More than 1.5million Brits are living in destitution, a shock report warns. The Government was ... urged to take to take immediate action to tackle the crisis by reforming the social security system. Of the 1,550,000 suffering in “shameful” squalor, 365,000 are children, the dossier said. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that the destitute often went without