A question of class
Despising the commoners
Civic pride forgets
Society’s vagabonds
Unwanted hearts in service
Two pigeons, side by side, pecking at crumbs on a city street. It is not an unusual sight. Flying rats, many call them. They are mated for life and will mourn the death of their mate. The authorities tell us not to feed them as their presence damages buildings, costing those same authorities a huge amount of money. But we feed them anyway, when revellers drop half-eaten burgers and unemptied bins overflow. The pigeons’ clean up operation serves the city and brings wild life to the streets.
A city council pins legal notices to the bags of homeless people. Their presence on the streets may cost them a fine of thousands of pounds they do not have. Their presence is “having a detrimental effect … on the quality of life” of the city dwellers. That same city council refused to reopen a shelter for the homeless.
I drop a coin into the hand of a beggar. There but for the grace of God go I.
For Colleen’s poetry challenge.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Reblogged this on Blog Pad 2017.
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Thanks, Henrietta.
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You are welcome!
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So many homeless people in Oxford. And you can see why….
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-41101860.html
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Rental prics are ridiculous these days.
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totally – round here is just impossible
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same here.
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It doesn’t make sense to fine the homeless.
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It is utter nonsense, but seems to be happening in a good many places.
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How true!
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Shameful. Here, it is said that shelters are not a good option…dangerous places for some who choose to stay on the streets. I don’t know the answer. But, it is heartbreaking, and yes…we could all be in that position.
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The streets are also dangerous… so no, there is no good answer except attempting to ensure no-one sleeps on the streets through need.
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Been there Sue, Didn’t like having to live and sleep rough on the streets. Except for one thing, my fellow down and outs were the salt of the earth to my way of thinking… 😉 x
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Me too, Jack, though thankfully not for long. x
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Every time I go to Glasgow I see increasing numbers of homeless people on the streets.Last week I read an article about a footballer’s home being broken into while he and his wife were on a skiing holiday. One of the items stolen was a handbag which cost around £42,000.
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I can’t fathom why anyone would buy such a thing… and doubtless it was insured. Not that it makes it any easier to know your home has been invaded…and that shouldn’t happen either…
That one handbag, though, would make all my dreams come true and keep me for a few years as well! To someone with absolutely nothing, it would be a fortune.
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I didn’t even know you could find such a expensive handbag. Their home was invaded because they splashed pics of themselves on holiday all over Facebook. Insurance companies are making noises about not paying out if people announce to the world their homes are empty.
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I couldn’t resist… do a search for ‘world’s most expensive handbags’… it runs to milions. Why???
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It’s obscene! People who spend that on handbags must have no connection to the real world.
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It is their money and their choice…but if I had that much to spare, I am pretty sure I could find something more useful to do with it.
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Me, too!
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I’ll bet 🙂
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It is very sad, Sue. We have hundreds of beggars on our streets at the moment. Poverty in Africa is on the increase since the end of the commodities super cycle. I saw a few street people when I was in the UK last year but they seemed to be in a better state than our people who are sick and starving and desperate.
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To call it ‘relative poverty’ doesn’t begin to touch the edges of this problem. No-one should be that desperate in today’s world.
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We have homeless people here in Colorado and all over the U. S. It is a sad state of affairs when we can’t take care of our people. The political rhetoric spewing from our so called President’s mouth has only fueled the problem. Sue, your prose, and poetry really spoke to me. It always does, but this week was different. Hugs. ❤
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Thanks, Colleen. Poverty and deprivation is a global problem. We have so much, many of s far more than we need…even though we think we struggle day to day. Yet so many have neither roof, food nor safe water.
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I agree. I keep getting rid of things the older I get. I just don’t need it all. Great points and excellent discussion with everyone. ❤
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I know the feeling…the downsize that I dreaded was the best thing I’ve done. x
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It clears the mind and takes some of the stress off our psyche’s. I’m happy that this move helped. Change is good… ❤
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I keep whittling things down to even less 🙂
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Reblogged this on Have We Had Help? and commented:
A reminder of a not nice period in my life from Sue 😉
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Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
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So sad that life on this planet continues to make no sense at all!
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Life makes sense…we don’t though…
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I disagree… some of us make a lot of sense, just a pity it’s not the people that can make a difference!
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I lived comfortably (if not luxuriously) on minimum wage when I was young. You can’t do that now. The United States has plenty of money, but those who have it don’t want to share it, not even a bit, not even to pay livable wages to their employees. It shames us all. (K)
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My youngest son has just taken paternity leave for the birth of my granddaughter. They are not obliged to pay fathers above a fraction of their wages to do so. Some companies will pay full wages…his don’t, so he has used all his holiday entitlement instead.
Too many companies stick to the letter of the law and refuse to go a step farther…and the laws, as well as the desire for maximum profit, encourage firms to use their workforce as an expendable commodity instead of people. 😦
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So sadly true. Your son is doing right by his family, though.
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He woudn’t have it any other way, Kerfe. He loves his little family dearly.
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Whose crazy idea was it to fine the homeless? Are there no debtors’ prisons, no workhouse? Scrooge lives! We need Dickens back again. Good post, Sue. —- Suzanne
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It does seem as if we are slipping backwards in those respects…
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I suppose one of the better aspects of living out here in the country is not having beggars and homeless people. It’s not that we don’t have poor people. We do, but none are homeless. We have a substantial availability of free or no/low cost housing and a LOT of free meals and free kitchens. We may be small, but we take better care of our people than they have ever done in the city.
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I think that is always the way in the more rural areas where community does still exist.
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It sickens me that we still have homelesss people. There is such vast inequality in the world, celebrities and footballers being paid obscene amounts of money, yet there are kids that are sleeping on the streets. If only there were some way to redress the balance.
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