I hear the whispers of thank God Christmas and new year is over from some people as I travel round London and I think that there are quite a few people who are afraid to open their letters just in case it's their credit card bills. The first letter I got this week was a bill and I haven't a penny to my name. The thing that I have learned is by phoning or writing to the people you owe and making a reasonable offer of payment it does work and it stops those nasty people called bailiffs from calling. I was not used to having to pay bills but I am learning because I am just like everyone else I like to miss a week or two just to have something special.
I have had a break from using my computer for nearly a week, just too recharge my batteries so to speak because I am at my computer or one at the crisis office nearly everyday but when I thought about it I compared it to the crisis open Christmas. My thinking was if all year long you are homeless or lonely. Then for seven days you are given the chance to rest and forget about your troubles. Then that seven days will have meant an awful lot to quite a few people. The one thing over Christmas that I did notice was that even though people had hostels and such. Many were people of my age that were just lonely. I've heard the talks from people like John bird and that geezer from the sun newspaper saying places like the open Christmas shelters are not needed and I do beg to differ. We have a homeless population and curing it seems to be a rather difficult task. Is it our fault or the governments for not seeing how bad it really was in the first place? John Bird says we need to focus more on prevention and I agree but not at the expense of the ones that are on the streets now and that's where me and John Bird disagree. We need extras money from the government to be spent on prevention.
I believe anyone can change given the chance but the truth is chances are few and far between and to be really truthful, some people have already been given so many that some people have given up but saying that if I hadn't taken one of those chances I wouldn't be writing this.
This is what I think, we need to update the way we see homelessness and that there is such a thing as hidden homelessness. As many seem to think that just having a roof over your head is enough. We need to think more about getting people work skills and we need to focus more on empowering people after all making the right decision for ones self is half the battle. We need more people that know about homelessness or drugs ( have actually been affected) to actually work in this sector.
I think that this year will be more of me blogging about more than just the streets. Got nothing better to do now I have already broken my new years resolution.