I'm 3/4 of the way through my edit of Why Did The Policeman Cross The Road? and going through the heart-breaking process of excising material. As I've said in previous shedposts, the material isn't 'lost'; it may end up in a future book or in magazine features or, like today, as an extra bit of content available only to my subscribers. So, here we go ...
One problem that often arises when dealing with an issue involving homeless people is the moral dilemma of giving money or responding to beggars. The problem is three-fold: Firstly, how can you be sure that they are real beggars and not con-artists? A wise older friend of mine once told me to always ‘Look at their shoes’ and he had a point; I’ve sometimes seen supposed poverty-stricken beggars in expensive designer trainers that I couldn’t actually afford. But it’s not a true indicator of course, and they could have bought them from a charity shop or had them donated. Secondly, how do you know that you’re not just helping to perpetuate a drink or drug addiction problem? And, thirdly, how much do you give?
Traditionally, beggars are dealt with by enforcing anti-begging laws or by the social services, the NHS and charities like St Mungo’s Trust who help to get them off the street and into safe accommodation and recovery programmes. However, some beggars have deep underlying problems of alcoholism or drug usage and their habit subverts attempts to help them. To make matters worse, every time a kind person gives them money they are helping to feed those habits. Homeless charities encourage us to buy them a meal rather than donate money.[1] Or, if you want to give money, to give it to a charity rather than directly to the homeless person (so-called diverted giving) so that the money is distributed fairly and used for a proper purpose. However, there is pleasure in altruism; it’s rewarding to feel like you’ve done some good and helped someone worse off than yourself. You don’t get to see the effect that your kindness has had by donating to a charity. Also, research shows that people feel better making a small donation – maybe all they can afford – to a needy person rather than a small donation to a charity, which makes them feel ‘cheap’. It’s a tricky problem with no easy answer.
In Los Angeles and Chicago they came up with a voucher scheme to take cash out of the equation. People who wanted to help could buy vouchers and give them to the street population. The vouchers could be exchanged at Day Centres for food and drink, shelter, transport or medical services but not for alcohol, tobacco or drugs. The scheme seemed to be a success and soon spread to other states such as Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, New York and Washington. It also made it to the UK, being trialled in Edinburgh and then used in places like London, Cambridge, Bath and Canterbury. However, it seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years, possibly because of a developing black market trade in vouchers among a few desperate addicts. So, until that particular problem is resolved, the scheme has ground to a halt.
However, the actual problem here is that there are still homeless people in Britain in 2015. It seems extraordinary to me that, in a country that is one of the world’s richest and most charitable, we can’t house the poorest and most in need in our society. There are hundreds of square miles of unused brownfield sites and otherwise unusable land available. Despite what some carping politicians claim, Britain is not 'full'. There are thousands of empty houses and other buildings. And there are any number of cheap, affordable, pre-fabricated housing systems - even converted shipping containers – and self-build schemes that use reclaimed materials. And can’t we get students designing affordable housing as part of their design or architecture degrees? No one should be homeless.[2] Lack of money is not an excuse. As the late Tony Benn once said, 'If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.' [3]
In the meantime, if you can afford to, why don’t you buy a homeless person a sandwich and a cup of tea now and again?
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[1] The old adage of ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ isn’t quite true. I once bought a burger and fries for a homeless guy who subsequently told me that he was a Hindu and couldn’t eat beef. These days I tend to buy chicken for homeless people as there are no religious issues. I’ve not met a vegetarian homeless person yet, mind …
[2] This year I’m building a shed in my garden and the rule I’ve set myself is not to spend a single penny on it, just to prove it can be done. I’m using materials reclaimed from skips (with permission), reclaimed nails and screws from thrown away furniture, wood from unwanted pallets and other materials donated by people on www.freecycle.org. Surely local authorities could do something similar on a larger scale?
[3] This famous quote is something he said to Michael Moore when interviewed for Sicko, his documentary film about the health industry in the US. Explaining the post-war creation of the welfare state, Benn also explained that the popular mood of the 1945 election was: 'If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can’t we have full employment by building hospitals, building schools?'