As many of you know, I have for the last 2½ years supported a friend in dire need. I initially met her begging on the street, and resolved to make a difference. It has been a difficult undertaking, one of the hardest I have ever encountered in my life. Indeed, it has been truly eye-opening to experience the world through her. Since the focus of this newsletter is telecoms and tech, I have asked her to share with me some of her exposure to communications poverty.
As context, it is helpful to know that she is afflicted by both mental health problems (having led a traumatic life), as well as physical impairment (including life-saving spinal surgery last year, leaving her in constant pain and with restricted mobility). She lives in deep hardship on the periphery of an otherwise genteel English town, with only her mother and myself for support. Her sole source of income, beyond what I and readers here donate, is from the Universal Credit welfare benefit.
I asked her to give me a sense of what communications poverty means to her. She related her most recent experience, when the second-hand smartphone she had (donated by a friend of mine) broke. As it was also her Wi-Fi hotspot, she was knocked offline for a few weeks, until a generous industry colleague bought her another one.
For her, the risk of taking on a fixed or mobile broadband contract is not just that you cannot pay it, and are blacklisted for bad credit, but that it leaves you short of food to eat, or indeed become totally homeless. Pay as you go mobile helps, but often has punitive rates if you are short of credit, and leaves you totally disconnected when you run out of money.
Having seen the catastrophic impact of street life on her health, I don’t think signing up for contract broadband would be high up my list of priorities, either. But here’s the kicker: you often have little choice, and this is where the really crazy bit begins. As a society we have put all welfare and health services online, but without considering how users will actually reach them.
This really came home to me when a kind industry associate agreed to buy her broadband service. We had to send her some emergency money at the last moment, as her prepaid electricity was about to run out when the installer was due. Then she missed the installer anyway, because she had to attend an emergency medical appointment, as she was in such pain. Whilst the utility suppliers have a concept of a vulnerable customer, their processes simply aren’t fit for purpose.
Making benefit claims online. This is the single most major and frustrating point that needs addressing, she says. Those in hardship must have the means to engage with the process.
Applying for a new home, or to move to a more suitable home. Council tenants have to go online daily to bid for chance to be housed, and attempt to move into a different property. You need broadband and a computer for this.
Job searches and applications. When DWP put you onto UC (or similar benefits), part of the agreement is to be looking for employment and other forms of earning money. This also needs suitable access.
My friend asks if “left over” gigabytes from broadband packages could be put into a system to donate them to poor people who cannot afford it. It’s one idea, and might have some impact, but I see the matter as requiring more profound industry and government action.
It seems to me that what’s really missing are a set of essential social broadband services and devices that those in serious need can access. This may require Ofcom to negotiate special regulation and pricing terms with industry suppliers for non-market products that service these vital social needs.
I don’t have the answers, but I do know for certain that not many people are asking the right questions at present.
Would you help her to help others?
When I first met her on the street, the main reason I stepped up and acted was because she was determined to become a social activist. It wasn’t merely personal charity, but a mutual commitment to achieve something together. I never guessed how many challenges and barriers we would face! There’s quite a book to be written from our thousands of text messages.
We’ve made a lot of progress in that time, and I would now like to take this to the next level. I’d like to get her actively involved in raising this communications poverty issue, and bring her to London to meet some of the relevant people. I can help to document these meetings, and bring wider awareness to what happens. This means transcending her present situation of basic survival.
She shouldn’t be worrying about £25 to get to hospital tomorrow, and the consequences of her post-surgery incontinence on that journey. One colleague gives her £50 a month, and it makes an enormous difference. Another has got her onto postpaid electricity, and covers her bill, so she doesn’t find herself in a cold and dark apartment a 3am again with a defrosted fridge and freezer. Another is ready to sort out her own broadband needs. Another has given her a PC.
What would make the biggest help is a few more people sponsoring her to turn her life around by making a recurring monthly gift to her. She is often short of food and other essentials, so this would give her a safe platform from which to begin to reengage productively with the world. She’s not well enough to do normal paid work yet, but she is capable of taking this social activist task on.
If you would like to sponsor her recovery and communications poverty activism, then hit “reply” and I can give you details of how. Alternatively, if you’d like to make a one-off donation, send it to paypal.me/martingeddes and I will forward it on. Together we have the power to make it happen and make a difference!