The Discarded

'Community Bins': Bins for people rejected by society?

Yesterday a man came to Mass who had recently been released from Lewes Prison. Originally he had been in imprisoned for breaking his ASBO, in January. The terms by which he breached his ASBO were on the basis that he had been seen in a part of Brighton from which he is banned until 2012.

While in prison he was charged with drug supply, having been approached by an undercover police woman bearing hallmarks of withdrawal and was filmed obtaining for her a small bag of heroin, by a method of entrapment. He was not alone. Many other addicts were put in prison for the same offence. He was released from jail on Friday, having emerged from court with a sentence that he must do a drugs rehabilitation programme in Brighton - a strange sentence given that the charge was supply.

He was immediately released from the court and driven to Brighton where he was dropped on the street with nothing. With no possessions, no money and only the clothes he was wearing to call his own he wandered the streets of Brighton. He must have begged to get whatever food he was able to obtain.

He came to Mass on Sunday and sang with the choir. He has a good voice. Out of the generosity of parishioners hearts was given money to help him get through another day or two. In the absence of any state help, the Church community whipped round to try and assist.

His ASBO remains in operation. He is living in an open prison called HMP Brighton. He cannot go into the town centre. He cannot beg in the town centre. He cannot busk (he sings well) in the town centre. He has been placed as an exile on London Road, from where he can go not much further due to his ASBO. The London Road is not a particularly nice road. It is in a valley - a valley of death, a vale of tears. He will fall back in with other heroin addicts because they are the only friends he has.

Having been thrown out onto the streets, he is asked to do a drug rehabilitation programme. Yet he has been given no assistance from the authoritites. He doesn't have a roof over his head. There is no real support from the Council. He has no clothes, nothing, is marked out as an exile in his own town, is no longer free to roam Brighton as he would choose. Yet, still, with no accommodation, no belongings, no community, no love or support, he is expected by the authorities to recover from drug addiction? Maybe they don't really expect him to recover. Maybe they don't really care.

There is, I think, a sickness which goes to the very heart of our society. I think it is the same sickness which marks the abortion industry and abortion policy. It is about the value which we, as a society, place on human life. If a human life appears to be useless, then we throw it away. Yet Christ Himself never looked at any human life as being a 'lost cause'. He is the Good Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and brings them back to Himself. He also sees within each human being, not just the sins which we commit, but the Perfection which will be ours when we are with Him in Glory. The dignity to which the human person has been raised, through Christ's great Act of Love, is Divine, not just in theory, nor in essence but in a new Reality. For He said, "When you have done it to the least of these my brothers, you have done it to Me." He lives, through no real choice of his own, as a transient, a beggar. He cannot just lift himself out of his circumstances for he has nothing and nobody. Yet society expects him to do just that.

He is safer in jail. He is healthier in jail. He has a roof over his head, in jail. He gets some limited drug treatment in jail. He gets free food in jail. He has friends, in jail. When he is in jail, he longs for freedom. When he has freedom he cannot cope because he is abandoned to himself and to a society that shies away from him, a society that refuses to help him and even blames him for his own plight.

"People can change," he said yesterday after Mass. I wonder now whether he is referring to himself, or to us. He is a sign to us. He is a sign not just of his failures but ours. He is frustrated, angry, but brave and courageous in the face of a society and authority that does not care for him. He bought some food, some fags and some beer. We cannot begrudge him that. He gave away some of the money he was given to other street homeless in need. By the end of the evening, he didn't have enough to get into a hostel. He will have spent last night on the street again. Last night it rained. I saw him later on in the evening, he looked at the bin in the picture above, the bin in which a homeless man narrowly escaped being crushed to death by the Council's refuse services and said, "F**k it! I'll sleep in there!" He has a tent. I hope and pray he used it.

If only there were a monastery in Brighton, with brothers who could truly care for him and show him Christ's love. In the absence of a monastery, St Mary Magdalen's at least showed him compassion. In the absence of state support, at least St Mary Magdalen's showed him warmth and friendship. Whereas everywhere else he goes he is excluded, at least he was included in the choir at St Mary Magdalen's. That is the sign of a true Christian community...a community where Christ is made visible and where Christ is embraced.