Why

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Why are we bothering trying to get money and involvement on EveryonesHome?

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[edit] Here's some of the main reasons

1. Homeless people without drug and mental health issues all to often face a paucity of real options to improve their circumstances. Furthermore - EveryonesHome is not a hostel or appointed outreach worker/police dumping ground. It's carefully established using technology and japanese capsule hotel layout combined with a set of rules designed to promote freedom of access to all. Over time policy will change in response to Everyones consultation.

2. There's a plethora of endless useless advice out there for homeless persons. We don't want to give you that for your hard earned charitable donation, we're planning concrete in our solution not more hot air. However, consultation, community and conscious choice are all nice words that start with C, and we try and act upon them, rather then just believing in them. Therefore the website is open-source, the concept is fluid and the aim to provide a different kind of housing first solution for homelessness is open for all. And pretty soon, maybe, EveryonesHome will be too.

3. East London desperately needs more provision among its backdrop of poverty, family breakdown and hopelessness caused by and contributing to the current housing crisis.

4. As a community of creative, democratic free involvement we believe our solutions, vision and drive to realise the dream of EveryonesHome contains more thought, guts and spirit than government or institutional charity ever could manifest.

5. Homelessness is not always self-inflicted or deserved and is more often the result of government incompetence and complacency than a reflection on any individual homeless person or supposed 'collective'.

6. The cult of Christmas. People need help year round in stable environment.

7. Waste. Sorry, but well intentioned wastefulness is still wasteful, and a lot of charities are burgeoning bureaucratic adjuncts to government inaction.

8. Fairness. When criminals and Mp's have all their accommodation bills paid for them, why can't we, are we just not as important as Members of Parliament and other criminals?


[edit] Here's what visitors to the site have said on the concept and ethos

"Real Life : When people sleep on couches and streets - shifting their lives from here to there as police chase behind them racing eachother. How can the rest of you sleep as one homeless wanders the night - in freezing cold, without layers of clothes to hold in body heat - a homeless, but not exactly criminal - to not own house ? To play or not play by the rules of others - What if we are not criminals, what if we are not crazy, what if we are not - home owners - what a crime ... perhaps just renters, perhaps barely working for rent and perhaps nothing - being pushed to places where someone else should have a turn - homelessness." - Anon

"I'd love to be able to help more, I'll send you something soon, even though I'm Lithuanian in Lithuania, I love London... so best of luck!" the Witch from near Vilnius!

[edit] Reasons like this

"I have been homeless for about five years now and I would just like to clear up a few misconceptions.

Firstly, I'm not a lazy layabout. I became homeless after I had to spending all my savings looking after my ill partner. Now that she is gone and I have no money I became homeless. I didn't think it was such a big deal. I just thought like everybody else that you simply go to the council and they'll "sort you out". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Because I am a normal single white man now in my late 40's and have no mental illnesses or alcoholic problems or drug dependencies I am the absolute bottom of the pile for any housing considerations. The council won't even let me begin to get on any waiting list because their points system for housing consideration is skewed toward certain criteria, none of which applies to me, and their homeless person's teams refuse to deal with me in any way because I'm not considered a "priority".

I have had absolutely no luck whatsoever with any estate agents because they all refuse to deal with housing benefit and as I am homeless I don't even have a proper address for them to use as a reference or contact, and being homeless means you are not able to live like a human being so it is virtually impossible to get back on your feet after having fallen down to this level. I also have some medical conditions that make life a bit hard and it is impossible to better myself now as nobody anywhere will give me a chance.

Being on benefit, if you can even get it, means that you basically live on about 60 quid a week, and with nowhere to live that means that you also have nowhere to cook, store, or prepare food so something as simple as eating becomes a terrible and expensive problem and you have no way to keep belongings like clothing or anything else, let alone have access to the personal things everybody else takes for granted. Sleeping rough is dangerous and contrary to popular belief there are absolutely NO homeless agencies that will help someone like me in any manner because I'm NOT an alcoholic or a criminal drug dealer or a mental case.

Unfortunately places like Shelter are worse than useless and only regurgitate outdated information that keeps you running around in circles from one so-called homeless help to another (who are never able to supply any practical help at all) and any of the housing associations or co-ops are usually quite specialist, for instance catering only for the 18 to 25 year olds or to certain ethnic or even religious groups exclusively, and have several years long waiting lists, especially if like me you are just a man and not some pregnant non-English speaking teenager or an ex convict with a drug problem.

The basic fact of the matter is that there is no housing help available to someone like me whatsoever. Having to live in this manner of course means that even though I would be eligible for housing benefit no one will touch me because as a homeless person who has lost virtually everything in the world I ever knew, owned, or cared about I can simply not save up the nearly two grand it takes for a deposit that all landlords ask for. People in my position simply can not afford that sort of thing, and no there are NOT any useful rent deposit schemes. I know this because I have already tried and been turned down every time, again usually because I am not deemed to be a "priority" or something.

I have tried to obtain work as and when I can to get some money toward the extortionate rent deposit needed to get me off the streets but for obvious reasons this is just about impossible. For starters, every time I do a job, whether it's for one day or a few days at a time, and fill in the appropriate forms (legal requirement if you're on the dole) I find that my benefit which I can ill afford to be without, living such a hand to mouth existence, gets cut off for usually several weeks or even months at a time leaving me terribly and dangerously destitute while the incompetent social system tries to get it's head around the fact that some stupid bloke has actually done some work to try to better himself and stupidly informed the dole office of it, unlike everybody else who just draws dole and works cash in hand at the same time and live in nice flats at the taxpayer's expense.

So without any landlords who will accept housing benefit, and no way to get up the money for a deposit, and the fact that if I actually DO try to work then my benefits (including any housing benefit I would be able to receive) gets cut off for months while they sort their paperwork out, something no landlord anywhere would put up with, a person such as myself is completely doomed. And THAT'S the reality of the housing situation.

It's all about greed, it's all about money, and the only people who get anywhere are the criminal underclasses who know how to play the system." From [1]



[edit] The Main Reason for our Campaign for a new Shelter in North East London

EA = Emergency Accommodation is still highly limited - with most existing provision relying on local connection criteria, award of benefits and sizable waiting periods for places.

[edit] North West London

[edit] South West London

[edit] North East London 6407 Spaces

[edit] South East London

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