The other night I watched a program on the “Fake Homeless”. We’ve all seen them – the ones who cover
their face when you walk by. Ellie Flynn
the presenter was of course horrified that a man called Ashley Sims (of Devon) had taken to posting pictures of the fake homeless
on the internet. “How do you know they
are fake?” she asked Mr Sims to which Mr Sims replied “The real homeless don’t
beg”. She then interviewed a real
homeless man who explained that he did not want to live in hostels because they
were unpleasant places – who says beggars can’t be choosers? Honestly, these are the people who in the 19th
century would have complained about the workhouses. Those were the days – when there was
work. A lot of the people she
interviewed were begging to fund drug addictions resulting in posters from
local police forces along the lines of “Give to beggars and Putin will use the
money to manufacture Novichok” etc. Ms
Flynn was most shocked by this. The
beggars included a woman who openly said she regarded it as a “job” and
informed us that there were not many options for people like her – it was this
or “going on the game”. No point in, as
Mr Tebbit used to say, “getting on your bike and looking for work” when you can
get paid sitting on the floor.
Ms Flynn
seemed to want to believe that no one would choose to beg but it seemed to pass
her by that the reality is it is better paid for many people than working for
the NMW. To be fair none of these people had actually told people they were "homeless" it was simply a conclusion that most people jumped to - you're begging so you must not have a home...? I would never beg but you can purchase my novels etc...
Meanwhile Mr Sims had been suffering a backlash against his
shame the fake homeless campaign and had set up a “2nd phase” to his
plan – setting up his own hostel/BandB. Ms
Flynn interviewed some of the residents and seemed to get rather depressed that
many of them seemed to be on drugs and that there might have been a few
fights. She took Mr Sims to task for this and for giving them money to buy their drugs with. Mr Sims said that he was simply “looking
after the interests of the business community” but the meaning of his words
seemed to pass her by… She didn’t seem to comprehend that there was no real
difference to Mr Sims giving them the cash for their addictions rather than the
general public. All Mr Sims had done was
make the problem visibly disappear by inventing professional druggies. That is ...people who are paid to sit in a
house and be out their head rather than sit in the street and be out their
head. There being no real jobs for such
people he had sort of invented them – paying people to stay out of sight. Well, it’s a career… Sadly the funders of this endeavour of creating reservations for the tribe of the methadone eventually decided they could not condone the endeavour forever... despite the fact it's almost a direct recreation of the systems many homeless charities use...
This being the well meaning BBC Ms Flynn told us that it was
not that simple … although to the police it seemed far too simple. Asked what happened if people continued to
stay on the street after being repeatedly warned and moved on and refusing to
move on one PoPo said simply “Prison”.
Well, it’s a home … of sorts.
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