It is used Emails with a dramatic content, but what it currently reads, is also due to Helena stone house particularly: As a mother is pleased that they couldn’t put fresh fruit on the birthday cake for a child, or you could buy much-needed shoes for the Teenager. Such news gets to the stone house almost daily – since Corona has changed the work of the founder of the Berlin Association “sanction-free” is strong.
Actually, the 32-year-old activist takes care of since the year of 2015, what the club’s name suggests: it helps with a Team of Hartz IV recipients, which are affected by Sanctions by job centres to fight back legally against sanctions and pays people money to come in spite of the restrictions on the rounds.
Since the beginning of the Corona-crisis has changed your task, however. Because the Jobcenter suspend the imposition of sanctions since the beginning of April. On the other, have deteriorated, nevertheless, for many people, the life conditions: for Example, food prices have risen, in addition, many mini-jobs ceased to exist. “Since April, the months are simply more expensive,” says Steinhaus. “As a result, the money is often not sufficient for the basic needs,” she says, “for example, fresh, healthy food”.
It becomes more expensive to the everyday in “the structural transformation of everyday life”, such as stone house, called it: a Lot of children get no free school meals and more, and digital education, for example, requires Internet-enabled Laptops, which are not present in every family.
The consequences go far beyond physical limitations. Especially when families, finally, is,, and every third Hartz-IV-recipients is a child. The financial burden increases the pressure within the families,” she says. To not be able to participate in some things, says Stonehouse, “can lead to shame and withdrawal and gives always the feeling of not really belonging.”
Stone house can relate to that very well. When she was 17 years old, her mother was, previously, for many years an educator, Hartz IV recipient. And also as a stone house is not equal to a Job found, after having studied cultural studies, she was dependent on state support and know the difficulties and what is the Stigma attached to recipients of Hartz IV have been in a everyday life without the pandemic.
Because all of this has been exacerbated by Corona is still drama, has called for this in may with several welfare organizations, unemployed initiatives, the payment of a monthly supply of 100 euros for the duration of the Corona-crisis – and not just for families, but for all of the Hartz-IV-receiver. So far, the stone house and their supporters are pushed on rejection.
The Team of penalty-free makes therefore, as Stonehouse says, “symbolically a beginning.” Because for the club, the sanction of compensation payments cease, and on the other hand, money donations for the mitigation of corona-induced hardening have been added, figures of stone house and her Team to present the money to the families. Parents who have registered will receive a random selection principle once 100 euros. Since the Start of the action, more than 170 families have received the amount and the employees of sanction free-very many grateful Emails.