Slamming The Homeless. By Uncle Monty.

Slamming The Homeless.

Story By Uncle Monty.
Photos and Graphics By Alex Albion.

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Screaming with its bold black headline of “£1.5M HOUSES

FOR HOMELESS,” London’s Friday edition of The Evening

Standard used twenty-two boldface black fonts of almost

1.5 inches each in size to ram home its sensational story

about how some of the homeless are being housed

in such very expensive London abodes.
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Reported by its chief reporter Robert Mendick, the

story highlighted how greedy landlords are being paid
as much as $1.800 a week by wealthy local councils,
like Kensington and Chelsea, to house a few of
London’s homeless, or would-be homeless, folks.

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To read the headline would imply that many of the

present homeless are being housed so comfortably in

private million-pound worth houses when such is far

from the daily grit and reality of the overwhelming
majority of the indigenous homeless in London.

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Thus, Mendick’s piece was also tanamount to slamming
the defenseless homeless who have little or no say at

where and when they might be housed by their local

councils. Indeed, many have been waiting years to be

housed in the cheapest council properties that would

make some people even cringe at how depressing

they really are.

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A fancy property perhaps for homeless rent?

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But when you have real estate agents like wealthy

Foxtons involved with wealthy landlords and wealthy

councils, the combination helps not the homeless per

se, but rather it helps first such wealthy operators

renting properties at rip-off prices under the guise

of housing the homeless. A London mews cottage, as

cited in Mendick’s report, costing £58,000 per year
for a homeless woman and her children is an outrage

to all the taxpayers who have no say on such careless

use and waste of money. The homeless aren’t to blame

for such rental prices or even being housed in £1.5

million houses, but rather housing and government
officials who agree to pay such outlandish prices in
the first place and at any cost in order to satisfy some
nebulous concept of reducing or containing the grow-

ing problem of Britain’s homeless population

across the whole country.
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Not quite so fancy, but fit for the homeless.

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Slamming the homeless who are housed in such expen-

sive properties is a cheap shot at all the other homeless at

wherever and however they are since most of them will

never see the front door, let alone be housed in such rich

properties. Slamming rich landlords, rich real estate

agents, and rich councils is certainly in order. But the

problem of homelessness, be it in London or elsewhere,

cannot be resolved by them for the problem stems from

deeper social causes and wider economic disparities

beyond their control or indeed the control

of the homeless themselves.
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And the British housing charities, I must say, seem
at a loss to truly resolve the depth of homelessness.
In fact, it seems they’d be out of business themselves
if they permanently solved the social housing crisis.
The more the homeless, the more housing charity

money comes to such charities it seems. In the

meantime more poor and marginalized folks are

still stranded on the cold and indifferent streets of

London and at other major cities around England.

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Slamming the homeless will not solve anything

and least of all giving them the chance to live like

a British lord or titled lady at some Chelsea and

Kensington mews cottage costing an arm and leg

to hide them from their homeless situation on

the mean city streets of choking London.
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Honestly, Uncle Monty.

+Eve of Alfred The Great, 2oo8.
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Coming shortly: “Bad Mouth British Bishop
Called Gordon Mursell.” By Uncle Monty.

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