SELECTIVE BLINDNESS

During a conversation with at a party I recently attended the conversation turned to the problem of the homeless. Having recently moved here from London this is a subject with which I am all too familiar, and although I lived in the city for twenty five years I never got used to the sight of some poor soul huddled in dirty clothes on a road side bench or a shop doorway.

The company I found myself in recently took a dim view of “Vagrants”! Considering them a bunch of deadbeats, down and outs and beggars and listening to their , at best ill informed at worst down right bigoted opinions made me realise how little people actually care about their fellow men.

I gently pointed out that many of these wretched people once had ordinary lives,had families and homes, knew the joy of Christmas, loved and were loved in return. Each one has a story, usually tragic, a history of what brought them to their present state and that I believed that it vital for us all to understand how very easy it is for any one of us the become reduced to the same condition.

The problem is that of course my acquaintance, like much of the world live in comfortable surroundings with enough, or more than enough to live comfortable and happy lives, they never stop to think of what they might become in the extreme circumstances that can catapult a person in to destitution.

The death of a loved one, divorce, depression, mental illness,loss of employment are just some of the causes and there are many more. When a person loses their home, for what ever reason and find themselves on the slippery slope the slide in to vagrancy,alcohol abuse and drug addiction can be devastating and rapid. Yet it is easier for the comfortably well off to believe that these unfortunates are just a bunch of feckless wasters, drunks or drug addicts who have brought their predicament upon themselves.

Yet they are not heartless  happily donating money or their time to helping the needy in third world countries, yet the homeless old man trying to sleep on a park bench or the bag lady with her scant belongings loaded in to a decrepit pushchair they totally ignore because, quite literally their plight is too close to home! 

Smug in their own well being they cannot countenance the possibility that this awfulness could possibly happen to them.... and yet it so easily could, to any one of them.

People who earn plenty of money tend to have an exalted opinion of their place in society, the scourge of middle class life that it blinkers those who “belong” to it, and makes them oblivious to the needs of others less fortunate than themselves.

You hear such remarks as “We have to work hard to maintain out comfortable lifestyle, why should we waste out hard earned cash on such wastrel’s?”

The truth is that no matter how much a person earns each month if they have to work for their living they are “working class”although to tell them this calls forth howls of denial.

If any one of these self satisfied individuals lost their employment and were unable to service their vast mortgages, credit card bills ect, how long would it be before they found themselves with nothing?

How long before they used up all their savings,assuming they have any ,for these days many live up to the limit of their earnings to maintain a good appearance or fund their holidays abroad? A few months,a year maybe, then what?

With their cosy homes repossessed, their bank accounts frozen, their possessions sold off to repay their debts and no job how would they cope. The best they could hope for in these enlightened times is totally inadequate emergency accommodation in a Bed and Breakfast or one room in a run down hostel.

Unable to afford their children's school fees they would have to place their offspring in school near to there new address and the culture shock of these change would be devastating for the youngsters and parents alike.

Many couples divorce during times of such stress and one partner always comes off worse.

The fact is that most of us are just a couple of pay checks away from becoming homeless ourselves, and this fact is hard to face.

It is so much easier to dismiss the homeless as scroungers and scum, to disassociate ourselves from their plight and go on enjoying our cosy lives.

This attitude was summed up for me by one of the ladies at the party who, having listened to what I had to say considered for a moment and then said “Ah yes, but why don't they help themselves, there must be a way out if they were willing to find it,”

Ignorance, sheer unpardonable ignorance, or denial? For what ever reason these people of more wealth than imagination will always believe it impossible that they could find themselves in such a position.....let us hope for their sake that they are right!