[7734]

I have been homeless for about five years now and I would just like to clear up a few misconceptions.

Firstly, I'm not a lazy layabout. I became homeless after I had to spending all my savings looking after my ill partner. Now that she is gone and I have no money I became homeless. I didn't think it was such a big deal. I just thought like everybody else that you simply go to the council and they'll "sort you out". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Because I am a normal single white man now in my late 40's and have no mental illnesses or alcoholic problems or drug dependencies I am the absolute bottom of the pile for any housing considerations. The council won't even let me begin to get on any waiting list because their points system for housing consideration is skewed toward certain criteria, none of which applies to me, and their homeless person's teams refuse to deal with me in any way because I'm not considered a "priority".

I have had absolutely no luck whatsoever with any estate agents because they all refuse to deal with housing benefit and as I am homeless I don't even have a proper address for them to use as a reference or contact, and being homeless means you are not able to live like a human being so it is virtually impossible to get back on your feet after having fallen down to this level. I also have some medical conditions that make life a bit hard and it is impossible to better myself now as nobody anywhere will give me a chance.

Being on benefit, if you can even get it, means that you basically live on about 60 quid a week, and with nowhere to live that means that you also have nowhere to cook, store, or prepare food so something as simple as eating becomes a terrible and expensive problem and you have no way to keep belongings like clothing or anything else, let alone have access to the personal things everybody else takes for granted. Sleeping rough is dangerous and contrary to popular belief there are absolutely NO homeless agencies that will help someone like me in any manner because I'm NOT an alcoholic or a criminal drug dealer or a mental case.

Unfortunately places like Shelter are worse than useless and only regurgitate outdated information that keeps you running around in circles from one so-called homeless help to another (who are never able to supply any practical help at all) and any of the housing associations or co-ops are usually quite specialist, for instance catering only for the 18 to 25 year olds or to certain ethnic or even religious groups exclusively, and have several years long waiting lists, especially if like me you are just a man and not some pregnant non-English speaking teenager or an ex convict with a drug problem.

The basic fact of the matter is that there is no housing help available to someone like me whatsoever. Having to live in this manner of course means that even though I would be eligible for housing benefit no one will touch me because as a homeless person who has lost virtually everything in the world I ever knew, owned, or cared about I can simply not save up the nearly two grand it takes for a deposit that all landlords ask for. People in my position simply can not afford that sort of thing, and no there are NOT any useful rent deposit schemes. I know this because I have already tried and been turned down every time, again usually because I am not deemed to be a "priority" or something.

I have tried to obtain work as and when I can to get some money toward the extortionate rent deposit needed to get me off the streets but for obvious reasons this is just about impossible. For starters, every time I do a job, whether it's for one day or a few days at a time, and fill in the appropriate forms (legal requirement if you're on the dole) I find that my benefit which I can ill afford to be without, living such a hand to mouth existence, gets cut off for usually several weeks or even months at a time leaving me terribly and dangerously destitute while the incompetent social system tries to get it's head around the fact that some stupid bloke has actually done some work to try to better himself and stupidly informed the dole office of it, unlike everybody else who just draws dole and works cash in hand at the same time and live in nice flats at the taxpayer's expense.

So without any landlords who will accept housing benefit, and no way to get up the money for a deposit, and the fact that if I actually DO try to work then my benefits (including any housing benefit I would be able to receive) gets cut off for months while they sort their paperwork out, something no landlord anywhere would put up with, a person such as myself is completely doomed. And THAT'S the reality of the housing situation.

It's all about greed, it's all about money, and the only people who get anywhere are the criminal underclasses who know how to play the system.

[deepeyes]

7734, my friend , you are part a vast and large vagabond army in London. You all need to organise and protest. Have large mass homeless sit ins/protests on Westminster Square. Doing that over a long hot summer will get the MP's clamouring to sort out the homeless problem quicker than you can say "Vagabond Army".

[SmellyPoet]

Email me at info@everyoneshome.org.uk as soon as possible.