Foodbank

Same here, I'll donate some stuff, great idea

Food banks in Britain, this is embarrassing to us as  a country, an absolute disgrace. One in ten families in London apparently rely on food bank support, what sort of country have we become?

You think the need for food banks is an issue an issue and your not wrong, don’t even get me started about the young kids laid on the pavement in sleeping bags outside every major railway station in London, see it every day and it makes me sad and angry.......... sorry non football post really but one that I had to comment on as it’s a real issue as opposed to the goings on at small Town football clubs.

Quoted from HertsGTFC

You think the need for food banks is an issue an issue and your not wrong, don’t even get me started about the young kids laid on the pavement in sleeping bags outside every major railway station in London, see it every day and it makes me sad and angry.......... sorry non football post really but one that I had to comment on as it’s a real issue as opposed to the goings on at small Town football clubs.

Well said Herts - I've just come back from that there London and the number of kids sleeping rough is a flipping disgrace. It was bloody cold walking around in my good winter coat let alone sleeping in doorways and on the embankment, within sight of skyscrapers to corporate greed and city boys frittering away a working mans weeks wage on a bottle of plonk.

What I also noticed was the number of people who weren't just sticking a quid in a paper cup but were stopping and talking to homeless people - human being to human being. Made me think there's hope for us yet.

Then I got home and saw some of the abusive comments on the Tellywag website about a fella who's suggesting we help our local homeless down the avenue......

When I was a kid the only homeless people you saw were drunks. Proper old school tramps. But that was back in the days when we had more of a welfare state.

Incidentally, last week when I was up there in that Humberside, Dave Burns was running a campaign to eradicate rough sleeping in Hull. A woman from Pompey came on and talked about a scheme which converted an old double decker bus. Within the next 30-40 minutes someone from the bus company was on saying it would be possible to donate a bus and someone from a church rang in to say we could run the project.

Anyone know what happened next? I didn't get to hear as I was out of range of RH.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Incidentally, last week when I was up there in that Humberside, Dave Burns was running a campaign to eradicate rough sleeping in Hull. A woman from Pompey came on and talked about a scheme which converted an old double decker bus. Within the next 30-40 minutes someone from the bus company was on saying it would be possible to donate a bus and someone from a church rang in to say we could run the project.

Anyone know what happened next? I didn't get to hear as I was out of range of RH.

They found some crested newts at the first site it was to be parked at, local residents got a petition up against the second site and the bus has been driving around in circles ever since.

A few years ago my lad through no fault of his own became classed as being homeless, but guess what he contacted the local authority and they was really helpful to be fair, he was giving multiple choices but took up the offer to stay in the YMCA . And after a few months in there with local authority help once again, he moved into a modern flat run by an housing association.

So I think there is a lot of help locally if you want it and that's the key, as for the beggars on the avenue I'd sling them inside for a stretch no questions asked.

A few years ago, the council budget was a lot higher and the general level of social security hadn't been slashed back so much. Get used to seeing a lot more people on the streets as the resources just aren't there to stop it these days and the Universal Credit debacle stands to increase the numbers by tens of thousands at the very least.

I suppose sticking the homeless in prison would be an option - at tens of thousands of pounds per person (prison isn't cheap), it would be a ridiculously stupid option, but an option all the same.