In Telling: Not knowing there is help for you

Not knowing your dues

Understanding how to get help can be a handicap for people who have generally been self-reliant and independent. Having been schooled on self-sufficiency through grit, determination, and hard work, one can so easily be lost when the tried and tested modes of living and existing fail.

When some thirteen years ago I fell so seriously ill with cancer and the treatment meant it was impossible for me to consider returning to work as I underwent chemotherapy. Living in the Netherlands with all the accoutrements of an EU citizen and fully paying my taxes, I was unaware of what support I might get from the state. In fact, I did not think I qualified.

There was one month when I literally had nothing, but for the generosity of friends, I might just have one day expired on the floor of my living room and then would have been the end of all my troubles. However, it was one of the unique elements of the Dutch health system that they were not just concerned about my physical health but also my mental health and how I was getting on with life.

Support beyond the medicine

On one of my hospital visits, the nurse asked if I was getting any income support and when I responded in the negative, she was quite taken aback. She insisted that having worked in the Netherlands for almost a decade, I should have contributed enough to the system for such situations as my inability to work because of ill health.

She did not leave it at that, she marched me to the social security support office in the hospital and asked that they take on my case. Immediately, I was given forms to fill and I typed out a cover letter explaining my circumstances. The office fast-tracked the application to the responsible department and within the week, much-needed financial support arrived at the highest accessible support payout, backdated 6 months, which was the maximum that could be allowed.

Getting the help needed

If I had known any better, that application should have gone in at least 8 months before. Yet, with that lesson learnt, it is not that practised. The default inclination is always to be actively and fruitfully engaged in employment than depending on welfare payments.

It delays the necessary work of seeking support because you have the mind that things are on the turn and the reality is as days turn to weeks and weeks to months, that passage of time means what could have been done, is not done.

By the time you realise or understand that there is more than adequate support available, your situation is almost hopelessly dire. It is strange, yet troubling, the many who need help sometimes just do not know what help is available and how to access it.

Where shall we put our hope?

In plenty and in poverty

There is no doubt that we love Cape Town, but we visit a city of stark contrasts. The opportunities and privileges we have brings into a Cape Town of luxury, of access, of comfort and a relative sense of safety and security.

Yet, around the hotel where we are staying, we cannot miss or ignore another face of Cape Town, not so much that of the poor, but one of the destitute. I differentiate between the poor and the destitute from a personal viewpoint of the poor having shelter and sustenance, those who have basic needs met, but are stretched to consider wants.

In the case of the destitute, they have no shelter or live in makeshift settings prone to changes in nature and the abuse of authority figures, they cannot determine when or where their next meal will come from. Some are in threadbare clothes and probably have no access to basic cleaning facilities.

Great policy minds required

The other day, I walked into a convenience store and I was accosted by two people, not for money, but things, I acquiesced and by the time I was paying, there was milk formula, baby diapers, soft drinks and basic foodstuffs at the checkout. One of the men, knelt in thanks, I was quite embarrassed as I asked him to get up.

It was an opportunity for them, and for me, there was both the means and opportunity to affect a situation, though, it was nowhere near the solution. There are no easy answers to the poverty and destitution issue in South Africa. You can’t even begin to think of jobs before you have installed a kind of welfare system to make these people suitable for any work environment and this is if they have the skills required to do the jobs.

Either way, there would have to be some poor laws and institutions for the poor to give them a sense of human dignity to raise them to some kind of opportunity. It would take some creative and inspired policy-making to address the destitution problem and this would should be different from policies to address basic poverty, accommodation, access to services and the broader unemployment issues with the matter of giving the majority the skills to exploit opportunities that arise.

Is there hope for the many?

Another cohort is the pre-teen street kids, in any progressive society, these kids should be in school and cared for by responsible adults in some setting. I fear residential institutions because of histories of physical and sexual abuse. However, society does owe these unfortunate young members the possibility of a bright future. This requires selfless humanitarian work for which the government should be a major sponsor and supporter.

There is much that ails South Africa, not everyone has a voice or one that must be heard and acted upon. This especially for the poor and destitute for whom the wasted Jacob Zuma years and the preoccupation with the state capture machinations have left them further behind than humanity should countenance for much longer.

We who come to appreciate the beauty of South Africa do contribute to the growth of the economy, but we are not the answer to the question that many South Africans have been asking since 1994. Where shall we put our hope?

Courtesy of the William Kentridge exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town.

Opinion: By the measure of homelessness in the UK, we are a poor nation

Our streets of people in need

Daily, I find myself wondering what kind of society I am in, what has broken in our society and communities to see such poverty, destitution and hopelessness amongst us?

There is nothing first world on our streets, despite being one of the largest economies in the world, with all sorts of prospects for the United Kingdom, we cannot judge our progress on the prosperity of the rich getting richer, companies declaring vast profits, the stock exchange hitting new records and anyone else with the opportunity and good fortune laughing all the way to the bank.

As a consultant, I work around the UK, literally living in hotels and walking the streets therein. Living in Manchester, then working or temporarily staying in Edinburgh, Norwich, Great Yarmouth and now Reading, I cannot ignore the obvious.

I see hungry people

I see hungry people, I see homeless people, I see people approaching strangers begging for some spare change for a meal or to get a place to lay their heads for the night. Then some billboards tell me not to give money to street beggars because the said charities are there to help them back to a different life.

I am pained by my own helplessness, I cannot think of what I can really do to help anyone who has been caught in this situation apart from offer a handout. If I stopped to listen to their stories, it is very likely their story will be no different from mine.

Why? I was self-employed and independent, then I fell ill with a sickness and disease that could easily have killed me off, but thankfully I am still here. As I took on my treatment, I had no money coming in, I used up all my savings, I could not pay the mortgage and because of my seemingly independent life, I did not know I was entitled to any welfare.

A precipitous decline

I soon found out about my entitlements six months after I fell ill, my creditors were very understanding, in fact, they probably had more faith in my recovery than I did, they had a good idea of what I earned before and my possible earning potential if I did recover. Yet, there were days I went hungry, my eyes almost popping out in the agonising pain of cancer, but for the succour and friendship of neighbours and friends, I could have despaired and expired.

I still had a roof over my head for another 30 months after my cancer diagnosis, but I could not sustain my situation, things were not looking as rosy as I had hope that I decided to sell up. The day before I moved out of my apartment of 126 months, I did not know where I would spend the next night, and then a free offer to occupy a vacated house come up which I occupied for two months.

After that, a young family put me up in their apartment caring for me for another 6 weeks before I decided to return to the UK after 12 and a half years in the Netherlands, with nothing but the hope that things will turn around, my cousin putting me up in a room as I returned.

As things looked up

Within 6 days of arrival, I had a job to travel around Europe for the next six months, however, some internal issues in the company meant the opportunity only lasted 5 weeks, it was another few months before I got a job in Wales where I was living out of hotels for the next 6 months.

Being in and out of work with no permanent residence could have taken its toll, I had many brushes on the brink of homelessness only to have people give me a place to recoup, reassess, rejig and reapply myself to getting back into useful employment and independence.

None of this would have been possible without a helping hand and there were many for which I am full of gratitude and appreciation that the best of humanity is still out there overflowing with the milk of kindness to help and to redeem.

Where is the help for all?

However, not everyone has that resource, not everyone has an angel, the angels to me were people like you and me. Many are homeless because of so many reasons too many to enumerate, from illness to unemployment, broken homes, divorce, a death in the family and even maybe substance abuse.

It is here that we must ask ourselves, what encourages substance abuse and is that not a symptom of some other underlying issue? I cannot sanctimoniously pontificate on these issues as if in my supposed saintliness I am beyond reproach, neither am I ready to accept as default that all beggars are beggars by choice, any money given them goes on drink and drugs or that they know where to get help and never use it.

I knew where to get help, as articulate and well-dressed as I was, I was both humiliated and turned away with the undertone of how dare I visit the homeless charity seeking help. I submit that if the charities were really doing their charitable duties, there would probably be fewer homeless people on our streets. I am doubtful they are doing anything that would encourage me to donate to the charities when I can open my hand to a person begging in front of me.

They are human beings first

It is a cancer within our midst that we have that many homeless people around us and from my experience, the very likelihood why the homeless would not visit homeless charities is because first, they are not treated as human beings, they are not treated with respect, they are looked down on as the dregs of society that there is nothing in place as the kind of helping hands I had to give me the opportunity and space to come out of the quagmire I was in.

Nobody wants to return to a workhouse environment redolent of the Victorian times and these places that portend to tackle homelessness must be more welcoming than they appear to be.

I see instances when someone begging needs £16 to stay in a hostel, it is unlikely if they make the £16, they would immediately spend it on one night’s shelter when there is food to think about.

The pall of homelessness

It is not without consideration that I think of a man I loved, Chris was ejected from his home by his mother at the age of 15 because he was gay and though he made something of his life to the extent that his parents relied on him to bury them well, Chris died 21 years after that ejection and it cannot be unrelated to the homelessness he suffered as a teenager before someone helped him.

I could see signs of that experience in everything that Chris did because these things are markedly significant, yet, he was amazingly loving and wonderful company to be with. Whilst he rests, I still miss him, 36 was too young an age to die and he’s been gone over 8 years.

I walk to the gym in my shorts on typical winter days seeing people in the dead of the night still hungry, homeless, cold and anything uncomfortable, I do not see anything happening to help them, I have not amazing solutions and sadly, we seem to be at the peak of government indolence and societal heartlessness.

This cannot continue, our society is the poorer for the hungry and homeless that roam around us in the vaunted prosperity of this great land. No, we are not prosperous, we are poor.

Homelessness: Make June the end of May - #EndMayInJune

Signs of bad times

As I walked to work this morning and then walked back to my hotel to collect my stowed baggage for the station in preparation for my journey back home, I could not help but notice the number of young people sat on the ground, their backs to the walls of shops or offices building signifying some need.

Need, not wants, here were the youth in the 5^th largest economy in the world without a prospect, opportunity, promise or hope. The only thing occupying their minds was the means to take shelter compounded with one sign that broke my heart, the young man’s sign said he had not eaten for days.

Now, I do not care if that is anything but the truth, I would hope that cynicism and suspicion would not rob me of sympathy, maybe empathy, a sense of compassion and the ability to be touched by the hardship of another.

Great needs with little supply

Besides, I know privation, not to that extent, but I have gone hungry in the midst of lack and when I would have been rendered homeless, I was fortunate to find support from people who covered my nakedness, shame and misfortune. To them, I am grateful probably not to the extent that I can repay them, but that when I see another in a situation that I have once experienced, I will not ignore them and walk on by if I am opportuned to do something, no matter how little.

Then, there was another thing on the signs that struck me, at least were asking for £16 to be able to spend a night in a home shelter. What the home shelter would probably provide is a bed, a shower, hot drinks and some safety from the elements and menace. I would not know if they also provide food.

Homelessness is a thief of the future

However, for someone who has nothing and has not eaten for days, how on earth would the shelter take priority over food, the little that comes from alms might only cover just one meal and so they are still out on the streets day after day in the hope that someone would just pour our God and love upon them that they would not only smile but cry the tears of joy bearing hope.

I have said before, homelessness is debilitating to the extent that it almost impossible to see how steals the future away from the present which becomes an enduring and harrowing existence. Without a home address, you probably can’t take on the most basic jobs, talk less of open a bank account or make any headway in life beyond being caught in the rut.

The charity of no clarity

Then I have my gripe with homeless charities, I am not convinced they are doing enough if anything, I see signs that I should give to charities rather than the homeless. I have this to say, if the charities were really seen to be helping the homeless, there would not be so many homeless and somewhat helpless people on our streets.

The other side of this argument is we probably would be persuaded to give to the charities and readily walk the homeless to the nearest point of help just as the Good Samaritan of old committed time and resources to the wounded stranger.

In this electioneering season in the UK, I have even bigger concerns; Theresa May boasts of offering strong and stable leadership, but I have no time for leadership that has no heart. Our social services are cut to the bone, that people cannot get by. The thought that British nurses are resorting to food banks in full employment is a disgrace I cannot find the words to express. [The Independent]

Make June the end of May

Theresa May said there are many complex reasons why people use food banks, I’m sorry, the reason is not complex, it is simple, they are not being paid enough and the cost of living is rising far beyond their means.

The system is completely messed up and I do not believe Theresa May as a bloody difficult woman has the wherewithal to bring the necessary humanity and compassion to bear to change things for the better for those who suffer homelessness, who use food banks or have to rely on the system to get by. That people in full employment should live from hand to mouth is utterly contemptible, an atrocity of the magnitude that has no mitigation or acceptable excuse.

This is not the United Kingdom that should be happy to have remain like this, things must change, the homeless and the hungry nurses are neither thinking Brexit nor strong leadership, they are hoping against hope for respite, food for their hunger, shelter for their heads and a future that gives them a chance for a different life.

Theresa May is not that person and I’m afraid, no such one is in the Tory Party to do that too.

Opinion: Trumpcare is Trump cares nothing about you

A son’s promise

“I remember my mother. She was 52 years old when she died of ovarian cancer, and you know what she was thinking about in the last months of her life? She wasn't thinking about getting well. She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality. She had been diagnosed just as she was transitioning between jobs. And she wasn't sure whether insurance was going to cover the medical expenses because they might consider this a pre-existing condition. I remember just being heartbroken, seeing her struggle through the paperwork and the medical bills and the insurance forms. So, I have seen what it's like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health care system. And it's wrong. It's not who we are as a people.” Barack Obama [Wikipedia]

The quote above was the personal life story that inspired what we all know as Obamacare, the heartfelt promise of a son to anyone whose mother, relation or themselves might be faced with the onslaught of illness that they do not have to worry about the bills and forms.

This is the human story

Just imagine, faced with a life-threatening illness and all you can think about is whether you have enough to meet the payments to keep you alive. “She wasn't thinking about getting well. She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality.” Yes, Stanley Ann Dunham was struck down with cancer and she was dead within a year of the diagnosis.

When she died in 1995 just 23 days short of her 53^rd birthday, Barack Obama had not even begun his political career, he was only married 3 years and she never got to see her grandchildren, they came much later. In what might well be the conspiracy of fate, his grandmother died just two days short of the historic election victory of 2008.

The decline in my health

However, let us leave politics aside and touch on the human stories. By the time, I had finished my contract in April 2009, which was the peak of my career in earnings along with the attendant signs that my health was beginning to deteriorate, I paid no particular heed to the danger ahead.

In the third week of June, I had guests visiting from London and Hong Kong; on Sunday, the 23^rd of June, we went to Kinderdijk to see the World Heritage Site of windmills and on our way back, literally, all strength ebbed out of me as we walked from Rotterdam Harbour to the station. When my guests who stayed for a week left on Tuesday morning, I went back to bed and woke up with blisters down my left arm, I had come down with shingles.

That did not stop me travelling to Berlin the next day for the CSD celebrations, but by the time I was ready to return five days later, I was too weak to handle my own luggage, the airline check-in clerk had to come round to place my luggage on the scales, I was taken by wheelchair to the lounge and then by airside vehicle to the plane.

In Amsterdam, staff were on hand to assist me and ensure I just about crawled into my home, exhausted to the point of expiry. Alarm bells were ringing, but I could not hear them. The shingles disappeared within two weeks.

The salvation of insurance

Within 3 months of that, I was admitted to hospital with full-blown AIDS, a culture of self-medication, blind stoicism, religion and just soldiering on had brought me to the very gates of death. Meanwhile, I was earning nothing and chomping through my savings completely oblivious of the entitlements I had earned over almost a decade of working in the Netherlands, what was I to do?

In 2006, the Netherlands introduced compulsory health insurance, a sort of mandated single-payer requirement that was generally affordable. I had the basic cover, but when I fell ill, that basic cover went the whole way to pay for everything needed to get me well again.

As part of my treatment, there was an 18-night stay in the hospital, full-board, 7 sessions of chemotherapy, each chemotherapy dose at today’s prices is 8,735 euros, my pills were about 2,500 euros a month for the first 6 months and insurance took care of everything.

Everyone for the few

That is the mystery of insurance – “a practice or arrangement by which a company or government agency provides a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a premium.”

The idea is that not everyone would need to resort to it, but if the need comes, it is there to bear the burden. Without it, I would have died in 2009. That I have taken out of the health insurance pool more than I have put into it is just a matter of providence and regulatory processes put in by the government that everyone has equal assess to treatment at the point of need rather than with a bag of means.

Everyone who owns a car pays car insurance, not everyone would have an accident, buildings all have insurance, not every building burns down or collapses. The many in caters for the few mishaps. No one balks at the car or building insurance and health insurance is such an unthinkable thing? Really?

It is about a shared humanity, not socialism

There are different implementations of health insurance in the West, but America fares the worst in the provision of such. Some see the idea of health insurance as provided in Europe as the pinnacle of socialism, industry and profits must thrive in the provision of health and healthcare without the dead hand of government directing it and therein is the animosity against Obamacare from the conservatives.

The brother’s keeper concept has been lost, the heart of understanding human privation has been lost to ideology and politics. The politicians themselves are fully catered for health-wise, it is the people who have been seduced by the rhetoric that would suffer, people who would never have the deep pockets to meet the costs if illness strikes.

You can be down, but never out.

Unlike Stanley Ann Dunham, I did not have to worry about any insurance costs, I kept up with my affordable insurance premiums and soon learnt many months after of my social security entitlements that could cover most of my bills. However, that was not before I had suffered other privations pertaining to sustenance. I was back to work just under 7 months after my diagnosis.

Blog - Thought Picnic: No pills for the bills

Health insurance saved me and that is one of the great successes of the European social model that is under threat of being ripped apart in the UK with the way our NHS is being badly run by the Conservative government.

When I was down, insurance and welfare held the fort until I was able to get back up on my feet. If I all I could do was face bills and fill in forms without the space to think either about getting well or prepare for my eventual demise, a ‘luxury’ never afforded Stanley Ann Dunham, I probably would not be here writing this.

This is evil and greed at work

The desire to repeal and replace Obamacare is manifestly evil, it is borne of rabid ideological extremism to feather the bulging nest eggs of the already stupendously filthy rich whose greed for more wealth at the expense of a more equal humanity can never be sated.

It has not been costed, it has not been risk-assessed, it has not been studied, it has just been voted through to claim a legislative victory without a single care for those who would be most affected. [BBC News]

To quote a headline “The GOP's health care bill is officially a gigantic tax cut for the rich. (USNews)” This is was President Donald Trump is heralding, there is much else to say apart from that fact that the human story of affordable healthcare has been lost to the Shylocks of the 21^st Century, they don’t just want a pound of flesh, they want your heart whilst it still beats cooked for breakfast and if you’re still breathing, your brains for dinner.

Trumpcare is Trump cares nothing about you.

Tax Credits: The Toffs are making it tough

All buses gone

One morning when I was still living in Amsterdam, I walked up to the bus stop one morning to catch a bus to the train station one my way to work.

Until, that morning, we had 5 buses going from that bus stop in different directions going to the train station that no one had to wait more than 10 minutes for a bus to come by. However, no bus came, or the only other bus that did was not going to the station.

One cursory view of the bus timetables showed that all buses from that stop to the station had been cancelled. I was later to learn that the buses were cancelled because there was a new tram service going to the train station, only that the said tram service was another 6 months away from coming into service.

This was some sort of forward-planning made without considering the impact and consequence on our community for the 6 intervening months where we had to find alternative convoluted arrangements to get to the train station, we had to wake up earlier and leave home earlier to make our connections because of this.

The travesty of tax credits

This brings me to the issue of the day in UK politics, the review of Tax Credits as proposed by the Chancellor of Exchequer. That Tax Credits exist in and off themselves is a travesty and a failing of the democratic capitalist model we have in the UK.

Tax Credits are neither taxes nor credits but a socialist means of supplementing the incomes of workers who are paid such atrociously low salaries in the public and private sector that they can hardly subsist on their incomes. In a way, our capitalist framework does not pay fully for the employment and utility of labour and the slack is taken up by the public purse in the quest to lift the poorly paid above the poverty line.

There are probably macroeconomic policies that can be put in place to make capitalism pay up in full for the cost of labour and expertise, allowing for a middle-class kind of existence, but no government has had the guts to stand up to business and demand they do the morally and ethically right thing about wages. In most cases, these businesses that leach of us to exist for the primary profit motive will howl about changes that cost them more when they are not even meeting their basic costs.

The truth is, we’re worse off

What the new Conservative government plans to do is to reduce the level of income at which people will qualify for the full in-work benefits over which the payments reduce and to limit the benefits towards children to a maximum of two.

We are told that changes to the living wage, higher tax payment thresholds, more subsidised childcare access and other tax jiggery-pokery will compensate for the loss of Tax Credits. The fact is like the transport situation I described earlier, nothing could be further from the truth.

Independent analysts and institutions have already determined that all taken together, up to 3 million families will be worse off, losing an average of £1,000 a year whilst saving the government up to £4 billion in their ideological quest to plug the deficit brought on by the financial system gone riot and the government using public money to save private financial atrocities for which no significant member of the financial community has been held accountable for.

The toffs are making it tough

In all, it is the poor and the low-income earners that have taken the bigger brunt of the austerity measures put in place to compensate for the ‘crimes’ of the City and rich investors, the squeeze is still on the poor without respite.

This might well be the Conservative government’s Poll Tax moment, but I guess not much can be said for the concern or consideration of a well-heeled governing class who have trust funds to last generations that the cries of anguish of the masses will only be an irritation to be blocked out in the comfort of their gilded and soundproofed castles.

This is not the Great Britain many signed up for, but that is the way things are. My transport situation was resolved in 6 months, the lives of people dependent on Tax Credits will not get better in the long run and that is a shame.

The UK: Our welfare system stripped of its humanity

Death helps the system

I caught a glimpse of the news but never really paid much attention to it until I saw a situation developing before my eyes.

Since 2010 starting with the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition and now with the slim majority Conservative government, there have been reforms to the benefits and welfare system, many of which will make the bean counters happy, but leaving real people in dehumanised situations.

In May, we learnt that 10 out of 49 benefit claimants had died possibly due to a regime of benefit sanctions where their payments were stopped.

It is not working

To say one cannot believe that this is happening in the United Kingdom of 2015 is typical of not having had to run the gauntlet of the system to see the strictures, the hurdles, the encumbrances and the demands made on people barely able to pick themselves up because of all sorts of adversity.

There is no doubt that some abuse the system, but they are very few, quite in the minority, only 0.7% of the welfare budget is lost to benefit fraud, many do genuinely need help and I have twice resorted to the system for help in resettling back into the UK and for times when I was out of work.

I can say that my ability to endure the humiliation that the system weighs upon you came more from an inner sense of self and abiding hope that things will change all coupled with the help and support of friends and family. The system is soul-destroying for the want of a better phrase.

He had no voice

I was out for a social event on Friday when this man who apparently was epileptic collapsed and was helped by bystanders to settle down and recover. I did not see the fit, but as I sat around, I heard the whole tale of his troubles.

He had taken seriously ill in a number of public places and his doctor gave no heed to his condition, this meant he missed critical meetings with Job Centres and consequently his payments were stopped.

Besides, going by what I could observe of him, the man was in no state to do any of the things of demanded of him. Like making 30 applications for jobs every fortnight, there is no way he would have been able to hold down any of those jobs down for any period of time with that state of mind and possible medical condition, complicated by the demands of the system on him.

At one point, he said he wished he were dead. That really cut to my heart because a whole set of circumstances had militated against him to create a situation of desperate hopelessness. A life that has lost hope is a difficult one to continue.

Anything but welfare

Now, one would think the welfare system was about welfare, about understanding, about humanity and about compassion, but everything that makes us genuinely human has been ripped out of the system to cater for ticking boxes and meeting targets to cut costs.

The goal is to frustrate you off the system and if by any unfortunate set of circumstances you are unable to assert yourself when abused, you so quickly become a nameless victim, a shell of yourself and worse might be in store.

I could see that the man made many others uncomfortable, but this was something I had personal experience of, what looked to others like a weak man in need of sympathy and playing it up for pity, to me looked like a man at the end of his tether.

This is our society’s shame

This bothered me for quite a while until the man left and as I said to the people left behind, the so-called safety net we believe is out there to catch people who need help really has holes big enough for elephants to fall through. Whatever the case, this man had fallen through that safety net and will probably never get picked up without some serious intervention.

That I live in a country that such heartlessness can be meted out to the vulnerable in the name of reforms and cost savings is deplorable, shameful and quite a crime against humanity, because we have the means and the wherewithal but have crafted ways to deny the needy their needs.

Europe: My Observations of Homelessness in Paris, Berlin and London

My homeless life

The roughest I have ever slept is on a sofa for just over a week when I was graciously offered a roof having become homeless.

I have been a nomad for years but have had the generosity and goodwill of others for periods of time beyond overstaying my welcome, but they have not refused me.

My things are scattered between countries, cities and homes, all of which has taught me to appreciate adversity as it affects people, and yet I consider myself blessed beyond measure for I have choices and in some way, the means to make such choices.

The backstory to this has been written innumerable times on this blog, I own my experiences and my story.

Blog - Homeless! My exciting life takes a new chapter

Blog - England: How Lewisham Single Homeless Intervention Prevention humiliated me

Between Paris and Berlin

Yet, in the capital cities of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, many have not been that fortunate.

In Paris, it was whole families that I observed sleeping rough, it was humbling and quite instructive.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Hard Times

In Berlin, I never once saw a cardboard box, but there was a spirit of humanity that I noticed. Those sleeping rough were not in store doorways but inside buildings sleeping amongst the enclosed automatic teller machines.

This could mean most of the homeless had a support system to fall back on and the few without access just got this alternative.

They obviously were not threatening, which might be why they were allowed in the bank branch buildings.

Maybe, but why?

Maybe again, Berlin businesses have a human heart that beats with compassion and empathy.

However, at a very unholy hour, I saw an old man without lower limbs fast asleep in his wheelchair, his polystyrene begging cup lightly clasped in his hand, my heart melted and I put in some change with the hope that clatter of chinks did not disturb his sleep. There was no need to be thanked.

It should never be on God's good earth that a man end up old and destitute with just his wheelchair for a bed. Not in Germany and not in Europe, but that is the reality and our humanity is the poorer for it, regardless of the life story of the man, the old and the young are the responsibility of the able.

I have no smart answers to the big questions, but what I can affect in my little sphere of influence and impact with the little experience, advice, means and help I have got, I would strive to be a blessing to others.

A bed of nails in London?

London however plumbed the depths of Dickensian malevolence when pictures appeared of anti-homeless spikes and studs being installed at entrances of prime real estate properties, we were scandalised.

You would think fakirs had invaded London and were ready to entertain with one of their interesting bed-of-nails tricks, but that was not the case.

An atrocity of inhumane corporatism

Worst still was when Tesco, the supermarket giant followed suit, installing studs at their recessed storefronts, such corporate irresponsibility that tacks onto the vilest expression of capitalism is utterly, utterly beneath contempt.

Tesco has lost my custom, and though after drawing public ire they have removed the said studs that they deigned to carry out the thought just shows they have no discernible humanity.

I have written before, we have a serious homelessness problem in the UK that the system has not yet fully grasped, it is an issue I would continue to write about until I see changes.

Please do not walk on by

Life is not fair

As I passed through Manchester Piccadilly Station the other day, I saw an advertisement poster with the message, “Don’t fund the habit, fund the charities.”

There is a message there, but I do wonder if it is the true reflection of issues to do with many of the people I have encountered who beg on the streets in the many big cities I have been to.

In my own personal life, I have had plenty and very little, I have enjoyed extravagance and after illness I was reduced to penury, needing more help than my heretofore independence was able to ask for.

Doors slammed in my face

When I did ask for help, from a system into which during the good times I had paid all my dues and more, I encountered hurdles, bottlenecks, indifference and difficulty. [It took the hospital to unclog the system.]

Blog - Hospital eases bureaucratic stress

The things I was entitled to were denied me because I did not look vulnerable enough or did not tick all the boxes of desperate privation authored by some comfortable apparatchik oblivious of the realities on the street.

Blog - England: How Lewisham Single Homeless Intervention Prevention humiliated me

I cannot vouch for anyone in terms of whether they are struggling with drug or alcohol problems, but I can say that if the so-called charities were really doing the jobs they suggest they are doing with the funds people throw into their collecting buckets or the ones that can be transferred through the simplicity of Short Message Service (SMS) text messages, I should not be seeing beggars on our streets.

Who helps these people?

Yet, step out into Manchester City centre every evening and quite every major street corner has someone begging for spare change. Then there are others who would approach you with a story, long or short, their need is immediate and it makes no allowances for the smartness of seeking the nearest entrée to officialdom to get help.

In a few recent encounters, these were people who truthfully or otherwise on a cold damp night needed a place to sleep in shelters that would demand a payment before accepting them.

Where these people have fallen through the safety net with holes big enough to let elephants through without entanglement, they simply have nothing and sometimes not even a blanket to take shelter in an open street doorway.

No way out

They are usually in a catch-22 situation, for without an address you really cannot do anything, even if someone ignorantly and naively thinks the system and the welfare state is in overdrive, on anecdotal evidence alone, I can well assume that many who need that help cannot get beyond the first hurdle to get the help they need.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Returnee Woes

I cannot ignore such people, having lived so close to the edge, the people who were once invisible to me are too visible to walk past. Having been given a second chance of life after cancer, in the little and plenty that I have, I desire to have an open hand.

Prepare to give

An open hand is one that can give and it is also open to receive, the former being more impactful. Much that we donate goes to child welfare or animal welfare in faraway lands and that is good, but we stand in rank hypocrisy if at our doorsteps there be many who are needy and we in response to those advertisements decide not to do the needful.

These people are our neighbours, the ones on the furthest spectrum of our diverse humanity who have for all sorts of reasons happened upon hard times. Times we may never and I hope many never come to experience.

However, I know what a very little gift can do for someone desperately in need, and if we challenge ourselves to address that need generously, for some, we would have become angels.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “There are people in this world so hungry, that God cannot appear them except in the form of bread.”

Where charities cannot bring bread to the hungry, I will do my bit, I hope the help I offer is helpful, but I would not agonise over what is done with the help I have offered.

Thought Picnic: Opportunity, Lack and Situation - Help!

Look up

You sometimes find yourself at a place where you literally have no answers to the problems you face that what is left to do is look up.

Looking up is important because it is the best response to preventing a situation where you are overwhelmed with the gravity of your circumstances.

At the same time you hope that a bit of detachment would present a light of inspiration and insight, maybe an idea or an indication of what path you should take.

That is where I find myself having exhausted the opportunities that I mentioned yesterday as I spoke with the social services who put up as many hurdles as they could so as not to help in my re-engagement.

Honestly!

After almost 3 hours of discussions and disputing, we agreed that they would defray transport costs but that is just one of the many scenarios I face.

I have no accommodation and no means of subsistence for the possibly first two weeks of work, and that presents a dangerously precarious situation that might impact on my ability to take up this new opportunity.

Much as I try not to think about it, I realise that there is little time left, it is crunch time, a case of the great warmth of sunshine in the daytime obscured by thunderstorm clouds raining cats and dogs with no shelter to run into.

The wind as boisterous as to lay waste the purpose of an umbrella, yet one can only hope because that provides the possibility of something and something good always happens to me.

That is how I find to smile to dress up my face even when turmoil swirls around me. This is one of those difficult personal blogs that you just realise must be written because it matters too.

Thought Picnic: From Welfare to Well Being

The system we have

Ahead lies opportunity when it appears that one’s hand is shortened to grasp it. I sometimes feel like I have exhausted the channels that I once readily appealed to for a fillip.

The first few weeks of a new posting are not the easiest and when it is far away from home some things usually taken for granted are harder to manage from subsistence to accommodation and other essential things.

We have a system to tide us over during times of unemployment, it is the welfare state, hardly generous but useful. The system is primed to frustrate us off the queue with subtle tactics, like visiting our advisors weekly, filling in job search activity forms, attending courses that belittle you, but you persevere.

The system we work

In the process, you learn better job search skills in the hope that this help can become a thing of the past, and it does for some of us. They could not wait to get rid of us.

There are guidelines in terms of looking for work, I went further afield, looked at more options and presented myself for as many activities as I could.

I attended interviews until became routine, some stretched on, some gave feedback but most came back with disappointing news but one did not relent.

Now, I have an offer, one that took a month from the time of the interview to the signing of the contract to complete.

The system we leave

It is far away from home so I have to relocate but that is two weeks of scrimping and scraping before the first remuneration comes in.

You are then caught in the midst of a promise of opportunity and the lurking inability to do much about it.

One would think those who want us off the queue would open-handedly offer something to see the back of us. Fat chance!

The system we trust

Yes, we need to do the paperwork that we are coming off welfare but moving from welfare to wellbeing is like they are telling me, you’re on your own.

I go for a meeting now just to see whether much can be done, I get a loan or for the worst possible option, reject the offer because I cannot get there to start.

I am hopeful, the better would come of this.

In form for more forms

Back to form of forms

Gathered strangers of situation and circumstances from all walks of life seeking new relevance in the world of work.

Under the tutelage of some who for reason and opportunity find a calling in what they do as opposed to what they could do if they cared little.

Yet, they are all caught in the maelstrom and spectrum of ability that ranges from the talentless in other departments to the talented in company, the impartations sometimes useful or sometimes useless.

Tumbled by slumber

Forms ruled the day as time fillers and occupational activity, but one whose slumber interrupted his ability to keep pace was sent to his bed with much agitation, his bad luck, a result of his not being able to keep his eyes open.

Maybe he should have declared Human African trypanosomiasis as a condition, but he did not look African, probably he was a somnambulist and the course leader might have been a bit lenient, but the class being held back meant progress was too slow to retain any patience.

There is no shame is saying you have sleeping disorder, there are therapies and help available to those who recognise their frailties, but that is by the by.

Interesting insights

The discussions, lively, funny and humorous, the time passed with periods of boredom helped along with engagement and banter, sometimes skirting the risqué but never offensive – friendships can grow from this.

Why do you want this job?

What skills do you possess that makes you the right person for this job?

Apparently, those two questions are essentially the same question phrased differently and can be asked at different ends of the interview with the interviewer expecting similar rather than different answers.

In closing

However, one should hope that interviewers are not rigidly schooled in particular expectations without the flexibility to assess the total person beyond the rote of function and conformity.

A few more hand-outs, the polishing up of the marketing literature and the mandated requirement was completed to satisfaction with a certificate to boot.

Here is to better luck, favour and good fortune in the next endeavour.

Sent on a fool's errand to possible frustration

Like a fool’s errand

At a government mandated training course this morning where the disconnect between all related departments became so apparent that it was laughable, the dead hand of government protocols landed with a thud before us.

The question was whether any of the participants knew why they had to attend the course on advice and instruction of their advisors, for literally all the answers given, none was close.

Persuade to dissuade

The referral office was just ticking boxes without knowledge of the reasons to tick boxes, as each answer ranged from helping to write CVs, finding work for long-term unemployed, interviewing technique tips and useful preparations for work.

Surreptitiously, part of the purpose of sending people for this course is to frustrate them off the welfare roll and at least one of the attendees disappeared the moment the group broke up for the first break session.

To the market with the marketable

However, in the midst of the mundane and rudimentary, there are nuggets of wisdom, clues as to how people can alter their outlook and mind-set, leading to gainful employment.

Fundamentally, a CV is marketing literature; it is the means of selling yourself to the market. A market seeking talent and expertise you may possess.

The CV should create enough curiosity to excite interest, but it should never be overloaded such that there are no discussion points to give depth and detail to the ability and personality of the person.

The demeanour to project

We rise to challenges thrown our way in everyday walks of life but that boldness and confidence with which we effortlessly tackle problems seems to be lost at interview.

It is important to act naturally, being oneself rather than trying to impress thereby giving rise to nervousness, one of the factors indicative of poor interview technique.

Blessed at the font of the double page

The advice whilst useful could be quite prescriptive as preferred fonts being Garamond or Verdana, set headings providing uninspiring structure, page setups with set margins or that a CV must never exceed two pages with the employment history restricted to five years except for security or artistic roles.

For information technology roles, the suggestion is to use LinkedIn to document the other roles or have a webpage containing that detail.

Some things

Avoid clichés like ‘hard-working’ or ‘customer service skills’ in the profile because people are expected to be hard-working regardless, and customer service skills are innately functions of a person’s respect for others, acting courteously, politely and with a friendly disposition – you either have it or not.

Besides all this, forms, yes, many forms filled to the point of distraction but with the challenges, opinions, reviews, assessments and the ideas, it really was not a wasted day. Another day of observation and participation is set for the morrow.

The UK: Caressed by the dead hand of government protocols

Fill the will

Forms are what I encountered this afternoon, a meeting with officialdom that started with a convenient, but extraneous data-entry on my laptop just two days before.

Yesterday afternoon I received a text message on my mobile phone scheduling an appointment for today, just a 10-minute walk from where I now live.

On arrival, I was greeted and asked to take a seat and expect Irene attend to me, but instead a gentleman came round to get me a good 40 minutes after the appointed time without apology.

Sign and whine

After introductions and a number of printouts I had to proofread and other questions I had to ask, I scrawled my signature at least 15 times on all sorts of documents to gain access to a support framework.

He said there was a form I had to fill in; the instruction was everyone had to fill the form in especially if you had lived out of the UK for more than 13 weeks in the last two years.

However, logic escaped its function because out of 12 questions, there was none I could answer because I am British citizen and every option it presented pertained to Mainland European citizens and beyond.

Where I was to present an identity document, there was no requirement of a UK passport, yet, I had to bend the logic to complete the first part and the sign it before he registered me for another needless meeting with some other official.

Bureaucracy to make you crazy

It was the dead hand of government; forms aping formula without function, exercises that exercised your patience into frustrated resignation as apparatchik automatons gave the zombie of government exhausted of life, long before we were born purpose for existence.

I will not suffer too much in this, as I am on therapy, and I engage my hospital in my holistic well-being, anything untoward I will offload unto them to resolve. My mental state remains sacrosanct. I will not entertain the attempts of the state to sap every will out of the person in what they term encouragement to purpose by negative inducement.

Yes, bureaucracies are there to make you crazy, not if I can help it.