So you're homeless...

a follow up

Published on July 8, 2004 By Horatio0193 In Blogging

After blowing my stack a little about an incident my wife had with a homeless guy the other day I have had time to reflect and think on things. Here are my follow up thoughts and observations…

I did write an article on something that everyone has a view on, funny how this one got more of a response than an article I did on religion. Made me quirk an eyebrow anyway. I don’t write my articles to get a reaction from people btw, I just write about what is going through my head at that particular point in time. Anyway I digress.

One of the guys in my office is known as “King of the khazi’s.” He is responsible for making sure the public toilets are looked after properly and that if there are any problems he sorts them out quickly. Of course this is not his main duty but wouldn’t you take the piss as well??

. Anyway he was talking today about the drug problem that is going on in our City at the moment and how he is rolling out a programme to put UV lights in the toilets so the druggies have a hard time finding a vein and so don’t loiter around public areas and hassle members of the public, it also cuts down on the amount of people that discover other people in toilets, well… dead people in toilets.

This of course is a great idea except the druggies then go on to use toilets in Supermarkets and yes that is why my friend from the other day was really evicted from the store. Not just because he was abusing shoppers but because he was trying to shoot up in their toilets. This just moves the problem from one area to another of course and solves no real problems but my colleague is doing what the public have asked for. See now I get into moral difficulties and professional feelings may override humanity. We are paid to do what the public wants and what they want is to be able to use a toilet without finding dead people and without the abuse that goes along with the addicts but are we doing enough?

The answer unfortunately is we are doing as much as our budget allows, a cop out I know but then we get into how much our tax has gone up under a Labour Council/Government and what are they doing with the money? Don’t even get me started on the local centre that opened up recently for disabled lesbian single mothers!!! That is another issue anyway and one I will move on to one day, you have been warned!

I re-read my article now and think what an unfeeling git I appear but I still feel the same. I am not judging and I am not condemning either I am just trying to be honest and lets face it that’s all we can hope on here isn’t it?

Sorry I am getting off of track again. So the guy that was thrown out of the store for trying to shoot up, he went on to smash 4 car windows, a shop window and he punched a woman in the face when she tried to stop him kicking in a car door. I do find it hard to feel sorry for him. Yes I know he is a victim and I know he is down on his luck probably from something that is not his fault but he had choices like the rest of us. At any one time we are all going to be faced with the prospect of having no where to live with no job. I was out of work myself for a couple of years and no matter what I did I couldn’t get a job but, (18 and told I had too much experience for the jobs I was going for, go figure!), but then I was one of the lucky ones and got a break. I could of easily gone off the rails and ended up something completely different to what I am today, but lucky break or a decision we make we all have to live with what we have and we can only try to make things better for ourselves.

See that is the point, we have to try to make things better for ourselves, we can’t expect anyone to do it for us, the world does not owe us.

I do admire people like WiseFawn who managed to turn their lives around and not every homeless person wants to live like that, in fact most probably hate it I know I would, but I still can’t help but come back to the you have to help yourself thing. Does that make me cynical and bitter and twisted? Yes probably but I am not going to apologise for what I am because hey, that’s me and I am happy being me.

Anyway thanks for all the comments, especially liked the bit about horn blowing! Normal service will be resumed in a couple of days where I promise to return to my flippant self.

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