Shame of London's Homeless

Sr Frances Howlett FMM reports on the growing crisis in the , inner cities
THE screaming was outside our door. Dropping my toast and Molly her sandwich, we rushed to the door. A young woman stood outside the gate sobbing and shouting, "I've no money left".
Seeing a black taxi up the street I left Molly with her and went up to it. It was jammed full of suitcases and boxes. I said "Do these belong to her?"
"Yes, We've come to the end of the road," said the cabbie, his face puckered with anxiety.
"What do you mean?" was my puzzled reply.
"Well, I went to this flat in Hackney, loaded this up and then realized what had happened. As soon as she gave the address of the Salvation Army I knew she had been chucked out of her flat. I should have put her down at once." He smiled ruefully.
"But why are you down here?" / was more in the dark than before.
"Salvation Army was full. Sent us to the police station. They said Lambeth Town Hall was her best bet. When we got here they're on strike!"
I swallowed my reaction and asked sympathetically "Then what?"
"She flipped — right on the Town Hall steps, started screaming she only had ten quid. I was waiting the other side of the road. A woman came up and said to bring her here to the sisters". He looked at me in total incomprehension.
"Can you get my money" he pleaded. "I'm losing my day. Eight fifty will do as she's only got ten quid. Just my luck".
"Bring the suitcases and I'll carry the boxes", I said.
Over a cup of tea, and a cheese sandwich. I studied Sharon's tasteful clothes and noted her well plaited hair and clear English. Two hours later the jigsaw was complete.
From a middle income background in North London and a well-known school she had become pregnant at fifteen. Rejection by her religious parents forced her into care. At eighteen she was put into bed and breakfast and her child taken away, because she was deemed an unfit mother. Another sobbing bout interrupted the story.
Finding the sleazy hotel and one room unbearable she asked a former schoolmate to share her flat. All went well for a year until her girlfriend found a boyfriend who needed lodging. After a number of rows the two packed Sharon's belongings and put them in the hall of the building where she found them when she came in from work. Another statistic on the homeless computer.
The long trail back to finding somewhere to live is only too familiar. She went back to bed and breakfast taking just a suitcase. Five months later she arrived to collect the rest, the council having found her a onebedroomed flat.
It is three months into the Year of the Homeless and some initiatives have been started. Coordination between the many voluntary organisations and charities looking after the homeless has begun. They are a drop in the ocean.
It was interesting to read that Mr Gorbachev had countered Mrs Thatcher's demands for the release of dissidents by pointing out the three million unemployed who are suffering deprivation in Britain. He must be unaware of the hundred thousand homeless who are denied the basic human right of a shelter over their heads.
A problem of this magnitude cannot just be left to voluntary groups however efficient and dedicated. As a country we spend less on housing than any other country in Europe. Look around where you live. It is impossible to escape seeing decay and scruffiness in every other street. Excluding, of course, the brand new housing estates and luxury developments.
People in the third world are actually better off than our homeless, Mud sun-baked bricks are free. Palm leaves or straw can provide a waterproof roof. Even on the outskirts of South American Cities the homeless can have a cardboard and plastic sheet home. The lucky ones have a tin roof.
Try that idea here and a horde of officials will not only demolish your shelter but prosecute, process and push you into their idea of where and how you should fit in. No wonder the homeless prefer the squalor of the railway arches or the benches in the park. Listen to them say; "at least we are free and not subject to the terrors of the hostels". Try guessing what that means.
State, church, society, all have rejected them. The untouchables in our comfortable and complacent country. When public figures speak glibly of millions of pounds being spent on some ancient site or an airfield thousands of miles away, ponder, Christianity is a people — centred religion based on personal relationships with a Trinitarian family.
Priorities in Britain seem to place people quite far down the list. Does this mean we are no longer a Christian country? Have we lived in peace for forty years only to have lost touch with justice?
Who is responsible for our homeless, denied a basic human right? The Lord won't answer.
He has it all written down by the prophets thousands of years ago. Every homeless person knows the answer. We are learning it through them.