Another World
| 08:16 UK time, Thursday, 27 April 2006
No one has to sleep on the street in London these days. There are plenty of government run and charitable alternatives to a night on the pavement.
Even so, here in central London around Bush House there are sometimes dozens of rough sleepers.
Often the cans and bottles give some kind of explanation. We may have different ways of dealing with hard times, but I guess many of us can at least imagine why some people choose alcoholic oblivion. The accompanying self-destructiveness is what deters the majority.
But then there are the unexplained street dwellers.
On some mornings over the last couple of weeks, I've noticed this scene outside one of the shops near Bush House when I'm coming in early.
The dog belongs to a middle aged couple, whom I haven't photographed to save their dignity.
They are under the (very clean) sleeping bags. When they wake, they appear well dressed. They have books and folded clothes in their rucksacks.
The dog looks loved and happy.
I can't help wondering if they are just on an adventure after a lifetime of wage slavery and dull normality.
If they are there for much longer I'll have to intrude on their privacy - which doesn't amount to much on the floor outside a chain store, let's be honest - and ask them if they're okay.
Comments
Please, do not ask your street couple if they are 'okay'. On one level they obviously are and on another they obviously are not. Dante has a special ring for do-gooders who open with that line.
Get to the managerial level of a social agency and have them tended to. The promise or hint of some good publicity could put them on a fast track back to normalacy.
Few on the street anymore are (clinical) alcoholics and even fewer are there for the experience of another life style. Many are rugged individualists who will not live by rules set by others: wife, family, boss - society.
A better guess for your couple is a redundant supervisor's job that has been eliminated or an entrepreneur who's life savings went into a now failed business.
The do-gooder well hidden within me might give them a 100 pound note and a business card with the instruction to pay it back when you can. Period. A proper meal, clean sheets and a long hot shower for one night - and the new obligation to repay the debt could give their world a whole new look and meaning.
If they make it you would get your money back with that immeasureable kind of interest. If you lose, come join us in the cynic seats.
Some homeless people are confused and very unhappy, but others have chosen to be homeless. The hobo has always been around in the United States; traditionally he rode freight-cars(goods trains), ate when he could, and slept where he could. Some were--and are--independent characters, proclaiming a different way of life. Thoreau, author of "Walden," was a dignified spiritual hobo, stripping daily life down to bare essentials. So was Diogenes the Cynic, who owned nothing and went about in broad daylight with a lamp in his hand looking for an honest man.
My parents are Majors in the Salvation Army, and when I quizzed them on the topic of homeless people as a youngster, my father's response was along the lines of what you've said.
In general, my view is that there are certain intolerances within various organisations which provide housing services, such that some have strict house rules about intoxicants, and others require that you live in a particular standard fashion. At the very least, many housing schemes require that you sign a housing benefit claim on a monthly basis.
Basically, I believe there are a lot of people who do not wish to be caught up in the "system" - who wish to live their lives on their own agendas & be free to come and go as they please. Possibly of more importance to some people is being self-reliant - not asking the government to support them.
While living in a city, indeed in almost any subdivision of society, it becomes almost mandatory to join the "rat race". This involves numerous restrictions - a daily working life, reporting to your "superiors" about your activities, and often being made to work for an organisation which you find morally repulsive on one level or another. Not joining the rat race highlights you as someone who should be actively encouraged to do so, if you wish the government to help you financially.
I see no real solution that can be implemented by any organisation, but wish to state my feeling that it's not simply a case of "these people don't want help", or "they have to want to not be self-destructive".
My fellow poster has quite a charming vision of rail-hopping American "Hobo's". Completely inaccurate, I'm afraid. Our homeless folk are just like everyone else's.
I am surprised you didn't talk to the people you photographed. I know to others we Americans seem brusque and rude, but for us the sight of a clean, not apparently drunk or mentally ill, well-provisioned couple toting books and a healthy-looking German Shepherd(who has his own sleeping bag, no less!)automatically requires a "Hey, you guys okay", followed by "Ya mind if I ask why you're sleeping on the pavement?"
They might by alcoholics, or crazy. They might be on some hippie adventure, or maybe they've suffered a personal catastrophe and have lost everything. Why not just ask. If things get weird, you can always leave. I think we should all care enough as fellow human beings to at least find out.
Sorry mate - you don't get out much it seems. Sad events like this happen all of the time in the area in which you work - it happens to be nearby to where I live & it remains a fact that there are people on the streets of this great city because there aren't enough hostel places available - and those that are available come with strings.
In the area around Bush House; being in a hostel costs money. Also, begging is illegal thanks to some insensitive local residents' groups putting pressure on the local authorities of both Camden and Westminster to deter 'street life' (Police lingo - not mine).
Now add to this a chronic lack of public housing, and the fact that people with class A addictions are criminalised for their addiction by a government that forbids any sensible rivision of the crazy dangerous drugs act and you have s sorry state on the streets of the West End of London. A huge proportion of these poor sods living on London's streets are class A addicts and the drugs that they need to stay whole continue to be illegal. Those that develop a habit will continue to become criminals by their need for illegal substances and the activities that they must go through to obtain those substances.
Until we stop criminalising people for behaviours that albeit chronically self destructive ought to be considered as needing help then we will find more and more people like this on our streets. The campaign against drugs has failed - the casulties are being stepped over nightly in shop doorways all over central London.
We need to repeal the dangerous drugs act (if the American will allow us) - take a page out of Mexico's book and look for a different way to handle the issues raised by class A addiction.
This I hope explains a little of what you see and why - the area around Bush House does have some old alcohol users but it's mostly Class A addicts now.