Occupy Brighton: Up to Date Reportage on the Most Limp-Wristed Revoution in History

I don't want to be on X Factor. Why would I when I'm on Rorate Caeli!? It doesn't get bigger than that in the traditional Catholic World!

If anyone wants a copy of the song below, by the way, I have home recording software on my computer and a copy is yours for just £2.49, yes, that's right, just £2.49, by which time I'll have got around to the elaborate sax solo and the difficult B-side, Across the Universae Ecclesiae.

Anyway, more reportage from the Occupy Brighton camp tonight, where I've been choosing love over fear in what has to be the most limp-wristed revolution in history. Not that its just a Brighton thing. This kind of not-in-the-slightest-bit-offensive, very confused protest is now going global. I don't know what is amiss with it, its just I can imagine Che Guevara walking into the 'occupied territory' on the Victoria Gardens strip, wondering why he'd even bothered learning about dialectical and historical materialism, throwing his kalashnikov into the fountain and walking off in a huff. They were even worried about making noise after 11pm because the landlord of the King and Queen pub had told them he'd made a complaint about noise to the Council because his baby daughter wasn't sleeping well. So, in a spirit of true civil rebellion, the camp complied because they don't want the Council to get complaints. "Let's not storm the Winter Palace tonight, boys, we might wake the children!"

That's not to pour scorn on the resolve or idealism of the protesters. Most, though by no means all, are quite young, naive and just want to see the World be a nicer place in which niceness prevails over political corruption, corporate greed and the inordinate love of money. That's right! Just £2.49!

This evening there were about ten of us around the campfire. Guitars were released from their cases and played, though I must say I did not have the courage to play any of my own material ("Summorum what?") It was only when I walked home with a friend that we discussed the reality of the Occupy situation and that, in fact, despite the presence of between 20-25 tents on the site, only ten people were around all night. I asked my friend whether anyone might have gone to bed early and he said, "No, they're empty, mate." I spent a good hour trying to catch up with an incredibly competent guitarist as he negotiated his way through a series of intricate song arrangements with chords that I have never seen.  There was a truly cringeworthy moment (yes another one) when I played along to him playing 'Another Brick in the Wall' for which I shall have to answer on the Last Day. 

Credit where it is due, though, for the Occupy Movement is not, from what I can see, rejecting the homeless. I talked to one man by the campfire who has been homeless in Brighton quite a long time and who apparently goes on the Soup Run by the Peace Statue. He has a tent and sleeps in the Occupy camp and he's grateful for it because in his words, 'it is the only just rent system in Brighton'. He has a point. We discussed how much housing benefit St Patrick's Nightshelter take from the Council in terms of public money and how even more rapacious corporate scumbags like Baron Homes Corporation Ltd plunder the misery of the homeless at 17/19 Grand Parade and use the money to help sister organisation, Baron Estates, acquire a vast portfolio of property at home and abroad.

He says that every hostel and temporary homeless accommodation place he has been offered from the Council he has refused and walked away. Why? Because they are all s**tholes, squalid dives of places where you literally have to be on drugs in order to stay there, in order to stay sane. He was particularly scathing of St Patrick's Hostel, where all he found in his room was a messed up rubber mattress and a sink covered in blood! All of these places charge a top-up of between £10 and £20 a week even though it is obvious both charities and businesses in the tramp-farming trade could do well without it.

So, he prefers to sleep rough and has done for a long time. He isn't on smack, crack, Jack Daniels or even Scrumpy Jack. He chooses to live as a rough sleeper because he has seen all there is to see of Brighton's accommodation for the homeless and life is genuinely more pleasant and safe outside.  He even camped out for a while near 'millionaires row' where Brighton's celebrities reside, like Fat Boy Slim a.k.a Norman Cook, who started out in The Housemartins and went on to become a very rich local DJ.

All he did was camp on the beach near the millionaires and lit a campfire, slept out there with a placard demonstrating against Brighton's squalid and corrupt hostels system and the millionaires called the police on him and made repeated efforts to have him removed from the beach!  Nice! God forbid that millionaires should see such eyesores as the homeless outside their windows! All I can say is, thank God the Occupy Brighton people let him sleep in his tent there and he has a nice fire he can warm himself by. Good on them!

Meanwhile, please pray that I will not be possessed by the spirit of '68, or if I am, to be exorcised of it soon so that I do not join these young idealistic children of the revolution in their fight against enemies both 'visible and invisible'. Say a prayer for them. They mean well. One of them even works at Domestic and General. The homeless man said that this camp is being treated very leniently and that if the homeless had tried this camp city (yes I know its already a camp city) then police with batons and tasers would have been in before the fire could be stoked.

The idealistic young people will most likely eventually quit the camp within the year (that's the 99% of them who do have flats) and ten or twenty years down the line vote Conservative. The 1% of the camp that is genuinely homeless are the real deal. Their stories, I believe, should be reported more. Aside from that, I think that the Occupy movement is just an excellent excuse for young left-wing people to feel 'good', chat, make friends and sing songs by a campfire like, presumably, their parents did. I came home to my nice warm flat, ate some nice warm pate on warm toast, had a nice hot cup of tea and now I'm going to my nice warm bed. Tomorrow morning, like many of the radicals of Occupy up and down the country, I'll have a nice warm shower, some nice warm lunch after Mass and maybe pop over tomorrow evening to chat with them again to warm myself by the fire like St Peter denying his Lord. Gosh, now this is what I call my kind of a revolution! I get to keep living as I have been and watch the World change before my very eyes! Right, bedtime, but first I'm going to listen to the proper Catholic legend, Bruce Springsteen, one more time. "Tramps like us, baby we were born to ruuuuuuuuuun!" Incredible...

One last thought on Occupy. Somehow, we have to communicate to the Occupy movement that with only one or two exceptions, great mass movements that push God to the periphery or exclude Him are either doomed to fail or result in some kind of tyranny.  St Francis of Assisi and Blessed Theresa of Calcutta show us that we can only change the World for the better when we ask for Divine Help and when we are servants of God, rather than masters of human affairs. If all men and women in Parliament and the banking industry served God, then our current climate, let's face it, may perhaps be a little different.

The Riots and Emergency Temporary Accommodation

17/19 Grand Parade, Brighton

Readers of this blog will be aware of posts I have written on the appalling nature of the emergency temporary accommodation in Brighton for homeless, mentally ill people, people with addictions, or just people who have been placed by the Council into terrible accommodation for the simple reason that there is, in their view, 'nowhere else' to place them. In fact, it is not fair to say that everyone in 17/19 Grand Parade is even 'vulnerable'. One guy I met there was just trying to get along and get work in Brighton.

What I have seen of 'emergency temporary accommodation' is pretty shocking. More shocking to me was the extortionate amounts of money the Council hands over to limited companies such as Baron Homes Corporation Ltd, or Helgor Trading Ltd, or some other private firm, for their services to the Council. On average, per person, £200 a week was paid by the Council to these companies in order to keep a 'client' housed. This is, as we know, more than double what it costs to rent a normal studio, or even 1-bed flat in Brighton.

One thing I've noticed about the riots in London is that the tragic fires that raged through the City have turned up some gems of information in their wake and the site is now worth a good old archaeological dig. Why? Well, one riot victim, a lady called Vina, told Sky News about her ordeal at the hands of rioters in Tottenham, against the backdrop of her flat, in which only a charred bookcase was still left standing. She was asked by the interviewer whether the Government had promised her help in order to resettle and the lady answered something like this, though this is by no means verbatim:

"David Cameron has promised help to the homeless victims of these riots, but when I went to the Council and asked for help, all they could offer me was a room in temporary accommodation for £200 a week. There was no way my boyfriend and I will pay £200 a week for a room in temporary accommodation, so we'll be staying with friends or relatives. We can't afford to pay that and why should we for one room!? It would be alright if he and I were on the dole, it would all be paid for by the Council in housing benefits, but I work and so does he. I'm disgusted by the Council's response."

Now, as anyone who reads this blog will guess, what she said sent alarm bells ringing in my ears. In this time of crisis, the Council has no proper accommodation to rent out for the homeless who have been swelled in their ranks by this lady and her boyfriend. What the Council does have is an arrangement with a landlord who, most likely, runs an operation rather similar to 17/19 Grand Parade, Brighton. The newscaster was flabberghasted by the lady's assertion that the owner of the temporary accommodation in Tottenham was charging £200 a week to stay in one room - but then - he would be - because this nationwide scandal and flagrant waste of taxpayer's money has not yet been exposed or made public. It needs a thorough investigation by documentary makers at our beloved BBC in order to expose it.

The arrangement is thus: Private companies own much of the temporary accommodation in the United Kingdom. To them, it is just real estate and capitalism in action. They cram their accommodation with poor and homeless people because the Councils have nowhere else to put them (because acting as their guarantors for nice accommodation wouldn't be on because they are not "worthy"). Because of the scarce resources Council's have in order to house people, the unscrupulous landlords, owners and companies who run these operations charge something in the region of between £28-£50 (I kid you not for this is how much Diane and George are paying each in Worthing) a night for the privilege of staying in a room where you would not keep a dog and in which you will find it often tricky to swing a cat.

These private registered trading companies have Councils over a barrel - they are used by the Council in order to respond to homelessness. Quite rightly, the lady whose house was sorrowfully burnt down in Tottenham by thugs refused the Council's offer because it is a truly astonishing waste of her money. However, what she may or may not have considered is that the Council is wasting a truly astonishing amount of her money anyway, because as she pays Council Tax, she is in fact paying the Council so that the Council can shell out £200-a-week for someone to stay in the local temporary dive of accommodation owned by an unscrupulous, exploitative landlord, owner or indeed registered trading limited company. It is, of course, a stitch up, I just cannot believe I was so naive to think that this farce was limited to Brighton and was not general all over the South East and most likely the United Kingdom.

Councils are literally pissing public money down the drain by paying £200 a week to rogue landlords just to place vulnerable and homeless adults into squalour. It is true for Brighton and Hove City Council and I will bet it is also true for the Councils of London and beyond. So, there is a diamond which has emerged from an unhappy fire. I pray for the lady and her boyfriend and hope they find somewhere nice soon.

Hostels and Hotels

Anyway, back to those riots. Alarm bells rang in my ears once more this weekend when I read an article by a lady who is friends or mentors gang members in the areas of London which experienced the riots. The lady is called Harriet Sergent, I'd like to meet her if I can, and it is is by far and away the best article on the riots I have read, but unfortunately it was in the Times Review, so it is unreadable to all who refuse to pay more into Murdoch's empire. She explained quite unequivocably that the riots have been caused by lamentable education, illiteracy, absent fathers and male role models, lack of employment opportunities and the fact that all of them are better off on benefits. But here is why alarm bells rang for me:

"Men like Sweets are rare. The majority, black or white, live lives similar to Mash, Bulldog or Lips either in Council flats with their single mothers or on their own in a hostel. In his small and dingy room, Lips keeps his clothes in a black rubbish bag, Apart from his mobile phones he has no other possessions other than a towel and a framed photograph, both of which I had given him."

Hostels are no fun at all but at least they are staffed usually quite well. The question is are men that Harriet met in hostels or are they, indeed, in temporary emergency accommodation? I would expect that these men are in the same kind of accommodation that the working, more monied lady who had her flat burned down was offered as refuge by the Council for £200 a week. If these boys are indeed in that kind of accommodation then whether they worked or not, they would still never cover their rent in order to get out of these places and 'get on in life' - if, if they had the means to do so. In other words, Council policy of spending loads of taxpayers money to place single men and women into squalid temporary accommodation run by rogue landlords and companies actually has the effect of trapping those men and those women into that accommodation merry-go-round. They are condemned to live there because there is no escape from it, even if you found work - because you would actually be kicked out onto the street if you did find work because you wouldn't be able to cover your rent plus your "top up fee" for the privilege of staying in squalour.

£50 per night each at the public's expense to stay here...

George and Diane are in the process of moving back to Brighton, but things have been no different, really, in Worthing.

The Wolsey Hotel, left, acts as temporary emergency accommodation for Councils in Sussex, including Brighton and Hove. The owner, a lady called Evelyn (or 'Evil Inns Ltd', as George calls her) runs 3 or 4 similar hotels on the seafront of Worthing.

Outside the 'Hotel' is a sign that makes it appear it is trading for business, with a telephone number and the rest. Of course, if you were a holiday maker looking for somewhere to stay you'd never get in to this B&B because it ceased being a traditional B&B a long time ago. It is, as I say, 'emergency accommodation' and the lady owns 72 rooms along the Worthing seafront in three or four different 'Hotels'. She's been clever about it as well, making many rooms smaller by partitioning them to make the business more profitable, just like Baron Homes did with some of their rooms at 17/19 Grand Parade.

Evelyn charges each council £50 per night for a customer to stay at the hotel. This is double what she could charge daily for a normal customer apart, perhaps, from at weekends. She is onto a good deal, wouldn't you say? With 72 rooms she must be making approximately £1,314,000 a year. At the hotel you can't smoke, or drink, or behave as if one were 'on holiday' because it is not a B&B for tourists, no matter how much it appears as if it is - it is 'emergency accommodation' for the homeless. In fairness to her, she does at least give them bed and a cooked breakfast.

However, regardless of whether she is an evil old witch exploiting the poor or a concerned and loving neighbour who takes in the vulnerable, one thing is clear. Each Council with whom she does business is spending on average £350 a week on each person to live in a small room on the seafront. There is accommodation for that staggering amount in Brighton and Worthing, but it is at the upper end of the market and for that money you would be able to rent a 3-4 bed house with a garden for £1400 PCM. 

Where Ruthless Capitalism Does Business with the Welfare State

Now, if you are scandalised by that astonishing waste of public money, how scandalised do you think those who inhabit these temporary accommodations feel when they find out how much the Council is giving to these opportunistic landlords and private registered companies? Really rather scandalised indeed! Everytime George thinks about it he nearly blows a gasket! This is sheer and total Council-led incompetence that borders on corruption. There is no reason that the Councils could not act as guarantors on these individuals to find them more suitable accommodation - they would save millions of pounds a year in doing so - it is just that they do not think that poor people are "worthy".

It is plausible that I am exaggerating the case here, but it would not surprise me if a proportion of those who rioted were indeed staying in temporary emergency accommodation and were and are trapped there, surrounded by drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill people and people like themselves who had fallen through the system and into the arms of a company like Baron Homes Corporation Ltd, who are milking the Council dry in order to place human beings in dogs homes. If that is true, then I am not surprised that those people rioted. Rioting is never the answer to the problem, of course, but it would mean that there is a legitimate grievance to the frustration of many men and women, black and white, in London.

The Duty of the Fourth Estate 

Nobody should be covering the Council's arses or those of companies ripping off the taxpayer and the poor into the bargain. The public has the right to know the true nature of the temporary emergency accommodation in both London and the provinces of England, so that the grave and terrible injustice of the rich's exploitation of the poor for profit is known generally and universally across the land. Their despicable deeds must be exposed for the sake of Justice, for Heaven's sake as well as for the sake of the poor people who must inhabit these disgusting tenements. The Council offered this accommodation to the lady whose flat was burned down and out of hand she rejected it. Good for you, girl! The poor, however, have no such choice - they accept what they are given - but it must be made known to the people of this country and the Fourth Estate needs to investigate the great British housing benefit rip off being conducted by rogue landlords, companies and owners of temporary emergency accommodation in which Councils are complicit in both this crime and the flagrant waste of British taxpayer's money. I hope and pray that that day comes soon and here is the man, Robert Peston, who I hope will help me to expose it because this is not just a moral scandal, but an economic one.

Baron Tents Corporation Ltd

George and Diane's shrine at Baron Homes's Windsor Court

"Welcome to Baron Tents, here at Baron Tents we supply only the finest camping equipment to our clients in parks and cemeteries around Brighton and Hove..."

Well. That is George and Diane's situation, except neither The Baron Homes Corporation Ltd or Brighton and Hove City Council provided them with a tent. It was Jason who did that, helping them to pitch up last night with a passer-by and a friend of mine, Mister Paul.

Since George and Diane's eviction from Arundel Court, under KEM Properties ownership, they have been to the absolutely diabolical 17/19 Grand Parade, the Wardleigh Hotel, a bed and breakfast in Eastbourne and had ended up in Windsor Court, which appeared as if it was being used for the set of Les Miserables.

I have, for a few weeks now, being doing my best not to allow my Catholic blog to morph into the George and Diane show, but I have meanwhile been doing what I can to support them - hence less blogging.  As it stands now, Brighton and Hove City Council have abandoned them totally, renouncing their statutory duty to house them and so they are in a local park. George and Diane were assessed to have breached their licence agreement and because the Council "uses KEM properties for all of our self-contained properties in Brighton and Hove," there is nowhere else for them to go. In other words, after they had been barred from KEM Properties, being barred from Baron Homes properties means that there is nowhere for George and Diane. Things have spiralled downwards quickly for them.

Abandoned by the Council: George and Diane

Of course, at the park, park rangers come round to tell them to take their tent down because they cannot stay there. I've reported before how park rangers of the Council do their best to close down any tents in Preston Park, lest the Council have to admit that the homeless problem in Brighton and Hove City Council really is spilling out from houses into streets and parks. I'm sure it doesn't look good for tourists, but ultimately, if the Council has renounced its own duty to house George and Diane then surely the same local authority cannot turn around and tell them they are unable to live in a tent in a park. After all, where are they supposed to go?

I asked Brighton and Hove City Council to produce a letter stating that they had renounced all duty of care to one of their mental health service clients so that I could take it to the local press. I waited a long time only to be told that they will produce it Monday. Today I was busy helping a friend move so I couldn't get that letter. Shame on them, they are cowards! They couldn't even come down from their offices at Priory House or Bartholomew House to confront George and Diane and tell them they were washing their hands of them and that they were on the street! They did it by phone in one of their phone kiosks! Vipers!

And this is what I am seeing a lot of in Brighton and beyond. The prejudice that the poor face is extreme and diabolical in nature, deadly, poisonous and unflinchingly cruel.  In the services, whether it be housing or social services, substance misuse services or whatever, they all hide behind desks and phones in offices. Rarely do they ever step outside of their comfort zone to begin to understand the sufferings of the poor and even more rarely do they lift a finger to help them. They get their paychecks and return to their more comfortable abodes, living off the plight of those who they do not care about.

When George and Diane went to the Wardleigh Hotel, the manager told George and Diane that they "belong in a cardboard box". Nice, eh!? And that is where the Council are placing vulnerable homeless 'clients' just so they can provide these emergency hostel operations with extortionate rates of housing benefits. Yet, even the Wardleigh Hotel cannot compare with the extortion of Baron Homes! The Director, I see from the internet, sold her house in Beverley Hills for $6million before returning back to the United Kingdom. Alright for some isn't it! What vile racketeers they are!

If you would like to help George and Diane in any way, let me know, my email is on the sidebar. Now that the Council have abandoned them to the streets they are considering Scarborough or somewhere else up North. If you can do nothing please pray for them. George can rough it but Diane doesn't belong on the streets or in a tent.

Hyde Martlett Housing Association

Riddled with damp, but the tenant is not "worthy" of help

Today I assisted a friend's move from another town to here who has been given a place to live in Moulscoomb an area on the outskirts of the city. I was terribly shocked to see that in the really rather quaint little cul-de-sac where she had been living, the living conditions of her home.

As you can see from the image left, Hyde Martlett Housing Association managed to do rather nicely out of my friend's housing benefits of £94 a week, but, scandalously, didn't think that the tenant was "worthy" (their words not hers) of having the damp in her house sorted out. Her property stank of damp. She had been sleeping in the front room because her bedroom was so noxious with the stench of damp that she rarely entered it. I could not believe that the Housing Association, Hyde Martlett, had said that they would do something about it when they deemed that she was "worthy" of it, but I believe that it underscores much that I have written about the perceptions of living conditions of those who are most scorned and looked down upon in society.

Hyde Martletts: Available, but not willing to help "unworthy" tenants

The kind of prejudice faced by the poor would be all over the front pages of the press if the same outrageous hypocrisy was levelled at the LGBT community. She, like George, was raised Catholic, though she claims that her Catholicism was beaten out of her by nuns at a convent school when she was young. She has a past of drugs but she is looking forward to "a new chapter" in her life, in Brighton.

She believes that people in Brighton are less judgmental and more open-minded than where she lived. I hadn't the heart to tell her that Brighton is no different. Many of her neighbours loved her and were sad to see her go even though it was obvious she had had many difficulties. A couple of neighbours came out to tell her "good riddance". I hope that Brighton shows her more compassion and kindness that did her neighbourhood, but wherever they go, the very poor will find the same prejudice. It is as old as sin itself, but it is vicious and this vile prejudice should be utterly condemned wherever it is found.

Amy Winehouse RIP

She would have fitted in quite well in Brighton, I think.  I always found it sickening that no matter how talented and inspiring was the music of this woman, many within the press called her and Pete Doherty "scum" and the rest. I always find that the "dregs" are at the bottom of a glass. "Scum" only rises to the top of society, usually the top of newspaper empires, governments, Councils and companies.

Certainly, many souls in Brighton who know what she went through are praying for her because they understand her and have known so many who have died similar deaths in similar circumstances, in alleyways, in hostels, in public lavatories, in 17/19 Grand Parade, in their homes. Whenever I saw pictures of her and her friend Pete Doherty, I thought they appeared much as many of the homelesss appear: lost, broken, desperate, in great afflication and pain - men and women bleeding like unto the pierced side of Our Blessed Saviour. Such souls are usually more honest than most and most who criticise them, much less so and with much more shameful things to hide.

May she and all who die at the hands of drink and drugs find rest in His pierced Heart. May the soul of Amy Winehouse rest in peace.