something

I have put the onus back on my employer and Payroll Company, having offered my identification and met with their personnel, they know what I will be earning and it is unlikely that with the contracts I have signed with both, I can at the same time be an agent of money laundering at their behest.

What is required is a bit of common sense and intuitiveness on their part to validate my existence and facilitate my reintegration.

When I moved to the Netherlands over a decade ago, my employer stood as surety guaranteeing the necessity I had for opening a bank account and consequently securing rental property – that is what I am asking of them – the emails will go back and forth until I have gotten them to stand and stand tall on my behalf. I should not be agonising about these things, I want to concentrate on my new job and perform excellently in what I know to do.

My Dummies Ride to Social Security

My own man alone

The independence of mind and means is a wonderful thing to have but this kind of single-mindedness comes with dangers and hazards that I have so well learnt.

I have been in employment since 1991 and the longest time I was out of work before now was for 5 months between December 1999 and April 2000.

In the UK, welfare and social security was never anything you felt encouraged to call on, no matter how dire your situation might be; after visiting those offices for 3 weeks in early 1991 I decided nothing will compel me to enter those crooked jobless statistics ever again.

Now, in the Netherlands, I never fully understood what my working status was, where I thought I was freelancing as an ICT Consultant, I was actually on an agency’s payroll but my employment was limited to the duration of the project I was in.

That confusion of project-based employment gave me the feeling I was not entitled to any social security funds, but apparently, I had been paying my dues all the while and indeed I was entitled to a lot more that I could have expected to receive.

The downward spiral

Having this independence and resilience was working its stubborn stoicism in me, as savings ran out, debts piled up and demands grew more aggressive, my health was failing too – in a desperate quest for funds I offered part of my real estate for sale at a bargain but the market had fallen out of favour and I was near destitute.

Here I was, a one time high-flying expatriate on the verge of entering the dreaded credit blacklist, losing my credit cards and unable to face the fact that no money would just appear, I needed to talk to people and many people at that.

My creditors from mortgage lender, through insurance, rates, utilities, credit cards and every leech that felt they had some hold on me put on the squeeze.

By the time I knew it, penalties were mounting to the point of doubling the debts, it is so amazing how businesses apparently make their profits out of misery – people like me are conveniently classed as delinquencies – we are treated as “can’t pay, won’t pay” people who need to be sent to some workhouse till we have bled the last drop.

Starting up from below

Surely, if I had the money, I would pay, but I had no income and I had to come through the realisation that I needed every ounce of positive energy I could muster to fight the cancer that was threatening my life – honestly, I had no time to think about my iris recognition travel pass, it was the last thing on my mind – subscriptions can wait.

I was eventually persuaded to register as unemployed in December but registered myself as seeking work, this was me believing I could work whilst I was still halfway through my course of chemotherapy sessions, the serious pain did not subside until the middle of January.

Eventually, I started speaking the truth about my situation to my creditors, some had already run out of patience and I really had no great stories to tell, I was completely dependent on the charity of friends and relations and just prayed that this great tribulation would soon pass.

Working to May day

The bank sent someone round to collect, there was nothing to collect but the story he heard was the opportunity for a period of grace until May, but just 3 days after that visit, the electricity company that had been making a mint out of me refunded the excess which basically put my account back in the black with nothing to spare.

The mortgage company called and I arranged to meet them in February, they also agreed that May should be the time for reckoning, it meant I needed to start making money by May.

In reality, it was a tall order when I now realise that the chemotherapy took a lot more out of me than I was ready to admit but what looked a long way away was fast approaching me like a rampaging stampede.

In fact the real application for unemployment support only got properly filed in at a meeting in February and it got stuck within the bureaucracies, it took the help of the social services of my hospital to unwind the process and gain some traction.

They will pay and did

The social services finally made a decision, the unemployment benefits would only go back 6 months from February which was August to the day I was admitted in hospital after which I would be entitled to sickness benefit until the day I returned to work.

Apart from my mortgage arrears and a few little issues, all other rates, debts, claims and demands have basically been paid off by what came through.

I find myself thinking, if only I was not so stubbornly independent and just walked into the social security office and told them I was out of work in May 2009, I would have saved myself a whole world of misery, the money would have covered the basics and the worry about the bigger bits would have been much less.

If only …

Favourable welfare outcomes

The re-application

Two weeks ago, I decided to avail myself of the services of my hospital’s social services department because my application for social security entitlements was stuck in the quagmire of bureaucratic indifference and basically in limbo.

I was to call the sickness benefit department last week but that was overrun with events regarding my new job so I just let things go and hoped for the best.

Two letters arrived in my post on Saturday with favourable decisions considering the lateness of my application and the complexity of the circumstances which had also suddenly changed.

All in to help

My very first formal application where I had the work coach fill in the forms at the unemployment office was in February and it became the datum for reckoning everything else.

All benefits can only go back 6 months at the maximum, so I will now be entitled to unemployment benefit at first and then sickness benefit from the day after I was admitted in hospital for treatment.

That would however end on the day I started my new employment which was last week – now one just has to wait for something to be paid into my account.

The system does work and in flexible enough if you know the system or having someone who knows the system sort things out for you.

Thanks and gratitude

I have been very fortunate that way and I have expressed thanks to all those wonderful people who contributed to making this work and I was so taken by the response when the social services expert replied saying she took great pleasure in helping me out.

The social security safety net is there for a reason and even for usually very independent people like myself, I find that anyone can need help and it is good to ask for that help, humbly but with a sense of entitlement too, if we have through our working lives contributed, it is there as a bridge through lean times to more prosperous times again.

Thanks to the system and its lifeblood of bureaucratic sustenance.

Hospital eases bureaucratic stress

All-round advisor

Another day at the hospital planned just last week and besides that planned for tomorrow to see the foot and rehabilitation specialist.

Last Friday, I decided to avail myself of the hospital social services having seen my quest for welfare support derailed by ping-pong bureaucracy.

The appointment was an early on set for 9:00 AM, I do not think I slept that much overnight but I got all the files and papers filled in last month together and that seems to have been all I needed.

I vacillated about taking my laptop with me and eventually left it at home thinking the problem will be taken out of my hands and sorted somehow, I was determined I would not be further burdened by the stress of navigating the system.

When I met my advisor, she first wanted to know about my health, my strength, my mind and my expectations – well, I feel good, though my right foot does flake a bit and offers me a good itch due to fungal infections and blisters that might well be dealt with soon.

She obtained an alternative prescription cream for help deal with the itch as we talked about other matters of post-chemotherapy conditioning for the return to work and so on.

Not so easy, it was not

Then we moved to the matter for which I was visiting, my application for benefits that had been stuck in the system – we drew a timeline of time of unemployment, when I first fell ill, the progression of illness to the diagnosis of cancer, the treatments and the post-chemotherapy issues.

It appeared my business was not particularly a walk in the park; she left to explain the situation to a psychologist who also happens to be the resident expert on these bureaucracies and persuaded her to review my papers.

The times and records became the more important issue apart from the fact that my not realising my health was deteriorating meant I did not seek medical help promptly nor resort to welfare funds, I needed a narrative.

The expert called all the offices to find out the best kind of approach to deal with my situation and fortunately she linked up with someone who had a good idea of what to do, albeit the suggestion was offered as a very long shot.

My new application

My last contract, bank details, identification papers, records of last payments and a reasonably lengthy litany of the how I found myself in the situation I was in and the why it took so long to register the situation was needed to make my case to the bureaucracies.

Fortunately, I had all that information and the services of the hospital internet service computers to craft my supporting letter which the expert reviewed, amended, notarised and packaged for delivery on the hospital’s livery along with all the photocopies of requested material.

Just over 4 hours at the hospital and I could maybe breathe a sigh of some relief and hope for a very favourable response to my application in the not too distant future – even tomorrow already seems too late, that is how much I need this matter resolved now.

Working up the sick for rules sake

Not us, it’s them

What I never expected was to be caught in a ping-pong game between social security departments but that seems to be the case.

On Friday, the unemployment benefit office called to ask if I was available for work or still sick; well, whilst I am quite available for work, the fact is there is a recuperation time after chemotherapy that means I might not really be able to work at the moment and hence, I would still be on sick leave.

So, because I am on sick leave I can only apply for sickness benefit and not unemployment benefit – the letter I received the day after advised me to call in and register as sick.

Double Dutch or quits

I called the number this morning and typed in my Social Security Number which allowed me to be connected to an agent, I explained that my Dutch was not that fluent and asked if we could converse in English, she sternly refused and rained a torrent of Dutch down the phone.

As I tried to slow her down, the conversation descended into confusion and finally I said in English, I will end the conversation and get someone who speaks Dutch to help make the call – she very well understood that sentence and we stopped.

Thankfully, my other neighbour was in and I explained my situation to him regarding when I was unemployed, when I fell ill and all the other aspects of dates, registrations and their so-called rules.

Working the sick seeking work

Another call was made where I explained that I had a friend with me to help and a long conversation ensued about employment, sickness, eligibility and whatever else.

Now the technicality is because I fell ill after I became unemployed, I have to be paid out of the unemployment benefit funds rather than the sickness benefit funds – how that was confused by all the other people I have talked to about this situation escapes me.

Apparently, the unemployment funds are loath to pay up because I am registered as sick and the sickness funds are loath to pay up because I fell ill after I was unemployed.

The rules

In 24 hours, I should get another call from the unemployment benefit office where I really do not know what will happen.

Office automation is one of my areas of expertise and one would really expect that these matters have a protocol for handling the issues internally without having to bounce the system off the claimant – they have all the information.

As the conversation closed, I asked the agent how she felt about introducing the stress of keeping abreast of their system on a person who calls to register as sick – without saying it, I realised the famous Dutch cop-out for the establishment and bureaucracy, “The rules are the rules”

I just hope this ping-pong game ends with a speedy resolution rather than this passing of the buck, the situation is very clear and at the end the fault is because I did not resort welfare funds as a first option; as a last resort, the matter has become a bit more complicated.

What's for me in the welfare state?

Asking the welfare state

I finally decided to check to find out if for all the 9 years of working in the Netherlands I was entitled to any help in respect to having been out of work for so long and been ill for about the same duration of time.

Considering I had made other plans to actualise part of my real estate without much success advice I had received meant I should assess those possibilities.

Late in December, I thought my chemotherapy treatment was coming to an end so I registered as unemployed looking for work as well as for income support.

Good for work, much less for welfare

The work coach was quite helpful for the registration for the income support end was literally inscrutable, the forms on the Internet just went page after page and my knowledge of Dutch stumbled at the ambiguities of meaning, intent and context, I was getting nowhere.

Eventually, I decided to call the benefit office for all the help they could offer in filling in the forms explaining that I had been unable to effectively search for work because the chemotherapy really only gave me two weeks of utility every month.

Sadly, the strength of the chemotherapy knocked me out for more or less a week, if I could get very short term contracts for my services, maybe that can be tailored but the schemes had to be quite specific.

Forms and boxes

A meeting had been scheduled for last Friday in relation to the registration done in December and my work coach sent me a whole range of paper forms to fill in which I did to the best of my ability barring the ambiguous points.

I took copies of contracts, salary slips, hospital appointments, prospects and every other detail I could find on my situation to the meeting and we just got on with filling in the forms which we did very well without having to use the scheduled meeting for a form-filling coach.

It’s on some computer

I was surprised at the amount of information the system had on me, apart from all my employment contracts since 2002, I found that at least for part of penultimate contract and the last contract they also had the full details of what hit my bank account.

The SUWINET information system was an amazing Big Brother monitor of my financial activities, I questioned why I had to fill the forms with information they already had and could easily access by typing in my Social Security Number.

The way information is so interlinked in scary to say the least; it is on some computer somewhere and pervasively accessible to almost anyone who has authority to view it including my work coach.

We filled in all the forms, photocopied all the documents and I asked for copies of what had been recorded in the SUWINET system and the forms were sent by the internal postage network of the social security office.

Using the support system

It was quite a strange world for me, I had not visited a social security office since the early months of 1991 and like I said before, it was all the more difficult because I never learnt how that system worked because I have always been in employment and when I had breaks, I never had difficulties with those breaks.

I am however not sure of what I am really entitled to and if any claim will be backdated to some point for support and amelioration – such was the self-confidence in getting by that thinking of the safety of social security and the welfare state never really occurred to me until friends suggested I explore that area and it took some convincing to make that move.

In any case, I now have just 5 weeks to aggressively seek new employment to hopefully start work by the beginning of April at the latest, a few more meetings with creditors and medical personnel are planned – just wish me well with every good fortune.

Thanks!