Credit and more crunch

As I See it the chancellor did nothing to get me out shopping for Christmas in fact all he did was make me worry about how I am going to pay my gas and electric bill as I am one of the growing 1. 7,000,000 unemployed. I get 240.00 a month and now a total of 75 goes on gas and electric and they still want more. Now the government wants me to get a job so now I have to fork out either 13 50 a week on bus fares or 5.20 a day on bus and tube travel. Lets go for the 13 50 week that's 54. 00 a month for searching and going to interviews. So that's half my money gone. Oh and don't for get I have to pay four pounds fifty a week water rates and 6.25 TV license. that leaves me with less than twenty pounds a week for food. So what has the chancellor done for me and many like me? So does it matter that he knocked two and a half per cent of vat because like many we already shop second hand. When we can afford to. It just hasn't dawned on anyone that poverty will be wider spread over the next year or so. Will we recover ? Who knows.

Second hand

I met this fella on my nightly travels around the city of London. He was one of the people that travelled on the night buses. I'd seen him around some of the day centers so we got speaking about being homeless and when I told him I'd been homeless and was now living in my own flat he wished that he was me. Funny I never thought of anyone wanting to be me. I asked him how he became homeless and he said that he left home 12 years ago with nothing but a suitcase of second hand clothes and a few pound in his pocket. All he wanted to do was make a better life for himself as all his life everything he seemed to get was second hand. From the clothes he wore, to the watch he had on which he got for his birthday some years ago. He said his parents always struggled with money even though his dad worked six days a week. He was the youngest of five and often wishes to go back home but after lying for years to the people that matter to him. He felf he had to make it but has found life really different and difficult since the day he just up and left home. I asked him what does he do with his days now? What's the point of doing anything was the reply. If i go into a hostel it's just like being a part of a system that trys to do its best but just does work properly for me and I don't want to live with acholics and drug addicts because i am not one of those. I just want to be normal. Whatever that is

What's not new

It's a fact that unemployment has gone up and more and more homes are being reposed is now old news but did you know that an extra 120 people slept rough in the last couple of nights and in the last three months the homeless figure has risen steadily. These figures were reached just by making a few phone calls to three homeless charities in certain parts of the country.
Homelessness is not a thing of the past. It's still a major issue and is going to be an even bigger issue over the next year. No one really wants to admit to a growing problem. The last time we had a recession homelessness went up by 26% . We see it more now on the fringes of big cities because of policies made by certain councils who want to give there area a look of cleanliness and respectability have made it impossible for homeless people to have what to them could be a safe place to sleep. Is it right that people should have to move from area to area? Christmas is on the horizon again and guess what we are talking about it again. The thing that is most annoying to me personally is that we are still talking about it. I know people will say things are being done but when you have only limited places for people who sleep rough in the winter I think is disgraceful in this day and age recession or not. The fact is no one wants to be homeless by choice is neither here nor there. It just happens. One decision, One bad move can and does change lives. Another thing that irks me is that out of the thousands over the years that have turned their lives around only 0.5% are now working for the homeless and I believe we have the opportunity over the next few years to remedy this. We should and can use the experiences of those that have been in the firing line as it were. I have been talking about homelessness now since I got my life back together and it seems I will be doing that for sometime to come. So I am thinking more positively and trying to work out how to have a more rigorous approach to the problem of homelessness and how to use the wealth of experience we have to good use. I have been toying with the idea of a hostel that is run by exhomeless starting with one then another and so on

Whats happening to me

Well it's starting again the weird dreams and stuff. It was probably after watching Enchanted a simple Disney film. That night I got into bed with my hot water bottle for the first time (the hot water bottle not the bed) I fell asleep quite quickly which is mighty unusual for me but boy I dreamt one hell of a dream. It was so vivid and clear and it was strangely haunting and in a way funny the next morning. It went something like this, there was Gordon Brown singing I saved the whole worlds banking I saved the whole worlds banking just in time for Santa and things can only get better and what a wonder full Christmas this will be. Along comes Cameron and starts singing its much too much to bear and I started to think it was all there but now I'm feeling blue and don't know what to do so I think I'll tell a fib or two. All this is happening in the houses of Parliament but it's when everybody on the conservatives bench started standing as if there doing the Mexican wave and each one starts singing Where did it all go wrong we were a government in waiting and we thought we were so strong. Then as suddenly as it all happened there was a small chorus of it will be lonely this Christmas lonely and cold from the Lib Dem's. So I either have the Christmas bug and I'm happy or there is something is terribly wrong with me. Either way who cares I'd love to see MPs singing in the houses of parliament i'd pay to see that