Making ends meet

For people with learning disabilities who do not receive support services, living a life on benefits can be a struggle, as a research project found out: For Joe [not his real name] the struggle of living on welfare benefits was epitomised by one occasion when, having run out of money, he resorted to stealing toilet paper from a bingo hall. Joe, who has a learning disability and receives no specialist support, had received food from a foodbank but had run out of other essentials, hence his theft. While this may have been an extreme example, Joe’s struggles are by no