Monday, January 22, 2007

Scabies and the WLCHC

The director of the West London Churches Homeless Concern (WLCHC) Michael Athienites has put a message on Declan’s mobile today to the effect that although he is in and out of his office today he is hoping that Declan and he can talk.

Well, that is nice. Declan is going to be able to further inform him that the same scabies sufferer that scratched his back over Declan on Thursday unceremoniously bedded down next to Declan on Saturday night, with 30 seconds to lights out. He is also going to ask Athienites which of the two instructions the WLCHC homeless were given about two weeks ago should we follow in the event we catch the highly communicable mite: burn all our clothes or boil them.

Understandably, we were not overjoyed when we were given either of these two instructions. Declan (while still recovering from his pneumonia) and I spent most of the holiday period in December and early January selling The Big Issue in Covent Garden so that we could buy the clothes that the Dellow Centre and the Whitechapel Mission haven’t provided us with – but provide the rest of the homeless that attend their respective establishments.

Last night in the Sunday rolling centre at Barnes Methodist Church, Station Road, two of the homeless women I sleep with let me have a piece of their mind, although not in actual words. In the middle of the night, I woke up to find that one had moved her chair - and herself - so close to me that I couldn’t stretch my legs without bumping into the chair. The other woman had done a 40 degree right-turn and had her feet right up against my stomach. It just so happened that I had taken precautions before I went to sleep and had left some space between myself and the wall I was sleeping alongside, which I was able to use to move away from the two of them.

Because our savings have been somewhat depleted as result of Declan’s dealings with the Civil Appeals Office in the Royal Courts of Justice (more about that in the next blog), we have been selling The Big Issue at our two pitches outside Liverpool Street station between 7.30am and 9.00am, in addition to the other hours we usually sell it at. We don’t sell much so early, but £8-10 when you are homeless means a lot.

This morning after 9.00am Declan went to the Whitechapel Mission to wash while I went to the Dellow Centre to do a small laundry and have a shower. Things are even worse there than before. I waited for 20 minutes in the queue in the freezing cold and rain, when there was only 11 homeless in front me when I first arrived. I wasn’t able to do a laundry – maybe tomorrow, I was told – and the TV has been covered with a blanket and turned around so that it now faces the wall. I heard a volunteer say to one of the homeless, who was inquiring as to why he couldn’t watch TV anymore, that the management doesn’t want the TV on … management being, of course, the Sisters of Mercy.

It is an indictment, I think, of how little Tower Hamlets Council is doing to improve the conditions for homeless people that we have to queue for so long, in the heart of winter, for the little and erratic services we get from the Dellow Centre.

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