Having just written a review of The Silver Sword, which is a children’s book about running from oppressors, and having to live rough and then finally finding a home and reconnecting with parents, I was again drawn to think about homelessness; in particular how today, to be precise at 8 AM this morning as I walking to work I saw three different homeless humps in doorways in the middle of my
I know that this is not unique, indeed the incidence of rough sleepers (and within that group homelessness) has increased exponentially since the current government’s austerity policies which have impacted on everyone both directly and indirectly
This was again brought home when I read two separate articles on the BBC News site:
1 Why some Japanese pensioners want to go to jail
2 The city with no homeless on its streets
Both articles reflect on the society they are written about In Japan people of pensionable age are taking to crime so that they have somewhere warm and free to live. Having achieved pension age, they are finding that their pension is
Whilst in ‘Finland’s capital Helsinki rough sleeping has been almost eradicated.’ due to radically thinking outside the box to provide homes, to make people feel worthwhile and whilst they are in a home helping them to come to terms with who they
The Finnish policy is being adapted by various areas of the UK, but it cannot in itself succeed unless proper funding is put in place from the national purse. And this funding needs to be sustained, just as our Health Service needs proper funding (and not the various lip service pieces which government have said about extra funding when it is not).
I don’t know the answers, I just know that as a society and as individuals we need to do more, not just walk past these human being, for they are human beings, and deserve support and recognition as.
The name they used was not down to me and I don’t recall why they didn’t want to use my name, it’s interesting actually as they did organise a photo session and they used my picture on the record cover and I still have a copy of that single, it was a good photo as well. I’ll see if I can dig it out for the article.
We all probably have at least one on which we have phtos etc for giving to our family or friends, or we may use them for transferring documents between computers. But again, we rarely have these USB devices password protected or even better encrypted.
It is interesting to read this article, as it reflects the things that I have been writing and talking about over the last 20 years – of course I have been writing about Big Brother and the loss of civil liberties in part, and this is now encompassed in the world wide web and how government is using it to monitor and control what we do, see and hear. I make no bones about the fact that I distrust government in its attitude and continued use of phrases about we need CCTV to control terrorism, for your protection etc. That we don’t need personal encryption, as if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, and we won’t maintain personal data longer ‘that is necessary’. There ares lots of more glib phrases, but they all come down to government control, and you losing your civil liberties 
After nearly 170 years we are close to loosing that infrastructure for self education. The article below from Emily Prado, and in particular here paragraph just prior to the quote, ..Yet the recent election cycle and studies revealing Americans’ inability to sort clickbait from facts demonstrate how far from the truth this sentiment really is – ‘that libraries are not necessary’.