please empty your brain below

Last time I was in Paris there was a residence under one of the bridges which also had a large rug but had a proper double bed, a standard lamp, non-working obviously but leant a homely touch, an armchair and a coffee table. When a person has that much style/pride, resilience and sense of trying to remain "normal" through adversity perhaps they should be running a country instead of politicians whose idea of adversity is when the morning paper is late, turns up slightly crumpled and who understands all about social deprivation because they read about it during their politics degree.
Or is it installation art?

It's really hard to tell these days.
Benefit sanctions I suspect. So, what ever happened to the 'safety net' of social security benefits? Used to persecute the unfortunate or fund the feckless, it seems. Xst, it's all wrong.
This is happening all over London. People have set up homes on the banks of the canals and I know of one man who is living in a tent just outside a tower block on a council estate. Close by new flats are being built which sell for overĀ£1M. There is something deeply wrong about this.
'Pavement is our pillow
No matter where we stray,
Underneath the arches
We dream our dreams away.'
What would Boris say about it?
This morning there's a woman fast asleep on the bed instead. I'm pleased to report that the jigsaw and Scrabble boxes have survived.
The fact that we still have people on the streets is something this society should be perpetually embarrassed by.

But of course, it's easier just to ignore or drunkenly kick belongings around like the owners of them are stray dogs.
When I was living and working in central London in the early eighties I rarely saw tramps or beggars.

Visiting early this century there were beggars, homeless and Big Issue sellers.

Something rotten in the state of UK, methinks.

Does the Conservative government have any policies for tackling homelessness - apart from criminalising it, that is?
https://youtu.be/DiWomXklfv8
Tramps or beggars rare in the early 1980s?

Wasn't Margaret Thatcher PM in those days?
I fear that it can be all too easy to become homeless, even for so-called 'normal' people (i.e. those with a reasonable education and without addictions, personality problems, mental health issues etc).

In the late 80s good jobs came along like Routemasters, you could always hop off and find a better one; I changed jobs more than once and took out a mega-mortgage.

Along came a mega-recession in the early 90s, but I didn't worry. It was all very sad but, like war and famine, it was only on TV and it only affected other people far, far away.

Then my firm was taken over and I found myself suddenly redundant. Strange world of dole offices (they were brilliant), relying on benefits and mortgage interest payments. What if the building society sold the house for half what I'd paid and I was wiped out and left with nothing?

Fortunately I found a job after ten months and sixty-something applications. I still don't know how long it would have been before all the benefits would have stopped, I'd have defaulted, the house would have been foreclosed and I'd have been penniless. So when I see a homeless person on the streets I often feel a twinge and wonder whether they once had a job, a life and a home with all the trappings... until the perfect storm came along and sunk them.

How to help? Don't offer money: some beggars are fraudulent and, if it fuels a drug habit, you could be killing them with kindness. Offer a kindly word and some healthy food, or to pay a vendor directly for a meal or a hostel for a night's accommodation. A genuine beggar will always accept gratefully.
Classic example of the "Broken Windows" concept. One person gets away with something, so another follows, etc.
I am not entirely sure who Kim thinks is 'getting away' with what.

I do hope it's not the homeless person 'getting away' with trying to create a home under the arch.

But like you, DG, I am at a loss for what to do in such situations.

And it saddens me that homelessness is so often portrayed as if it's the fault of the person concerned.
I ended up homeless once. Fortunately as I had young children at the time I was caught by the safety net and went through the homeless hotel, temp accommodation then (eventually after nearly 5 years) was rehoused. Heaven knows what would have happened if the children hadn't been young at the time.
Like you, DG, I don't know how to respond. I feel sympathetic but handing over 50p isn't going to help either of us much is it. I started once trying to engage with a young woman who frequented the bus stop on my way home from work some years back but found it difficult as her moods and behaviour swung so much (drugs?).
@ DG

>'I have to walk this way twice a day, and a friendly gift might soon become an obligation.'

>'I walk past daily but without interaction. Usually that's easy, because the residents are asleep.'

You've solved it !

Just buy something like a Tesco Meal Deal (sandwich, bag of grapes / sliced apple, bottle of fruit juice) and leave it while they're asleep. You'll have done your Good Deed For The Day, you'll feel good, but there will be no ongoing obligation.
Shocking - in this context - statistic heard this morning of the percentage of ex-council houses now being let privately. It's a perfect Tory story, and the knowledge that we will never get back that decent, cheap housing a depressing fact.

There but for the grace of someone...
Thank you DG for spelling out just exactly where we're heading when our government know the price of everything but the value of nothing!
Such a sad state of affairs, but also such a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. I do hope something better comes along for them soon - and in the meantime they're left in peace to live as best they can.
I wonder how that southern-arch guy (or both of them) could still womanize when they're homeless. And from DG's follow up, I have a feeling that there had been *two* women using one bed.

I am afraid that someone capable to bed women even when he's homeless doesn't need a lot of friendly gift.

On the other hand, I think I have learnt something by reading Mr. Gerry's comments.
There must be something awry with my memory. There have always been beggars,tramps,call them whatever, from my earliest recollections(the fifties). And every government,councils,etc have always blamed the people with the powers that came before,for not having done something to sort it out. The eighties had conservatives!But then came labour! Did they sort it out-no. And so the pass the buck continues.
From my vantage point OverTheHills and far away this post makes me feel like doing something. The books and bookshelves need a home.

Is it patronising to think that with the power of the interweb we could help just one unfortunate human being or in this case possibly two?

As I have recently started work after a year unemployed I can afford to give a fiver if anyone wants to set up a crowdsource page (or whatever the modern thing is)to help the scrabble set find a home.
The Whitechapel Mission, 212 Whitechapel Road, provides a lifeline to those caught up in the cycles of dependency, poverty and homelessness. The do referrals to emergency and longer term housing. They are open 365 days a year from 6 am to 11 am and serve breakfast for a very low price, to over 150 a day.

DG, instead of walking past not knowing what to do, take up their Breakfast Challenge. A group of us from our church did this in December 2014, a real eyeopener and positive help to those in need.
So much for "big society"...and I guess I mistaken again but was it not Thatcher who said something along the lines of "there is no such thing as community"? "We" bailout the bankers but can't seem to find a way to help here... shameful really.
@ OverTheHills
@ Sarah

This site seems very appropriate: Help A Rough Sleeper / No Second Night Out.

No disrespect to Sarah, but the No Second Night Out has a link to tell them about a rough sleeper, so they seem ideally geared up to help with the cases that DG has illustrated. Also, the Whitechapel organisation has a Christian ethos, and some people may not be entirely comfortable with that.
Same thing going on here in Seattle. There's a homeless guy with a sleeping bag who's always in the same spot on the bicycle trail I ride. I had the same dilemma - first I thought I'd give him a fiver - but then since he's there every day it would be more complicated.

If Bill Gates is correct, then joblessness is the new coming trend of the future. Society has failed to remedy the situation or even think about it very much. I remember back in the age of the Jetsons the dream was people would just push 1 button and be done with work for the day. But in real life that doesn't work out - not to mention the many depressing ramifications. I think there needs to be a new Magna Carta that says people have the right to job. Just because a computer can put 3,000 people out of work with a new software app, jobs need to be protected. Of course I can't think of a single politician who agrees with that line of thinking.

Rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. I was shocked to see on Zillow that a 2 bedroom condo with just 1 window sells for $19 Million dollars now in NYC. There's really something wrong there... and we have Donald Trump running for president! Ugh...
I started driving buses on my 20th birthday last year after passing my 6 weeks on instruction. I started the night shifts on the N87, N11 and N44. My goodess how the bus would fill up with people with nowhere to go. Schoolchildren in their uniform, the elderly. Craziness. The New Routemaster at night sure is interesting with open boarding allowing anyone in need of some warmth to travel all night free of charge.
@ Matt

"didn't think any "New Routemaster" routes operated with open "hop-on/hop off" at night (i.e N routes)...?
@ OnTheBus

You're allowed to board via the centre doors when it's at bus stop, which means that the driver will be none the wiser if someone fails to touch in.

Recognising the 'Happy Bus' possibilities that centre and rear door boarding offers for fraudulent travel, TfL proposed a few years ago that all Oyster card passengers would have to touch in (including those with season tickets) but the idea seems to have been quietly dropped.

It's interesting that Brighton's ex-TfL Bendy Buses have swing barriers to deter boarding via these doors. Similar one-way arrangements apply on Amsterdam trams.
I find Patrikov's comment about a man "bedding" a woman shows a distinctively caveman attitude. Why does he think that because a woman was seen in the bed in the morning, the man (if it was a man) who was also there somehow "does not need help". Humans often sleep together for many reasons, regardless of whether either of them has any resources at all.
^ Spot-on!
@ Gerry

Thanks. Also didn't know that some of the (in)famous "bendy buses" ended up in Brighton...must pop down there one day see how they doing ;)
As mentioned above, the New Routemaster operates with passengers able to board through any door, with the driver unresponsible for fares. I drove one on the 11 and it was chaotic to say the least. But the 10, 24, 390, 148, 453, 12, N8, N73, N55 and N38 all run through the night with this 'open boarding' system allowing many homeless people a free journey in the warm. Quite bizarre on the N8 at The Lowe in Hainault all these mysterious characters that have started appearing due to the bus!
They'll be on the Tube overnight soon....
Thanks Matt. Do they stay on for the "return" journey...or is driver "suppose" to turf them off at the end of the route?
I try and ask them off, often we need to call for assistance via code blue/red but often I just let them sleep. Its tricky. But they should really be asked off at the end like anyone else would, but you pick your battles, especially at an isolated Hainault, The Lowe at 3am!










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