John (52) had just started a new job at a courier company when the pandemic hit. He had worked in his previous job for 20 years organising courier deliveries.
The firm was badly hit by the pandemic, he explains, so his new employer decided to keep on the person he was replacing and John found himself out of work.
“Like many others, I was caught in a no man’s land,” he says.
John has also suffered with mental health problems for many years following a childhood trauma. On his recent visit to the foodbank, he has just come out of hospital after a couple of nights on a mental health ward. Often close to tears, he explains how he hasn’t been coping and the stress has been affecting his heart and blood pressure. His anxiety levels are high at the moment, he says. Finding himself on a mental health ward has unnerved him. He has nothing but praise for his support worker but he’s waiting for a call from the crisis team who didn’t turn up when he was expecting them.
Since losing his job, John has found himself sleeping rough on a couple of freezing nights in February. He lost four stone in six months. “Being homeless was the worst thing ever,” he says. He has recently been housed in Haringey in assisted housing.
He has been claiming Universal Credit but says he always runs out of money before the end of the month. He refers to the expected £20 a week cut as a disaster. After paying his rent and a small amount to pay off his debts, he’s left with £185 a month to live on. However, around £50 a month goes on travel so he can get to hospital appointments and access services.
He applied for Personal Independence Payments but although he’s been waiting for months for an appointment to see a psychologist who specialises in complex depression and trauma, he’s been turned down for PIP by the assessor who has concluded his mental health is not that bad.
“I am insulted by this,” he says. He has paperwork going back years documenting hospital visits and suicide attempts.
“I’ve learnt to live with it over the years,” he says. “But it never really goes away.”