warehousing

 “Me, I have never been in the hands of the people in white coats, but I have been involved (and recently) with people who tell the most horrendous stories of what happens in psychiatric hospitals – I have been listening to such stories for about 30 years and they don’t seem to have changed. I’m not going to write in detail about it because I want to say a bit more about the homeless industry and this post is too long already. When people are offered accommodation by outreach workers, it is usually hostel accommodation and it starts about £185 per week and goes up from there. Yes, there are lower rents but they are exceptional. As I said above, I was in B&B following an operation – it was an operation on an industrial scale – a small building divided into 15 flats by a company and let out to people referred by the local authority – they owned another 4 buildings in that part of London and possibly others elsewhere, rent per person (some tenants were families) was £300 a week. Breakfast, by the way, was ‘covered’ by providing two sliced loaves, a litre of milk, sugar, marg and a packet of breakfast cereal, but no utensils or cutlery. I have had friends (I am thinking of a really quiet guy with no drug, alcohol or mental health issues) who were charged £360 a week in hostels – highest (same guy) was £60 a night in Bayswater. I was offered a flat by a Christian housing association who deal with the homeless for £270 a week – I have heard of similar rents from many other people. If you want to look for work (or if you are telling the dole you are looking for work) it puts you in a very difficult situation. It’s fundamentally about warehousing people and making money out of them, and on a national scale the amount of money involved must beggar belief. I have heard from several sources that many outreach workers actually take backhanders to refer people – you can just smell the money around...I’ve only skimmed the surface – spend any time around homeless people and you hear endless stories of corruption. And all those workers are so sanctimonious, they’re all trendy lefties and they all read the bloody Guardian. End of.”