Sleeping on the streets

There might be 'holidaying' element amongst those, remember the vans that used to spend the entire summer at West Bex car park?

But around here there's dozens of them about these days, but most people don't seem to notice them all living in tents in the woods, in wooded lay-bys in ramshackle shelters, in old campervans, in all sorts of cars & vans, sometimes towing an old caravan. If you note the vehicles' make and registrations many haven't been taxed or had an MOT for up to 8 years. Another one we see is large trucks with Eastern European plates and with 6 - 8 males using them as accommodation, leaving early morning and returning in the evening.

 

I do remember, but not much fishing going on in laybys on new years day.

 

Experience? Maturity? Hopefully, your experience has left you wiser as opposed to ... cynical?

Agreed!

Clue .. have a listen to this, it is a song from back in the early '70's ... that "old man" with his worn out medals? Today, they are our war veterans from Afghanistan (and the like) ; the old lady with her two carrier bags? She represents those women who were subjected to domestic violence and would rather face the harshness of the streets than the harshness of her partner's fists, because at least she is making her own *choices* . Some of those homeless men? Some of them had a good career, a beautiful home, a wife/partner, a family ... then, things at home went belly up - maybe he worked too hard? - maybe she found something elsewhere?! Wife/partner and children get the home, the guy gets the maintenance/debts ...

... or, perhaps, life treats someone harshly, they have *the gene* which could/might/does turn them to alcohol/drugs ... the street is the only place left.

Perhaps, just maybe, they have had a mental health breakdown and life spiralled out of control to the point whereby they lost everything? Where else is there for them, but, the streets?

Maybe, they are immigrants who were promised streets of gold ... ?
Maybe, they were immigrants who came under the guise of work only to realise they had sold themselves into slavery ... this is their only escape?
Perhaps they are children/teens who have fled a home of abuse/violence in the hope they would find something better?
Perhaps they are children/teens used as drug mules to fund the pockets of their abusers?
Perhaps they are children/teens driven to prostitution just to survive because when they "escaped" their abusive home life, that was the road open to them?

Maybe they are scroungers?

By my reckoning, there are a thousand different reasons why people end up on the streets vs those who are merely scroungers.

Yup, you may well get taken in by a scrounger ... but the chances are ... and in the majority of cases, a homeless person is a genuine case and ... there but for the grace of God/life/circumstance/chance go you and I
If you let your one experience/example colour your view to the majority who are not the same ... that would be sad indeed!

 

It is a perfectly normal and healthy and wise thing to base attitudes on past experience. It is experience that shapes us both as individuals and as a collective.

Without experience, or at least the ability to learn from experience, we're nothing more than a bunch of atoms.

All that said, no. That one experience did not make me judge all homeless. As I mentioned at the outset, I know most are genuine. I didn't ask, are they all fraudulent scroungers. I asked the genuine question, how does one distinguish between the genuinely down on their luck and those that are abusing people's better nature. It is a very relevant and valid question, given that their are undoubtedly and indisputably those that lie and cheat. By asking that question, I envisage that genuine good natured people might share their own wisdom and insights as to how they tell the genuine from the fakes. Then we can all learn from each other, enabling us to show our better side to those who need it, while not getting tricked by those that don't.

 

Which I did