The Homeless...

Wednesday and Thursday - two country bumpkins spent two days in the 'Big City', staying overnight in the Premier Inn. This was like a mini-holiday for us - It is only 40 miles from home, but that is where we find our nearest hospital and dentist, the nearest travel agents, the nearest cinema, the nearest MacDonalds, and the nearest supermarkets. Whopppeee! So this is how the other half live???

Well, I say the 'Big City'. I am referring to Wrexham which isn't a city at all, it's a market town. There aren't any farmers shopping in their tractors, there aren't any flocks of sheep clogging up the high street, and very few people are wearing wellies.

Walking back in the evening to our hotel, right in the centre of town, we went past a pile of rubbish which had been thrown there by an inconsiderate citizen. Pedestrians were having to avoid treading on the black sacks and old clothing; they looked at the pile in disgust.
Just like I did.
My wife noticed that there was a pair of shoes sticking out at one end - and then we realised that the pile of rubbish was a man lying down, covered in garbage.

He probably stayed there all night.

I asked a policeman friend of ours about it, and he said it was a common sight. I then asked him why he was just left there, and he asked me what I thought should be done about it? The police have nowhere to put him.
If he isn't ill, the hospitals don't want him. If he hasn't committed a crime, the jails don't want him.
The hostels for the homeless are hopelessly few, and they cannot even accommodate all those people who queue up at their doors each evening.
The Salvation Army, bless their hearts, do what they can for the homeless; they provide these people with at least one hot meal a day. They have limited resources.

Many of the homeless people are incapable of looking after themselves. They may have drink or drug habits, they may have mental issues.

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I'm not sure that there are any answers.

Re: The Homeless...

How very sad.
We need more refuges for the homeless .

Re: The Homeless...

The answer is provide homes for those who need them and open the hospitals for the mentally ill instead of leaving them to the community to care for as that never was a good idea.

We also need alcohol dependency units and drug dependency units to help people by giving them a room for a year with counselling and medical help on hand.

Forget austerity and remember our humanity for a change.

Re: The Homeless...

You make a perfectly valid point Julie and I am inclined to agree with you.
I think we should introduce an income tax surcharge of £1 per person per week to pay for the current shortfall in the NHS budget.

Re: The Homeless...

Well all of us here would be happy to pay it, I know it isn't popular to say higher taxes these days but that is the only way to get things done.

Re: The Homeless...

Fine, but where would that stop? A pound for this, then another pound for that etc... and before you know it you're paying another tenner a week for things that the government should be paying for.

Re: The Homeless...

When we are going to let in 20,000 immigrants on top of all the others wanting to come here as well in the next few years. No doubt they will be offered and new homes first.
Our own people will yet again be kicked down to the bottom of the pile

Re: The Homeless...

Wrexham is likely one of the towns where some of the 20,000 will be sent, they will have a person allocated to ensure they get housing and meals (all paid for by the tax payer) while this guy continues to sleep on the streets of Wrexham. Good init

Re: The Homeless...

I have been trying to avoid the immigrant element here in this thread, and concentrate on our own homeless people.

Our own homeless people form a strata of society that cannot really be helped. Many of them are resigned to the fact that they will never be able to rise above their present level of existence. They know where they can get one hot meal a day, but the rest of the time, they wander the streets aimlessly. They live without hope and in total despair.

Yes, there are places where they can get dried out from alcoholic addiction or drugs - but mostly they drift back to them within twelve months. After two or three courses, they are refused further help. They have spiralled downwards, and there's no way back for them.
The mentally ill should be institutionalised, but there is an ever-decreasing availability of resources.

These poor people are mostly shunned by the common folk. We regard them almost with disdain and disgust. 'Why doesn't Social Services do something about them?' we ask. 'Why doesn't the government sort out the problem?'

Tonight, somewhere, somebody will die as they lie curled up inside a shop doorway or in a cardboard box. Quietly and discretely, their emaciated body will be taken to a Council morgue, and they will receive a pauper's burial. They will not be mentioned in the local newspaper, nor will their relatives be known.

'It's not my problem.' we will say....

Re: The Homeless...

and yet if old JC where to return and start administering care and attention to these poor unfortunate souls there would be a queue a mile long comprising the rest of us willing to help and assist old JC - weren't we tasked to spread forth and do that in his name once???