Homelessness in Kernow – Kernow Branch Celtic League (KBCL) continues to challenge Westminster MPs who laugh and jeer at food banks and poverty whilst individual Celtic League members step up to the mark and help!
On the evening of 29th December, the weather was appalling. Cold, wet, windy, with the promise of worse to come. I was wrapped up warm indoors with a large whiskey and a warm cat watching a DVD. At 9pm I was contacted by a close friend who had been cast out onto the street earlier that day by a heartless society.
No money, car, family or place to go he walked the streets until the cold, damp and hunger forced him to swallow his pride and call me. This person is not a drug taker, rarely touches alcohol, never been arrested, and never claimed benefits in his life.
Up to this summer he had run a small business, but the current economic climate had forced him to close down. Not being a rich banker the government did not bail him out, or offer him any help at all. He tried to claim some benefit so he could buy food, and pay his rent, but he fell through the cracks of an ailing benefit system.
His savings ran out just before Christmas- no turkey or drinks for him this year, just a plate of chips with some beans. Without rent money he lost his little house- the DWP’s advice was “buy a tent”.
It was now 5:30 am on the 30th. He is asleep , warm and fed on my sofa. I have contacted the council who will hopefully re home him somewhere. A few of his friends have rallied round to make sure he won’t go hungry. He has not a penny to his name. and only the clothes on his back. He sold EVERYTHING he owned to survive to this point.
This man, who has worked every day he could has been reduced to this because of a government that pays its cronies more in a day than most of us will see in a year of hard graft- and then calls us “scroungers”.
Read this, and thank the gods you are safe… for now
Tony Leamon
Assistant General Secretary, Celtic League / Treasurer KBCL
The Celtic League main website is at: http://www.celticleague.net/
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