![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
We are all people
Mar. 22nd, 2011 12:04 amThe Conservative Assault on the Homeless by Johann Hari
I felt sick while reading this article. Westminster council (one of the wealthiest in Britain) wants to make it an offence to sleep on the streets or to give out food for free. At the same time, there are massive funding cuts across the country to programs for the homeless. From the first article:
None of this is happening out of financial necessity. All of these cuts to services for the homeless could have been stopped if Cameron had moved one figure on a spreadsheet: if he had taken the £1bn in taxpayers' money paid in bonuses to Royal bank of Scotland bankers, and ringfenced it for the homeless instead.
What is happening to Western society? Have we completely lost the capacity for empathy or imagination? I've never even come close to being homeless but I can imagine how easily it could happen to me if a few key elements in my life were different. What is wrong with these politicians?
And yet just a couple weeks ago, I was reading an article about Project 40, an Australian program inspired by the Housing First idea from the US. They aim to get people into permanent housing as soon as possible and then help them stay there, rather than making them jump through hoops to prove themselves 'worthy' of a real home.
Sometimes I want to give up on humanity altogether. Then I remember that there are truly amazing, generous people in the world. Humanity is a strange beast.
I felt sick while reading this article. Westminster council (one of the wealthiest in Britain) wants to make it an offence to sleep on the streets or to give out food for free. At the same time, there are massive funding cuts across the country to programs for the homeless. From the first article:
None of this is happening out of financial necessity. All of these cuts to services for the homeless could have been stopped if Cameron had moved one figure on a spreadsheet: if he had taken the £1bn in taxpayers' money paid in bonuses to Royal bank of Scotland bankers, and ringfenced it for the homeless instead.
What is happening to Western society? Have we completely lost the capacity for empathy or imagination? I've never even come close to being homeless but I can imagine how easily it could happen to me if a few key elements in my life were different. What is wrong with these politicians?
And yet just a couple weeks ago, I was reading an article about Project 40, an Australian program inspired by the Housing First idea from the US. They aim to get people into permanent housing as soon as possible and then help them stay there, rather than making them jump through hoops to prove themselves 'worthy' of a real home.
Sometimes I want to give up on humanity altogether. Then I remember that there are truly amazing, generous people in the world. Humanity is a strange beast.
