Homelessness in the UK

Over the past few weeks I've been following the Bolt family's trials as they were evicted from their house in Queensland without another to move into. Cate's determination to get her family back into housing at the same time as highlight the huge problem of homelessness in Australia has rubbed off and got me thinking. What's the situation with homelessness here in the UK?

Well I've been doing some research, and the thing I've found the hardest to find is the number of people who are homeless in this country - even a rough estimate. The government website is very keen to say that 130,000 households have avoided being made homeless, or been given better accomodation, and that the number of households accepted by local authorities as owed the main homelessness duty in England has fallen over the past year, but there's no figure. I have discovered that the Governement have a goal of halving the number of households living in temporary accomodation to 50,000 by 2010.

I've read one estimate that 464 people sleep rough on any given night. (http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/homelessness/homelessnesstrends) and also one saying they say 'there are 1 million people in Britain that are homeless, half a million of which are on the street and the other half a million are living in a squat of temporary shelter (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_are_homeless_in_the_uk)

It seems there is no clear answer to how many people are currently homeless in the UK. I imagine one of the problems is simply defining what we actually mean by the word 'homeless. 'Homelessness' doesn't just mean without a home and living on the streets. Shelter is a charity that is working to alleiviate the distress caused by bad housing and homelessness. The legal definition on their website is:

Broadly speaking, the law defines someone as being homeless if they do not have a legal right to occupy accommodation, or if their accommodation is unsuitable to live in. This can cover a wide range of circumstances, including, but not restricted to, the following:

• having no accommodation at all
• having accommodation that is not reasonable to live in, even in the short-term (eg because of violence or health reasons)
• having a legal right to accommodation that you cannot access (eg if you have been evicted illegally)
• living in accommodation you have no legal right to occupy (eg living in a squat or staying with friends temporarily).

Local councils have a legal duty to provide advice and assistance to people who are legally defined as homeless or threatened with homelessness. However, not everyone who falls within the legal definition necessarily qualifies for temporary accommodation.

This means there are lots of different 'types' of homelessness. The most recognised form is when people are forced to sleep on the streets. This is not the full picture though. 'Street homelessness' is a much broader type that includes many more than those under cardboard boxes in shop doorways. Some will have a hostel or a squat to sleep in but still have no where to go in the day time. Though they might have a roof over their heads, hostels can have their own set of problems such as other residents with drug, alcohol or violence issues. There can be a lack of privacy, beds and poor facilities. It is important, therefore, to find long term solutions for all people who are 'homeless'.

There are many different causes for homelessness and it is a complete myth that if there is a good economy there should be no reason why anyone is homeless. Shelter see the causes as the combination of personal and 'structural' causes from outside their control. Personal causes range from family breakdown and disputes, sexual and physical abuse in childhood or adolescence, alcohol / drug problems either of the individual or in their family, a lack of qualifications, lack of social support, debts, poor physical / mental health or relationship breakdown. The structural causes can include unemployment, povery, housing policies, structure / administration of housing benefits or lack of affordable housing.

Tackling any of these personal or structural causes and the problems of finding solutions is incredibly difficult especially in the current economic crisis. Fortunately there are some wonderful charities out there doing just that.

Shelter - http://england.shelter.org.uk
Centrepoint - http://www.centrepoint.org.uk
The Big Issue Foundation - http://www.bigissue.co.uk

The Big Issue - a magazine UK residents will be familiar with - is an opportunity for homeless people to start helping themselves out of their predicament. Vendors do have to prove they are 'homeless', undergo an induction process and sign up to the code of conduct. Once they are able to start selling the magazine they purchase copies for 75p and sell them for £1.50, keeping the profit for themselves. As they are never reimbursed for issues they don't sell, the quantities they take on need to be carefully calculated. I was walking in town today and there was the familiar sight of the man that sells our Big Issue. The majority of people ignored him, not even saying 'no thank you' which really grated on me. He's still a person, not something to be looked away from. He's always polite and often has a smile on his face. I don't know why he's homeless, whether it was his 'fault' or circumstances beyond his control - it doesn't matter. Everyone deserves somewhere permanent to live, however big or small. What was nice to see were 2 teenage boys, smartly dressed in their local boys' school uniform, who went up to him, shook his hand and talked to him, just seeing how he was. People complain about 'the youth of today' - but some of the adults in that street could learn a thing or two from these young lads.

It's been bitterly cold of late here in the UK. Locally it's been down to -11. Imagine what it's like not to have a nice, comfy bed with central heating to banish the winter blues, or even a roof over your head from the snow. It's not a good place to be.

What would be really great, is if you could spend a few minutes reading the websites above to get a better understanding of the situation just around the corner from your own home. And next time you see a Big Issue seller please don't walk by and look the other way - buy a copy, it's only £1.50 (one of the cheapest magazines around) or at the very least say hello.

Useful links to articles on palm oil & orangutans

Whilst browsing the internet for information on palm oil and orangutans I've come across some interesting articles. You've probably seen them before, but here they all are again, just in case:


Cruel Oil: How Palm Oil Harms Health, Rainforest & Wildlife
http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/palm_oil_final_5-27-05.pdf

Save orangutans from exinction when you next shop - and put an end to the cruelty of palm oil
http://naturealert.org/14.10.05/Orangutan%20Appeal.pdf

Palm Oil Report - Ever Wondered How Much Palm Oil Costs?
http://naturealert.org/14.3.07/images/Palm%20Oil%20Report.pdf

Palm Oil Report - The Cost of Palm Oil is Rising
http://naturealert.org/9.2.2008/images/Palm%20Oil%20Report.pdf

Palm Oil Report - The Indonesian Chainsaw Massacre
http://naturealert.org/25.8.09/Palm%20Oil%20Report.pdf

The Last Stand of the Orangutan
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/resources/PDFs/LastStand/full_orangutanreport.pdf

Palm Oil Fact Sheet
http://redapes.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/20080415_palmoilfactsheet_v1.pdf

If anyone has other links (I know there are hundreds out there) that they have found particularly useful & or useful, do let me know and I will add them.

The Power of Twitter (& its users)

Twitter is an excellent potential tool for getting public support for a particular cause. Trouble is, in order to spread the word you really need a lot of followers so that lots of people can hear your message.

In starting out trying to get publicity for your cause you probably won't have many followers, so you need to get your message to someone who does have lots of followers and who is willing to retweet your message for you. Here lies the dilemma. No doubt all the celebrities and such get so many tweets that even if they are checking their '@replies' they will probably miss yours in the flood they get every second.

I've been thinking about this for sometime as there are a couple of causes that I'm desperate to help and get the message out there for. Many of the charities I support already have great public support so I'm concentrating my efforts for the next few weeks on 2 in particular.

The first of these is Project_18. Those of you who have already read my blog will be familiar with Cate Bolt and her fantastic idea to help both the children and the orangutans of Indonesia. Currently circumstances are difficult for the Bolt familiy, partly due to their dedication to this Project, and are now having to camp around Queensland having been evicted from their house shortly before Christmas. Fortunately they've got slightly warmer temperatures than we have here in the UK at the moment, but it's constantly raining and besides a family deserves a home. It can't be easy camping with 9 children in the best of circumstances.

The second of these is Jenny Rowbory. Jenny suffers from severe ME which leaves her bed-bound and unable to sit up. Jenny lives in the UK where we are fortunate enough to have the National Health Service - that is, until the won't pay. She has had many medical consultations and has finally been given a treatment plan. The difficulty is, that it will cost £35,000 and her local PCT won't pay, or even contribute towards this. Not to be deterred she has written a wonderful poetry anthology which has now been published in order to help raise the money for her medical costs.

These are my 2 chosen causes for January and I need your help. I'm not asking for money, I'm just asking for you to do a bit of typing. I think that the only way to get real support for these causes is to get them noticed and picked up by a public figure and one of the ways of doing this is through Twitter. I think that perhaps, if a group of us agree a time to be all logged in together, preferably when a figure or two of choice is also online (trickier I know, but some seem to be on for large chunks of time), then if we all tweet them at the same time, with the same message then it might just get through.

I can't do this alone. Will anyone spare a few seconds to help these worthy causes?

Thank you.

Spare a Thought

For a lot of people, right now is a special time of year. Why? Because we've just had Christmas and been given lots and lots of presents (some which we want, some which we really don't, or had from the same relative last year and the year before that). We've gorged ourselves on turkey, goose, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, mince pies, chocolates, cakes all washed down with wine, beer and indigestion remedies. Many of us will have been extremely lucky, we'll have been with our friends and loved ones, in a nice warm house with electricity for watching DVDs and playing computer games, internet connection to twitter and blog and heating to keep us all nice and toasty.

Unfortunately Christmas is not a happy time for everyone. In fact it can be a very difficult time for thousands of people. In the UK alone, like other Western countries, people have been bereaved, are sick, homeless or simply alone. The constant festivities being forced down their throats on TV, in newspapers, in shops that start their sales at 6am on Boxing Day can't make it any easier for them.

Further afield, in countries across Africa and Indonesia people are literally starving. They are malnourished and die of simple diseases that can be easily fought off by stronger, healthier bodies. The mortality rate, particularly of infants, in these countries is frighteningly high.


So, when you're casting aside that unwanted Christmas present, or when you're wishing you'd been given something else, or when you're shopping around for bargains in the sales despite all the presents you've just received, I would like you to spare 1minute to think of someone else. Someone here in the UK that's fallen on hard times, or someone far away who has no idea what Christmas is, or even if they do, don't care, because they just have to focus on surviving. Perhaps you could choose not to buy that one extra bargain which you probably will never wear or eat or use and are just buying because it's a great deal. Perhaps, instead you could donate it to a charity instead. Drop it into a collection box often found at tills, or being shaken outside the store. Go online and find a charity that is doing something you care about. If you're still stuck for ideas here are a few charities that I love:

www.savetheorangutan.co.uk
www.forests4orangutans.org
www.samaritans.org
www.project18.org.au
www.oxfam.org.uk

Any amount of money you could donate to any of these charities would be wisely spent and gratefully appreciated. Please, spare a thought for someone else. Afterall Christmas is a time for GIVING.

Boots & Palm Oil

I realise I've been a bit quiet lately on here, but I've been waiting for some more responses from companies on the issue of palm oil.

Today I heard back from Boots. It's a long reply and for once, they've actually bothered to write details, explaining the various types of palm oil used in products and attempt to answer my specific answers.

"As one of the first retailers to join the RSPO in 2006 Boots recognise the considerable environmental and social impact of large scale palm oil production. Via the European Palm Oil Retailer Group hosted by the British Retail Consortium we help fund a RSPO representative and are working to a find way to make available credibly certified sources of palm oil in the products that we make and sell.

The palm oil supply chain is very complex and as palm oil can reach products in a number of different forms labelling is not as easy as for organic or Fairtrade products. To illustrate this (and to answer your questions) there are three possible ways palm oil is used in Boots health and beauty products.

i) Direct use of palm oil in products. Contrary to some press reports there is very little use of palm oil in health and beauty products. Boots do not use any neat palm oil in our products. If we did this would appear on the product ingredients list.

ii) Ingredients directly made from palm oil. The main products concerned here are solid soaps that use ingredients made from palm oil. Like other cosmetics & toiletry producers we have a legal obligation to identify on pack the ingredients in our products. Where ingredients are based on palm oil the regulations require us to use the Latin name for palm (Elaeis Guineensis). We also list the common name equivalents on our website:
http://www.boots-uk.com/App_Portals/BootsUK/Media/PDFs/CSR/Herbal_extracts_INCI_name_information_Aug_2008_.pdf

Currently the extract (fraction) of palm oil which is used to make the soap ingredients is not available as a Certified Sustainable Source (CSPO). We are working with our suppliers to develop certified sources and also look at alternative materials. We are aiming to complete this work in 2010

iii) There are also some ingredients which are made by breaking down the chemical structure of vegetable oil and then reformulating it. In theory any vegetable oil can be used as the starting material, (including palm). As the processing passes though several stages and suppliers on its way to the final product tracing the source is not easy. A simple "contains palm oil" label would be difficult to justify here as the likely palm content of the product is usually going to be very low. Certified sustainable sources are currently only available for palm material used in the food industry therefore are not available as these derivatives. We are working with ingredients suppliers to identify if palm is used and what the options are to move to either sustainable sources or only use non palm vegetable oils.

More information and our palm oil policy is available on our website.
http://www.boots-uk.com/Corporate_Social_Responsibility/Environment/Biodiversity.aspx "

The family behind Project 18

As I've already posted - Project 18 is a charity founded by Cate Bolt with the aim of building an orphanage & wildlife refuge centre (predominantly for orangutans) on Sumatra. As a keen supporter of Cate & Project 18 I found this posting on her blog troubling. She's already crashed her own site with the sheer volume of traffic reading it and has put it on her husband's too. I thought I'd offer her mine to crash too - so, in Cate's words, here's what's happening to those good folks Down Under.

"Ok, so this isn’t directly charity related but this blog is about what happens when you make a decision to change your life for the “better” and follow your heart to try to leave the world a better place.

I’m emotionally drained, so most of this post is going to be copies & pasted from an email I sent last night to a friend. Forgive me, it’s not lazy… it’s just an emotional incapability to write it all again.

Here’s the deal. We live in this fantastic house, it’s really amazing and we took it on when we were both making good money and the rent $675/week was no issue. Then when Ricks business got hit by the GFC and all the big contracts he was supposed to be working on got put on hold until the economy picked up again. So initially my business was supporting his payroll until I just couldn’t afford to do it anymore and we had to put everyone off.

So a few months later when I decided I really wasn’t happy with my business anymore and needed to do something worthwhile, we were in a comfortable position. We did all the numbers and what we had coming in was enough to cover the necessities. There wasn’t heaps left over, but we’re simple people we don’t want for much. We don’t drink or smoke, we don’t eat out, we don’t as a general rule go anywhere that costs anything. The sum total of our “entertainment” spending is our Austar subscription – and given that we don’t get free to air TV here, I don’t think that’s a luxury when you’ve got kids.

We made the very difficult decision to take our children out of their private school that they love next year, and send them to a public school. This will save us about $12,000/yr and, had we not had some horrific problems with the school in the last term, I’m not sure I could have bought myself to do that.

We have managed to keep paying the rent for the most part this year but have missed about 4-5 weeks over the last year. For the last couple of months we’ve been paying $700/week to try to pay off some of what we owe in arrears, and we haven’t missed a rent payment in ages. The real estate agency seems to turn over staff faster than KFC (no offence KFC, thanks for not using Palm Oil anymore) - the previous property manager had made an agreement with us that if $700 was what we could afford, then that was fine. When he also left, 3 months ago we heard no more from the agent until about a week ago when they were to come for a routine inspection.

The inspection date rolls around and we are waiting all day for them to show up. We made 4 or 5 calls to their office but the phones weren’t answered (it was, after all, Melbourne Cup day). That evening we received a phone call from our neighbour who lives in a completely separate house at the bottom of the 14 hectare property. He asked if we were to have an inspection that day, because someone had come to his house and left a note saying that he was supposed to be there for an inspection, but as he wasn’t they had entered his property to carry out the inspection without him. That’s right… they went to the WRONG house – a house which is not even rented through their office and carried out an inspection on the home. People who live in the country will understand that we’re pretty relaxed about locking doors out in the sticks.

So the giggling property manager rings up two days later- apparently illegally entering someone’s house is funny, and she reschedules her appointment for today. I had no desire to speak to her so passed her on to Rick. At the time of this phone call she told Rick words to the effect of: she can see that our rent is being paid regularly but it is still behind, and that we need to put a payment plan forward to catch up the arrears and if we do that, everything is OK. That was on the 5th of November. “Set up a payment plan and everything will be fine”

On Monday the 9th we spoke to the property manager again to try to determine exactly how much we would need to pay to keep out of trouble. The property manager wouldn’t give us an answer and instead told us “you work it out and I’ll go back to the owner”

So we sit down and crunch the numbers, we’re already leaving ourselves short for food, but Rick spent the day at the Salvo’s getting some food etc. Which I feel crap about cause he’s a pretty proud guy, he’s never been unemployed, he’s never had to ask for food. But he did it and he came home happy because we had food. I should say also that he’s been applying for every single job that is advertised within a reasonable commute including some pretty crappy jobs which with his depth of knowledge & experience are insulting, but he’s applying. I’m just making the point that we aren’t sitting here trying to be elitist, we’re doing everything we can.

So then soon after he got home, less than 24 hours after speaking to the agent about the rental arrears, the real estate agent rings up again and says they’re hand delivering a notice to vacate and we have SEVEN days to get out of the house.

The whole time with the cars and all the other crap, I kept saying “I’m ok as long as I have a roof over my head and we don’t lose the house” – so now… yeah … now I have no idea what we’re going to do. We couldn’t afford to move even if we did have somewhere to go, and the landlord won’t let us stay even if we managed to find the $3,000-odd we owe them. My family have even asked me “what about your rent, are you ok with that?” and I’ve said “yeah, we’re fine!” because we had an agreement, that yes we were a few weeks behind but we were paying regularly AND paying extra, albeit only a little extra.

Just as I thought we would be able to cope with Christmas, Remax Mooloolaba expect a family, in financial hardship, with 9 children a dog, a cat & 9 chickens to not only find alternate housing but be moved out and property cleaned, keys returned within SEVEN days. And when we ask how we are supposed to find another house (especially as evictees) we are told “We will do what we can, but it probably won’t be through us”

We are not delinquent tenants. We don’t have parties and annoy the neighbours. We haven’t trashed the property, in fact we keep an impeccable house and grounds. We have three special needs children who have really only just settled in to their surroundings. The thought of spending Christmas homeless is really not something I planned when I decided to give up my previous life to try to make the world a better place.

The point of this blog at the start was to prove that anyone could make a difference if they decided to. I guess at this point I’m not making a very good case. If you’re wondering if this means the end of Project 18, then the answer is an unequivocal NO. I won’t give up on what I believe in. We’ve made a commitment to the betterment of the planet. Remax Mooloolaba won’t put an end to that.

We have had several discussions with Remax over the past 24 hours begging them to be reasonable – they refuse to negotiate. I would like to ask all my supporters, followers and friends to help me spread the word. And please take a minute to contact Remax Mooloolaba and ask them WHY in this day & age, are they so incapable of making reasonable compassionate decisions?

You can Tweet Remax Mooloolaba @RentalAdvice email: mooloolaba@remaxproperty.com.au or phone their office 07 5452 4555"

Unilever - finally

In my quest to get some straight answers from the users of palm oil I've been pestering various companies for the past few months. The company that has so far taken the longest to respond is Unilever, and yet I imagine they are one of the larger users of palm oil that I have so far contacted. This is what they have to say:

"Palm oil is widely used in food and personal care products, and contributes to the economic development of the producing countries, as well as to the diets of millions of people around the world. Demand for palm oil is only expected to increase, however it is recognised that there are environmental issues around the expansion to eco-sensitive areas.

Since 2002, Unilever has been working with the conservation group WWF, plantation owners and other commercial users to devise standards for sustainable production. This is being done through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The principal objective of the RSPO is to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through co-operation within the supply chain and open dialogue with stakeholders.

I hope this has reassured you about the use of palm oil in our products, and I will pass your comments on to our Product Development team. We welcome all consumer feedback - both positive and negative - as it helps us to improve our products and policies, so thank you for taking the time to contact us."

Yes, it's another standard letter saying all the right things, that they are working with the RSPO and towards sustainable palm oil, but I'm now losing my patience with this stock reply (as you will see if you read the others I have been given, they're all pretty much the same). Unilever has failed to answer my questions on which products contain palm oil and why it isn't clearly labelled (so far only Green & Blacks has admitted which products have the oil in, and I have more respect for them because of it - and I can choose not to eat them). I really believe that no one is actually reading my letters - they see the title 'Palm Oil' and send out the same old response. I think I will go back to Unilever and ask the questions again - but I'm not sure when I'll get an answer - if ever!