Last week our demo was a very busy one. From the minute we arrived to the minute we left we were inundated with terrible stories and people desperate for help.

Nothing really shocks us anymore but it’s becoming very clear to see that universal credit is destroying lives for both working and non-working people.

One man has been claiming universal credit but he got sick so he did the responsible thing — he went to his doctor and got a sick note.

The doctor stated his medical condition on his sick note so he took it into the jobcentre. He was told that this sick note wasn’t good enough and that he needed to get another one because it needed the words “he’s got worse” written on it.

He went back to the doctor and got another sick note. The doctor quite rightly said he couldn’t write that on a sick note, but described the patient’s condition instead.

The man took his new sick note in and staff again claimed that it wasn’t good enough.

Since when were the jobcentre advisors, or “coaches” as they now like to be called, fully trained medical officials?

This man is very obviously ill. He was cold and hungry and very fed up about the whole situation, complaining that he had been treated like rubbish — like something that you step on in the street.

He’s not had any money for a long time now either, and feels like what jobcentre staff wanted him to do was to disappear and not to come back, thereby saving the money he might have claimed. He’s right, they do.

Us campaigners let him use one of our phones to make a claim for employment and support allowance because he didn’t have any access to a phone and the jobcentres no longer have any phones available to the public.

Another man came over and spoke to us. He’s unfortunate enough to be claiming universal credit. The jobcentre has totally messed him around and he has received just £420 since last September. This had to be used to pay his rent.

He is now in the process of being evicted from his home because of the jobcentre’s mistake and is preparing to say goodbye to the home that he has lived in for many years. He hasn’t had any money for food, gas or electricity and is surviving on a day-to-day basis from the kindness of friends and foodbanks.

Universal credit is a cruel, evil system. At one click of a button, a person’s lifeline is cut off.

Four people came to us during the demo and told us that they were being evicted from their homes due to universal credit mistakes by the Department for Work and Pensions. These people hadn’t paid their rent because they hadn’t received their money.

A woman walked over to us, saying that even though she had only £19 to her name and wouldn’t have any more money for a while she would like to give us 50p towards our cause. We tried to refuse this, saying that she didn’t have enough money, but she wasn’t listening. She did accepted a nice warm hat and gloves because she was freezing.

This is what we are dealing with on a weekly basis but this is happening on a massive scale every day to thousands of people up and down the country. Please join us in opposing this and do whatever you can to fight against this punishing regime.

This article first appeared at The Poor Side of Life.