Looks like this is going to be my housing month as I have spent a fair amount of time trying to get hold of people on the telephone, writing letters relating to benefits (or more accurately, lack of benefits) for people and trying to unravel numerous issues relating to how those who have little appear to:
a. Have it taken away,
b. Not have it offered in the first place, and
c. Find themselves at the very back of the queue in what, to my perhaps cynical mind, appears to be an exercise in making the homeless so stressed out that they either throw their bid for housing or benefits in the bin or flip out and behave such that they get binned as a result of their actions.
One of those I am working with has been offered accommodation and was under the impression that the keys would be handed in a week ago and then they would be able to have a look and if acceptable, move in. The keys have apparently been handed in today and the relevant people are saying that it will take something like four weeks before they can make it available. When I pointed out that this means that there will be a homeless person on the streets over Christmas it was evident that the person dealing with the case wasn't in the slightest concerned and mumbled about 'heavy workloads and doing it according to their procedures' and that there wasn't anything that they could do about that.
I am stunned that such rigid attitudes exist at a time when we find so many properties sitting vacant, the weather is getting increasingly Winter-like (at last) and the potential for a death over Christmas (by weather or other means) becomes an increasing likelihood.
Mind you, an improvement from some dealing where I have been told that the council is doing< "Its statutory minimum!" ie. Nothing, other than give the homeless person a few bob and send them off to be one of the most invisible things in the world, 'someone else's problem'! Or as one councillor recently boasted, "We don't have a homeless problem in our town!" Of course we don't, we send them somewhere else and come up with reasons to move them on.
I struggle with this and as we approach the sixth anniversary of the death of a local character who froze to death in a bus shelter (Mick Weir, 7th January 2006) I am saddened, appalled and shamed by the attitudes of those who serve our community and the community itself (church and secular) in their complacency. When Mick Weir died the locals put their hands in the pockets and raised £1k as a tribute - the next person who dies because they aren't housed (and want to be - not all will accept or want a bricks and mortar home) will be the next tribute to him!
What's happening where you are?
Who's getting the stuff that's arriving at our door if it's no you?
Our communities need churches that are engaged, involved and not only being the difference but 'encouraging' those who work for (and represent) us to do what is right in a timely fashion.
Pax
1 comment:
Some years ago I found myself "homeless" because my Landlord had absconded with the rent money I had paid faithfully or 2 years,and the bank repossessed the house. I was not allowed to be rehoused until the baliffs had been. A frightening experience. Myself and my children were not housed that day as the housing officer at the council needed to get home early. With all the belongings we could manage packed into a car, we had just enough money to book a family room in a Travel Lodge for a night. We were lucky as we didn't have to sleep in the street, but when asked for an address when we booked in, it felt very disconcerting to have to say that we did not have one. It made me realise just how easy it would be to end up on the streets. We were finally rehoused in a particularly nasty part of town. It is so sad that folk no longer care about homelessness,and are used to seeing people in the street not realising that they could help. Obviously in some cases folk need professional help for drug habits etc. but I can genuinly say, there but for the grace of God.....
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