Wrong Focus on Homelessness - Excuse to not care
(Written by Richard Frazer)

It does not take long to stumble on real problems in the public attitude to homelessness  when you are trying to raise awareness of the problems people on the streets face.  All people on the surface show sympathy and I am sure that is sincere however most will not help or want to hear about the problems. There are mechanisms people build to make this work:

Excuses to not care.

Lots of them and they range from. ‘If I give them money they spend it on drugs’. ‘They don’t stop begging after I gave them some food’. Well here is a new news report that has found a new way of helping people not care.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9359241/Homeless-charity-swamped-by-eurozone-migrants.html

Homeless Migrants – Apparently according to this report are flooding the country fleeing troubled spots of the eurozone.

Lets start handling the myths one by one.
‘They spend their money on drugs’ -  Some may do , some may not. These people are here in a miserable state because they are destitute and in sad conditions. They are likely to have physiological problems and also more likely to have drink and drug problems. They need the help of people. They need people to care. They need a society that will assist them out of their downward spiral to find the help they need. Help does not always mean money, it may mean food, an ear to talk to, time out your day. Assistance. These are people probably from your own community.

‘They don’t stop begging after I gave them food’ – No they don’t. None of them will. They are begging to survive. If they got food or money off you, they may not even thank you, but you have helped them. To survive on the street requires a tough persona where you have to be opportunist. Anyone who has been near homeless people will realise they are exactly the same people we all are. They just have less and are hurting. It is scarey to see people who once help jobs, foraging for something to eat in a bin  and drinking toxic liquids. It does not take long when working with destitute people that most will resort to this when necessity calls for it. I bet you would.

Lastly ‘Homeless European Migrants’  according to the Telegraph – This is just silly and divisive. Yes there will be some obviously. Every argument you care to put forward it is likely you can find cases that will back those arguments, but why would homeless Europeans come on-mass to the UK to be homeless UK migrants. Why would the poor in Poland think they will find any more or better work from the streets in Britain. If they have no money in any country it is a stupid idea to leave the lands you know penniless to lands where they don’t speak the language and expect something better. This is just not going to happen.

We must not stop having human compassion. We must not hide behind excuses and except this treatable wrong as the natural way things should be.
These people need your help and need your respect. All want an opportunity to do better and many never get a real chance to improve their condition once they find themselves destitute. Help the homeless.

17% increase in UK homelessness in Just 12 Months according to 2011 stats!

(Reported by Richard Frazer)

It has been raining today heavily in Birmingham and while thinking about what to write about in regards to the homeless people who are sheltering from the rain today I stumbled on this report.
Please take time to read the BBC report on:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14838969

It is scarey that in the same report that the BBC presented to Housing Minister Grant Shapps about the 17% rise in homelessness he is quoted as saying homelessness was at a "historic" low level.

The two do not match up and that is the problem with the governments stance and so the peoples understanding of the subject.
No party has ever decided to take a lead on this subject because firstly homeless people largely don't vote. They technically can vote as the House of Commons Rules state 'Homeless people can register using a declaration of local connection'. However most will think that is the last thing on their mind and also many will have got here due to some sort of mental incapacity of serious issues that shadow their life and once again this will stop them voting because of House of Commons Rules stating that can only vote so long as you are 'not subject to any legal incapacity to vote.'
So to the political party system these non voters are not worth spending time on.

However we are the voters and we as citizens have an obligation to our fellow citizens even if the political elite do not see it the same way.

The Department for Communities and Local Government compared the number of homeless between April and June this year with the same period last year.

This showed local authorities had accepted 11,820 applicants this year - up 17% - as being homeless and eligible for the council housing waiting list. Housing Minister Grant Shapps said that despite the rise, homelessness was at a "historic" low level. He said the figures underlined how the effects of "the worst recession for a generation continue to deliver difficult times for households up and down the country".

The homeless issue will not go without a focus on it. The homeless issue will only grow with no focus on it and I assure you the political elite will continue to say it is a shrinking problem.

Please give a moment to think about these people.

Medical Needs of the Homeless

(Reported By Richard Frazer)

Substandard living conditions, inadequate nutrition, extreme weather and limited healthcare inevitably lead to serious health conditions. Shelters and homeless treatment programs are simply unable to accommodate people recovering from surgery or those with acute health conditions. Also hospitals tend not to provide extended post-treatment care to homeless patients. Therefore, people who are homeless experience a high rate of unresolved health conditions or complications which lead to repeat emergency room visits and hospital stays due to improper healing as tremendous cost to local hospitals and our community. 

By offering appropriate care to post-recovery treatment and/or housing, is an important bridge enabling people without homes to begin or continue on the path to independent living in permanent housing.

People who end up here or find themselves here have no resource and are overlooked by the vast population who simply walk past them. No-one blames a person for walking past. The problem looks huge and unsolvable but it is not.
If every community provided a shelter, food and most importantly a process to get these people back into the system and working towards looking after themselves there would be no homeless problem.
The cost of this is not magnificent it is a bowl of soup in the evening, medical and support at need as opposed to continually turning up at emergency and never resolving the underlying problems which is vastly more expensive.

People living in hostels or sleeping rough can get medical help, advice and treatment.
They have the right to register with a GP but can also get medical help for non-emergencies at the Medical Units but only depending on the resource provision in an area. My area Birmingham is pretty good, but certainly if you find yourself homeless in small towns and rural areas, you have a bigger problem.

Please keep the issues of being homeless in your mind and help them in your community. More importantly make your MP’s and councillors aware of them. Currently very little is being done as the issue is not one our public representatives want to touch. It is not good attention.
Help them, and help them back in to the community. Have a heart.

A genuine account of someone who found themselves homeless

(Reported by Richard Frazer)

It is important to note that being homeless does not necessarily come from bad living or from not caring. Often and usually the person has simply fallen at each hurdle that is in place to catch those that slip through the system. Many of these people are intelligent capable people who suffer a sequence of bad luck and simply run out of resources and support to pull their situation around until it is too late.

Here is such an account sent to us from one of our page contributors who chooses to remain anonymous. The period of time homeless was short but the effects last a long time:

The Account of Events:

My mum re-married when I was 11. I didn't get on with my step dad. I suppose he was OK, he's not a bad person but he had a temper on him. Within a short while he was being violent towards me. The violence stopped when I was around 14. It was never talked about or acknowledged to have happened as far as I am aware.

I probably wasn't an easy teenager but I wasn't as bad as many I don't think. I wasn't aggressive, taking drugs, involved in crime or anything like that. In fact I had become a born-again Christian aged 15 and everything revolved around that for me. Shortly before I turned 18 I discovered boys and drink and fell from grace somewhat. There was another episode of my step dad being violent towards me. I turned 18. 5 weeks later I was due to sit my first A level exam. on the Monday. I went to the pub with some friends on the Saturday night. It was cold so after we left the pub at closing time I stopped off at my house to get a coat. My step dad went nuts and refused to let me leave again (my mum was working nights at the time) and he held onto my arm and wouldn't let me go. After a tussle I got away but he said I couldn't come home anymore. I didn't take it seriously but I was scared of him and stayed at a friend's house that night but had to leave early in the morning so his mum didn't get annoyed. I went back home, crept in the back door and my step dad started screaming and shouting at me and told me to never come back. So I left with nothing.

Some hours later I was able to meet up with some friends. One of them was a boy slightly older than me who I had had a "petting session" with several weeks before. He was keen on me but I wasn't so much on him as I found him intimidating. He took me back to his parents house where he lived, and I stayed there a week sleeping in his bedroom in his bed with him. It was that or the streets and I was terrified. He kept pressuring me into doing sexual things with him, saying that I was obliged to because he had helped me and that he would tell his parents to throw me out if I didn't do what he said. It was only for a week thankfully but it seemed the longest week of my life. I was scared of his moods and temper, scared of what was happening between us, scared to say no in case I was thrown out as there was nowhere else to go. Needless to say I failed my A levels. In fact, the first one which was the day after I was thrown out, I cried all the way through the exam.

Thankfully, there was a somewhat happier ending. Someone loaned me the money for a deposit on a tiny flat. My boss from my Saturday job gave me a full-time position at £60 a week (before the minimum wage came in). It was a pittance but I managed just about.

Birmingham has seen a 140% rise in the number of homeless cases since January 2010 according to youth charity YMCA.

 

In 2008 Birmingham City Council claimed there was only four rough sleepers in the city. This was obviously not true but much of the work even then to keep the homeless off the streets was done by groups like St Basil's and not the council.
Recent figures reveal more than one in ten of the 723 homeless applications lodged in the city in July were from 16 and 17-year-olds.

Alan Fraser, CEO of Birmingham YMCA told BBC WM that they are seeing a higher demand on their services and the situation is getting worse.
"A lot of effort has been made over the last 10 - 15 years to see rough sleeping in the city reduced and it's been successful. However in the last couple of years we've seen the situation go backwards with an increase in rough sleepers and people in temporary accommodation."
Youth unemployment crisis
Birmingham has some of the highest UK figures in youth unemployment.
Mr Fraser commented: "There is a real crisis with young people and youth unemployment, people can't get jobs and so can't access affordable accommodation in the private sector."