Tent Village Spin

With the front page of the Chron focussing on the tent village (now cleared) the local spin seems significant. The site now has an infestation of local lib dem Councillors as they look to get their next quote in the paper.

I'm sure there were some homeless people on the site (at least one to my knowledge) but despite the headline most from the picture are kids I know who have problems with their parents and who like the lack of supervision that creates opportunities to drink large amounts of alcohol and hang out with the opposite sex. The picture features two lads from St James (Symington Street)and one from Kings Heath (Swale Drive). The site has been used off and on by these kids for the past few months.

It highlights the real problems that young people have. The need to feel valued and loved and when they need it proper housing advice that gives then options not to be in a tent. Sasha in the photo has been homeless for some weeks now, and it is testimony to the lack of accessibility of the Borough Councils Homelessness advice that she has ended up in a tent.

The kids are all good in their own way, have said please and thank you when they've eat in my house but need the real things in life to achieve anything more than self indulgence when they get the money.

The merit of pounding the streets

It's been a tough week or so, emotionally with death issues around. One of my strategies about dealing was trying to stay focused on what's important and trying to stay busy. I've been doing a bit of delivery of late in Spencer, Dallington and King Heath. I was eased into it through a request from the Neighbourhood Manager to deliver the neighbourhood newsletter. Given the amount of casework I still get from that part of the town I thought it maybe was time to start acting like a councillor in the better sense of the word. I did get quite a bit of feel good walking around as people came up to chat about the forthcoming elections. Going to ponce a cup of tea after delivering is always a good idea. I dropped into a local residence in Kings Heath to be told that the Tories had been paying for their election leaflets to be delivered in St. James. The poor kid who had been saddled with the task has been telling folks the leaflet “Was just wrong!”. Having never read a political leaflet before, the beleaguered Tory leafleter commented that it just seemed wrong to scrap National Insurance so that the health care could be purchased privately. Who says young people don’t have the right political instincts!