Charities: Working 4 or Doing 2? - 2

This is the second of an occasional series of blogs pointing out incidences of Charities forgetting who it is they exist to represent and, sometimes, becoming self-serving instead. I write this as someone who has requested help from charities when at my most vulnerable and then experienced what it feels like to be rejected and betrayed for not fitting into any of the shapes on their eligibility puzzle. You know, like those children’s story puzzles where the child fits different cut out characters into the corresponding hole in a picture attached to a wooden base.

Today I have faced with a dilemma. How should I deal with the actions of a charity which I hold in great esteem, - not least because I have met, and trained in one aspect of their work, several of its employees and was always extremely impressed by the work practises they described – which has allowed itself to be used by the Daily Mail to validate the callous, vindictive, uncaring, and, worse still, "ethnically cosmetic" intentions of the Conservative Westminster Council to ban other charities from delivering food to "the homeless" who live "rough" on its streets.

The unattributed article was even more nauseous than that newspaper's reports of social issues usually are because it was couched in the terminology of a caring society. The “Daily Mail Reporter” used quotations from the chief executives of both "St Mungo's Homeless Charity" (who I was referring to above), and the "Thames Reach Homeless Organisation", to justify the actions of the Council and to override criticism from Labour councillors and other charities.

As someone who has had his own words manipulated by the media to present a picture that was not intended, I do not think for one minute that the cherry picked quotations were the only things that these chief executives said in response to a question the content of which I do not know, but in the absence of any retraction by either of them I have to assume that they were satisfied that what was printed represented their true view.

In my previous posting on the subject of charities allowing them-selves to be manipulated to suit government policy I pointed out that whatever the true intentions of those charities their words and their compliance would be used to justify unpalatable government intentions. In the case of St Mungo's I sincerely hope that is what has happened here, and that they learn a lesson from the chief executive’s gullibility.

Regarding the dishonesty and lack of integrity demonstrated throughout the Daily Mail article, it is highly relevant that at no point does the author draw attention to the previously stated "cosmetic" wish to remove rough sleepers from the streets of London before the 2012 Olympics take place. Yet another charity chose to see that intention as something they could support and, as you will see below, did not intervene when physical discomfort was deliberately inflicted on their “client’s”. An article on this subject entitled “How the 2012 Olympics will end rough sleeping” by Jeremy Dunning in Community Care.co.uk on December 21, 2009 (link 1 below) contained the following regarding the “tidying-up” of rough sleepers:

“Homeless Link chief executive Jenny Edwards says the Olympics "gives us a very nice, particularly high-profile timetable around which to achieve a once-in-a-lifetime offer", while Richard Blakeway, director of housing for London mayor Boris Johnson, says it is taking "a unique moment in time" to end something that has been "symbolic in London for several decades".”

The article went on to describe how, since 2008, funding had been made available to various charities and organisations to assist them in setting up schemes to offer alternatives to rough sleeping in the capital. Towards the end of his article Jeremy Dunning says:

"The initial focus has been on the 205 most entrenched rough-sleepers, of whom only 67 now remain on the streets."

I will proffer my opinion of why those 67 might still be choosing to live "rough" below, but first, another quote from Jeremy Dunning's article, one which shows how the original collusion of the charities was abused once the "caring approach" had not completely eradicated the problem. Jeremy Dunning said:

“However, there have been criticisms over the use of enforcement measures such as antisocial behaviour orders, dispersal zones and the practice of "wetting down" doorways in the City of London through the Corporation's Operation Poncho, run in partnership with the police and homelessness charity Broadway”

I wonder whether those who donate to the "Broadway" charity are aware of how their donations were used.

Those Charities who purport to represent the most vulnerable members of current British society need to become "streetwise" and wake up to the fact that the Conservative Party Ideology of the 2000’s demands a return to the days of the "Deserving" and the "Undeserving" Poor, a concept retained by a minority of very small, mainly religion orientated, charities since the early 1900s, but discarded by most as a flawed concept since then.

Regarding the 67 rough sleepers, their reasons for preferring to sleep “rough” deserves to be understood, not used as an excuse to “ethnically cleanse” them from the streets of Westminster. I know from my own experiences as a social worker that there are people among us who quite simply find it impossible to live securely in either a family or a structured communal setting.

One fairly common scenario is this: a child is removed, or escapes, from a family in which he or she suffered abuse. The Children Act 1989 rightly states that wherever possible that child should be placed with another family, usually a foster family. Unprepared for the fact that even abused children will miss their family, the foster family, and sometimes, disgracefully, the social workers involved, fail to read the signs when that child begins to display the aggressive and/or disruptive behaviour which is a necessary component of the grieving process. Based on their own experience of family, and the belief set that says any child will be grateful, and happy, and compliant, once they are removed from their original situation, the child is labelled uncooperative, disrespectful, even, dangerous or mentally ill, because he or she is unable to make use of the help that is provided in the way the foster parents and the social worker believe they would do in a similar situation. The next step for our hypothetical abused child, or for any child who enters the care system above the age of about 10 years, is a move to "Residential Care" where another grieving process begins but where staff will already have made up their minds about them based on what they have been told. Staff will consider them to be either potential troublemakers or damaged Angels. Those who label them “troublemakers” will soon find evidence to prove their assumption correct; those who take the damage angel approach will feel rejected when the child is unable to return kindness and will become as disillusioned as the foster carers were, excusing their original, caring, stance, by labelling the child a manipulator who initially “took them in”.

Whichever path they followed within the statutory care system all children leave that "Supportive Environment" emotionally abused by the experience. Some will also have been physically or sexually abused by other residents or by individual staff members.

To expect those who have experienced rejection and/or abuse from family members, from friends, or from professional carers, to fit willingly, seamlessly, and gratefully into another family or residential environment is ridiculous.

While the scenario described above will fit many of the 76 "unwilling" rough sleepers referred to in Jeremy Dunning's article, it is probable that the biggest group represented by that statistic (which will also include many of those described above) will be those with some form of mental illness.

Among those of us who live daily with psychiatric illness will be some who are afraid of people, some who are afraid of society, some who are afraid or mistrustful of the police and the psychiatric care services (because those professional groups have misinterpreted their thoughts or words in the past and, in the opinion of those who are ill, will have locked them up just because they are who they are). Then there are those who are afraid of all of these things. Whichever group they fit into most of those 76 will be afraid of life itself.

Every one of us who has been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness has been emotionally abused, usually unknowingly, by a "Care System" that claims to protect us. Some of those who have spent time either willingly or unwillingly as a patient in a psychiatric hospital will possibly have been physically attacked, sexually abused, or raped by another patient, or, by a member of staff.

To expect those who have lived through the worst extremes of the mental health "care system" to fit willingly, seamlessly, and gratefully into another residential environment is ridiculous.

In my opinion these are the things that the chief executives of St Mungo's and the Thames Reach homeless organisation should have been saying to the Daily Mail yesterday. They should not have been colluding with the ongoing persecution and abuse of those they purport to represent.

Regarding what was said in the unattributed Daily Mail article (link 2 below): I have contrasted it with a report from Jason Beattie of the Daily Mirror (link 3 below).

"Unattributed" begins his or her article in terms which are as devious as those being used by Westminster Council regarding this matter:

“Proposals for a ban on soup runs and rough sleeping in a part of the centre of the capital have sparked a political row. Westminster City Council is seeking to pass a bylaw that would prohibit soup runs from operating in a designated area around Westminster Cathedral. Labour councillors have attacked the proposal as 'cold-hearted and callous' but the council says soup kitchens perpetuate homelessness and insists it has the support of interested charities.” (authors emphasis).

I am not sure if this is the first instance of the words of charities being used in the manipulative manner I previously predicted, but it certainly will not be the last. You will note that it is the support of the charities that Westminster Council and the anonymous reporter use to counter the socialist perspective. That ploy is based on the assumption that we all believe that charities only act in the best interests of those they say they care for and protect.

Jason Beattie began his article on the same subject like this.

“THEY spent much of the run-up to the election trying shake off their image as the nasty party. But a heartless group of Tories have ¬revealed their true colours by banning charities from running soup kitchens for the ¬homeless.

Conservative Westminster council in Central London also wants to make it an offence to sleep rough – while slashing £5million of funding to hostels. Astonishingly, town hall chiefs claimed soup kitchens only “encourage” people to sleep on the streets.”

It goes without saying that Jason Beattie is also reporting from a politically ideological perspective, one which is opposite to that of Mr or Miss "Unattributed", but it is the words used by the council, and not those of some supposedly independent and unattached body, that he uses to emphasise his point. The truth is that Mr or Miss Unattributed could not use the terminology of the council to support the proposition because it is clear as you read the remainder of the article that everything that the council said exposes its true intentions to anybody with half of a social conscience brain cell.

The Daily Mail first uses a verbal gift from a co-operative charity like this:

“Jeremy Swain, chief executive of Thames Reach homelessness organisation, said: 'Street handouts do little to help people make the step away from rough sleeping. Instead they frequently prevent people from facing up to the reality of the harmful life-style they have adopted.'”

Here we have a classic return to the deserving/undeserving poor ideology. The deserving are those who go along with what their "betters" say is good for them. The undeserving are those who do not. If you didn't understand why I was illustrating my intentions with the description of the wooden jigsaw puzzle above, hopefully you do now. Interestingly it is also similar to the ideology that the Nazis propagated to justify putting vagrants into concentration camps. It comes down to this, everyone is entitled to make choices regarding their lifestyle but if those choices are out of step with the ideology we propagate, then they are both inferior to us and undeserving of any form of help other than the help that we have decided they need. Since they do not agree with us they do not deserve to be helped.

"Unattributed" then uses what was said by Charles Fraser of St Mungo's to present the uncaring face of charity as influenced by Conservative Party ideology.

“Charles Fraser, chief executive of St Mungo’s homeless charity, added: “While we recognize the compassion involved in providing food to vulnerable people, those in distress and rough sleeping need services that will support them off the streets for good and give them the opportunity for longer term better housing, health and work as they move on with their lives.””

I was very sad when I read this assumption that people are failing if they do not “move on with their lives”. The St Mungo's front line workers whom I have met all understood, without needing to be taught, the potential scenarios I described above to explain why some people will always find it difficult, even impossible, to live comfortably in a residential setting. It would appear that Charles Fraser does not share the awareness of his frontline workers, either that or he has lost sight of the fact that his charity exists to serve the mentally ill and the homeless and has chosen to serve the ideology of the current Conservative Party instead.

This ideology returns social care provision to the position it filled before human rights legislation led to it adopting the "client" or "patient" driven services we have become used to since the early 1990s. With that change came a period during which the government took money away from local authorities and gave it directly to "service users" in the form of Disability Living Allowance. One knock-on effect of this was that the local authorities reduced the money they gave to charities, rightly claiming that the “service users” now controlled the money in order to purchase whatever services they required from whoever they wanted. The charities were threatened by this, they were now accountable to the purchasers of their services in a way they had never been before. The current government has decided to take the DLA from some people who receive it now and to give the money they recoup to charities. This is why the charities need to be extra careful of the way the current government is manipulating them, dangling this new money over their heads as motivation to begin behaving in the way the government wants them to.

The terms "Personal Responsibility" and "Personal Choice" were endlessly repeated by the governments of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major who oversaw the removal of monies paid to local authorities and charities and given directly to service users in order for them to exercise their personal responsibility and their personal choices. David Cameron also talks about personal responsibilities and choices quite a lot. In fact, both Thatcher and Cameron have used this terminology to declare the concept of "Society" obsolete, redundant or non-existent. In the context of what is being written about here there appears to be a massive ideological dissonance.

The reasons given by both Mr or Miss "Unattributed" and the ultra-right wing Westminster Local Authority to justify the removal of choice from the approximately 76 people who choose to continue living on the streets of Westminster is that society knows better then they do what is good for them.

That dissonance leads to remarks that would be laughable if they were not so abusive and potentially dangerous. Remarks like this quoted by Jason Beattie in the Daily Mirror:

“Conservative Westminster council in Central London also wants to make it an offence to sleep rough – while slashing £5million of funding to hostels. Astonishingly, town hall chiefs claimed soup kitchens only “encourage” people to sleep on the streets.”

That same piece of obscene nonsense is repeated by Unattributed of the Daily Mail in support of the actions of Westminster Council.

“Daniel Astaire, Westminster Council's cabinet member for society, families and adult services, responded by saying: 'Soup runs have no place in the 21st century and it is wrong and undignified that people are being fed on the streets. Handing out free food only serves to keep people on the streets for longer, damaging their health.'”

Unattributed precedes that little gem with this:

“'If approved, the by-law could be in place by October,' the spokesman added. 'Vulnerable individuals will not be enforced against, and all individuals will be asked to leave the area before being subjected to any enforcement.'”

In nearly 30 years of reading misleading documents prepared by National or Regional Government, District and Town Councils, Hospital Managers and Primary Care Trusts, and local football or youth club committees: I have never read such a deliberately ambiguous statement. I have been reading it on and off for over 24 hours and I still cannot make sense of it. It would have been more honest if "The Spokesman" had said: "We will ask them to leave and if they don't go we will make them".

Before closing I will repeat a few quotations from Jason Beattie's article in the Daily Mirror which, although I presume they were available to "Unattributed" of the Daily Mail, were not included in his or her article.

“Westminster council, one of the richest in the land, wants to bring in a bylaw making it an offence to “give out food for free”, punishable by fines. The twisted move blows apart David Cameron’s Big Society boast that an army of ¬volunteers will flock to help those worse off.”

“And it sparked a storm of ¬criticism. Reverend Alison Tomlin of the Methodist church in ¬Westminster said: “The proposals are nothing short of disgusting. This bylaw punishes people solely for their misfortune and belongs in a -Victorian statute book, not the 21st century.””

“Labour’s London mayoral ¬candidate Ken Livingstone added: “Only the Conservatives would try to make it illegal to give food to the homeless. With Tory mayor Boris Johnson cutting affordable housing to a trickle, the number of people sleeping on the streets is rising and cuts to housing benefit threaten ¬thousands more with eviction and homelessness.””

“Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour Group, said: “Nothing illustrates the cold-hearted and callous approach of the Conservatives than this attempt to criminalise those offering help to ¬homeless people.

“I thought this was what the Big Society was supposed to be all about, generous-hearted people giving their time to those less fortunate, at no cost to the public purse. This is a nasty, mean move from a nasty, mean party.””

So, what do you think? Are the homeless charities Broadway, St Mungo’s Homeless Charity, and Thames Reach Homelessness Organisation, “working 4” their target group of vulnerable people or are they “doing 2” them? Are they forgetting who it is they exist to represent and becoming self-serving instead?

I believe they have lost sight of their purpose and are guilty of negatively “doing 2” their clients. I also believe that as potential beneficiaries from another Draconian change proposed by the coalition government i.e. the changes to Disability Living Allowance, that it is highly unlikely that these charities have been able to remain totally objective in their dealings with their paymasters, Westminster Council.

During what is a very anxious and frightening time for us “vulnerables” Scope remains the only major charity which is consistently challenging the Government on our behalf while The Green Party and Plaid Cymru are the only major political parties who are publicly declaring their support for our causes.

I expect the three Charities named above to say that without their input the legislation would have gone ahead anyway, and they will probably be right, but, it would be going forward without the endorsement of those "respected charities" whose names have been used in an attempt to convince the public that the abuse of the vulnerable, abuse of “US”, is right.

In conclusion: I have been discussing matters on which all three of the major political parties in this country are refusing to either represent or support us in our fight. The least we “vulnerables” expect of those individuals and organisations who purport to represent us in our absence is that they would publicise and draw public attention to this disenfranchisement: not collude with it.

1 http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/12/21/113458/how-the-2012-olympics-will-help-end-rough-sleeping.htm

2 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361198/Callous-council-wants-ban-soup-kitchens-homeless.html

3 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/03/01/heartless-tory-council-plans-to-ban-charities-from-feeding-the-homeless-with-soup-runs-115875-22957295/