Punitive Welfare Policy risks increasing harm / A.J. Hendry
If you’re serious about supporting people to be independent of the benefit, then you will be serious about ensuring liveable incomes & safe and stable housing
Over the last few weeks National, New Zealand First, and ACT have all announced policies which will make life more difficult for people needing support from our welfare system. From the National Party’s traffic light sanction policy to New Zealand First’s two-year benefit cap, to ACT’s policy to threaten people suffering from mental illness and addiction to participate in programs or lose their income, each of these policies sends a clear message to some of our poorest whānau.
Get back to work, or your life is going to become a whole lot harder.
As I’ve listened to these policies be announced over the last few weeks one of my key concerns has been the increased risk of harm, they are likely to place upon rangatahi.
To access the benefit as an independent young person (16-17yrs old) you will have had some form of whānau breakdown. This means that for whatever reason, you are unable to live at home.
A large percentage of these young people have either been at risk of experiencing homelessness, have experienced homelessness, or are experiencing homelessness.
At 18, this group is expected to either have mahi, or transition onto the Job Seeker benefit. At that point, the support they receive is also reduced (prior to this they have access to a youth worker, who can provide some level of support, though their are limitations due to high caseloads). A percentage of this group of young people often have high needs, have experienced trauma, have challenges with their mental health and addictions, and lack safe and stable housing.
When they turn 18, those needs don’t disappear. In fact, with the loss of support, they are at greater risk, and are less likely to be able to get connected to mahi or education.
Sanctions, forcing them to do courses, expecting them to be ready to jump into employment or lose support, are not effective tactics to support young people, because they fail to understand why these young people need the support in the first place.
In my experience, a quality, trained Youth Worker, with a low caseload, and resources to move, is far more effective at supporting young people to navigate the system and realize their hopes, dreams, and aspirations.
But, even more importantly than that sort of support, is providing young people with access to their basic needs. If you’re serious about supporting young people to be independent of the benefit, then you will be serious about ensuring those young people have liveable incomes, safe and stable housing, and access to mental health support and health care that meets their needs.
Sanctions and punitive measures get in the way of what our young people really need, as they create unnecessary pressure, increase anxiety, and they fail to respond to what is actually going on in those young people’s lives. And with anything, if you want to fix a problem, first you have to understand it. And these policies, just do not understand why our young people are needing support, and thus are failing to provide effective solutions.
And yet, whether we are talking about young people, or others who need access to support, at the heart of this conversation really is the purpose of the welfare system and the nature of our humanity. Does our social safety net simply exist as a means to push people back into the workforce in order to ensure that they become economic units who can boost the economy? Or does it exist to serve our people and our communities?
If you believe that people accessing welfare support are fundamentally lazy and need to be disciplined in order to find work, then punitive sanctions make sense.
However, in my 10+ years of experience journeying with whānau and rangatahi who have had to access welfare, I have never witnessed this to be the case.
In my experience, most people don’t want to access support from the Government. The system is demeaning and dehumanizing, often it’s hard to get the support you need, and what support you do get barely allows people to survive, let alone thrive.
There is always a reason (sometimes several) why people need support, and why they may struggle and be unable to work.
Some people are physically and mentally unwell, and thus they depend on this support to live. These people often contribute huge amounts to our communities, caring for whānau, nieces and nephews existing and being, and just making the world better because of it.
Others have suffered complex trauma, and due to this, they need a lot of support to heal before they will be ready or able to work. Others are experiencing homelessness and/or are young people who have had to leave home because it is unsafe. Others just simple need someone in their corner. Finding work is hard. And if you don’t fit “the mould” it can be hard to get employers to back you.
Sanctions and punitive measures are ineffective at supporting people into work because they fail to understand why people are needing access to welfare in the first place. Anyone serious about supporting people into employment, will be serious about understanding the why before proposing “solutions”.
At the end of the day, people have value regardless of what we contribute to the economy. And that value isn’t dependent on how much you earn, or how much you will earn. That value comes simply from the fact that you are.
You exist.
So, you matter.
Living shouldn’t have a cost.
We are not economic units.
We are people.
And all people should be able to live with dignity and respect, no matter what is going on in their lives.
#LoveIsTheWay
A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and a Youth Development Worker and rangatahi advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads Kick Back, a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.
You are absolutely right AJ and we have been reduced to economic units. The economy is far more important in the polls than climate change. We may well survive climate change but our children and grandchildren will be severely affected. And yet the political parties focus on growth exploiting more from less. So of course the right wing lump at risk youth into simplistic dog whistling policies because that’s all they know and it gets them votes. What does that say about our nations priorities. If in doubt blame crime, immigrants, Maori and beneficiaries. We are about to have an election and all many people want is tax cuts 30 pieces of silver. We have forgotten our humanity. We don’t even allow refugee children to reunite with their families. The solution is radical love of the kind Jesus preached. It’s treating our young people as precious even the ram raiders. Anything less is a path to destruction.