Hi everyone!
Now, before I talk about what this blog is really about, I'm going to put an update on one of the issues I talked about last time. In my last post, I talked about how wheelchair-bound people were having trouble being allowed to attend the Paralympic Games with their families. I'm not going to bother to go into all the details again - it's in my previous blog post, if you'd like to take a look - but anyway, I got an email from Beth - who started the petition - to say that it's all been sorted out, and she's allowed to sit with her family now, and the problem is solved. So thanks to anyone who signed the petition, I think we've made a difference to a few lives there.
Now, onto the main point of this entry. As many people will know, today is 1 September, which is the day when in England and Wales, people will no longer have rights to squat in empty houses. Those that frequently do may face a penalty of up to six months in jail, and/or a £5,000 fine. Now, there are many reasons why people believe this is a good thing; it will decrease motivation to squat, it will give homeowners the right to their own property, it will convince more homeless people to get jobs, money and a place to live... you name it. But this isn't my view on the matter.
What I cannot get my head around is why anyone would think that squatters make the informed decision to squat, as opposed to other alternatives. There may be a very small minority that do, and those are not the people I'm talking about here. I'm talking about people who live on the streets. People who have hardly any possessions. People who don't know where they are going to sleep from one night to the next, or where their next meal is coming from. The Government has decided to make vulnerable people criminals, at exactly the time when they need support - ideally from the Government, but also just from people.
Does anyone honestly think that people in this situation will be able to pay a £5,000 fine? If they had that kind of money, wouldn't they be able to afford lodging somewhere in the first place? Everyone knows that there aren't many jobs around these days. We are moving into an era where you are either born to be successful, or you aren't, and if you aren't, there isn't a lot that you can do. I'm not saying that everyone in the second category won't be successful - there are always the Alan Sugars of the world - but people do not start on a level playing field. Anyone who wasn't lucky enough to have rich, professional parents is only one step away from homelessness, and we now have a law that is making things much, much harder for those people - people who have a very tough life already.
The fact of the matter is, this law has been proposed, discussed and planned by people on the inside. These people cannot get their heads around the idea that some people actually don't have the opportunities to earn enough money to support themselves. If you've grown up with that lifestyle, how can you understand? It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend (who I won't name) about nine months ago, concerning the plight of the residents of Dale Farm in Essex, at the time that they were being evicted by Basildon Council. This friend is someone who I have a lot of respect for - he is a very kind and empathetic guy - but he is very middle-class, has grown up in a large and expensive house, with parents who have professional and well-paid jobs - and we were having this conversation in his really plush living room. I was very much on the side of the residents of Dale Farm, and he was very much on the side of Basildon Council. He just could not understand how hard life is for some people. It wasn't his fault - after all, he hasn't had that experience himself, and probably hasn't been exposed to many people who have - but he is a prime example of someone who has been fed so much luxury that they can't see anything else in the world.
There is, of course, the argument about homeowners' rights to prevent their home from being broken into. That is all very well and good, and I do have sympathy for people who come home to find their houses broken into, and pizza boxes all over the carpet - however, a lot of the time, these houses are empty. In London, for example, there are a lot of empty mansions which have, in the past, been havens for homeless people to go to when they have nowhere else to go. If they are empty, what is so bad about that? They are not hurting anyone, so why make it illegal? There are 720,000 empty houses in England. Someone has no roof over their head. There are lots of roofs that no one is using. Doesn't take a genius! There is also the argument that squatting is illegal in Scotland, and it works fine there. That is true, but the difference is that in Scotland, the Government is obliged to provide housing for everyone. In England and Wales, this just will not happen. This is a stepping-stone towards the Dickensian picture of grubby children on the street corners, coughing their lungs up, asking for change from unsympathetic passers-by. If the Government was going to provide a home for everyone - and a suitable home as well, not just any old place - then I would be all for squatting being illegal. But that isn't going to happen, so I don't support this law. It just makes no sense that the only legal roof that a homeless person is allowed to have over their heads at night is a prison cell.
Looking back on this blog, I think it's one of the longest I've ever written. I hope that to someone else, it looks more like an intellectual article on my thoughts and feelings, and less like just an angry rant. If it looks like the second one, I suppose I am angry really. I'm not even in that position myself, but I am angry that someone else is. I haven't actually found any petitions to do with this yet, but I will keep on looking for them. And if I can't find one, maybe I will start one myself.
I don't have anyone I'm going to commend for respect and admiration this time, I'm not in the mood to do that, and there doesn't seem to be anyone connected with this that I do admire really.
More updates soon. Over and out.
