AH BUT YOU’VE GOT TO LAUGH
Well I’m trying, I mean really trying to approach things, if not exactly with a full bodied laugh, at least with a smile on the auld mug as if this bloody ‘new’ life were a blank canvas to paint on what I will; but the hope and need of new beginnings are more akin to digging up a worthless piece of old work, whacking primer over the umpteen layers of failed attempts before, and in the effort of adding colour to breathe life and form into the bloody thing, simply to see any endeavour do nothing other than slip and slide away on the glassy surface to produce little more than a smear of what should be!
It’s exactly three weeks since my plane from Warsaw dropped me onto the sodden tarmac of Durham and Teesdale (a dingy excuse of an airport if ever there was one) and nothing is falling into place the way I hoped it would since escaping the torment that was the last few weeks in Bialystok.
It seems that attempting to rekindle my practice on foreign soil enabled me to grow in one way and shrink in so many others; either this, or the holes which make up the great British social safety net have become so big that falling has become a continual decent until the likes of me (not your average charva of course) have nowhere else to land beyond the tarmac and concrete curb which together make up the gutter. Indeed without the generous support of friends, that is undoubtedly the place where I would be right now!
As far as the authorities are concerned I have indeed completely disappeared right off the radar. The ‘simple’ practicalities of finding work and a place to live is proving a much more arduous task, promises to be drawn out to the extreme, and without said friends, I would indeed be in seriously big BIG trouble!
I’ve toyed with homelessness in a minor way before when as an optimistic young artist it was almost obligatory to gain some fashionable kudos, but applying for council accommodation (my most affordable and perhaps only affordable option at the moment) has left me in no doubt that at my age and in my current situation, without the support of those around me, I would indeed be homeless with a capital ‘C’.
Since the decline in council stock or the ever increasing need to protect the country’s children from potential harm by conducting more and more thorough criminal records checks, it is virtually impossible to convince the powers that be that disappearing for three years is a legitimate form of behaviour. To ‘bag’ a council flat without a helping hand from ‘god’ or a council employee on a good day, and the only foreseeable help I’ve been granted to-date, or until I’m fully ‘processed’ in the far distant future that is, is to be allocated emergency accommodation in a shared dormitory at a hostel along with other homeless characters... Not really conducive to starting a new life really, is it – a bunk at night and by day to wonder the streets - Kind of dodgy looking too if you think about it when the kind of work I’m applying for requires that I have to have an official disclosure carried out on me by ‘The Criminal Records Bureau’ before I can be eligible to work with children or vulnerable adults. Fair enough, but the fact that disappearing for three years is proving difficult for them to get to grips with makes the fact that my criminal past, which extends to nothing more than heading up a new one-way street on my motorcycle at the age of 20+, superfluous.
The only other option as far as accommodation goes is to bite the bullet and go into the private sector, but as we all know, rents there are extortionate in the extreme in relation to pay and the old social trap of not being able to earn enough to afford such living inevitably leads to a life on the dole and having your rent paid by the benefits system forever and ever, amen. But seriously, I’ve done the sums and they don’t add up! Shocking, but who is to blame? The government for handing out high benefits (well, try sustaining yourself on £60 a week), or private landlords for charging rents only the wealthy can afford (well, try covering your overheads if you charge less than the average 600-700 quid a month for a one bedroom flat)? Lack of council stock is the problem if you ask me, and we all know why and how that disappeared.
So really, it’s a matter of hanging on in there to have my application for a council place passed and stamped, and in the mean time praying that I don’t overstay my welcome as a guest on the sofa of ‘me’ good old mate Col! We’re already starting to look like ‘the odd couple’ – not a good thing in these parts – two blokes living together, so the sooner I leave the better anyway.
The future can and will be bright however, of that I have little doubt, but without somewhere to call home and a worthy enough job and resurgent practice, then as a virtual down-and-out trying to come to terms with so many things right now, I do feel about as alive as a doornail in freefall. I'm ok though - and, reckon I'll land Sharp End first!
It’s exactly three weeks since my plane from Warsaw dropped me onto the sodden tarmac of Durham and Teesdale (a dingy excuse of an airport if ever there was one) and nothing is falling into place the way I hoped it would since escaping the torment that was the last few weeks in Bialystok.
It seems that attempting to rekindle my practice on foreign soil enabled me to grow in one way and shrink in so many others; either this, or the holes which make up the great British social safety net have become so big that falling has become a continual decent until the likes of me (not your average charva of course) have nowhere else to land beyond the tarmac and concrete curb which together make up the gutter. Indeed without the generous support of friends, that is undoubtedly the place where I would be right now!
As far as the authorities are concerned I have indeed completely disappeared right off the radar. The ‘simple’ practicalities of finding work and a place to live is proving a much more arduous task, promises to be drawn out to the extreme, and without said friends, I would indeed be in seriously big BIG trouble!
I’ve toyed with homelessness in a minor way before when as an optimistic young artist it was almost obligatory to gain some fashionable kudos, but applying for council accommodation (my most affordable and perhaps only affordable option at the moment) has left me in no doubt that at my age and in my current situation, without the support of those around me, I would indeed be homeless with a capital ‘C’.
Since the decline in council stock or the ever increasing need to protect the country’s children from potential harm by conducting more and more thorough criminal records checks, it is virtually impossible to convince the powers that be that disappearing for three years is a legitimate form of behaviour. To ‘bag’ a council flat without a helping hand from ‘god’ or a council employee on a good day, and the only foreseeable help I’ve been granted to-date, or until I’m fully ‘processed’ in the far distant future that is, is to be allocated emergency accommodation in a shared dormitory at a hostel along with other homeless characters... Not really conducive to starting a new life really, is it – a bunk at night and by day to wonder the streets - Kind of dodgy looking too if you think about it when the kind of work I’m applying for requires that I have to have an official disclosure carried out on me by ‘The Criminal Records Bureau’ before I can be eligible to work with children or vulnerable adults. Fair enough, but the fact that disappearing for three years is proving difficult for them to get to grips with makes the fact that my criminal past, which extends to nothing more than heading up a new one-way street on my motorcycle at the age of 20+, superfluous.
The only other option as far as accommodation goes is to bite the bullet and go into the private sector, but as we all know, rents there are extortionate in the extreme in relation to pay and the old social trap of not being able to earn enough to afford such living inevitably leads to a life on the dole and having your rent paid by the benefits system forever and ever, amen. But seriously, I’ve done the sums and they don’t add up! Shocking, but who is to blame? The government for handing out high benefits (well, try sustaining yourself on £60 a week), or private landlords for charging rents only the wealthy can afford (well, try covering your overheads if you charge less than the average 600-700 quid a month for a one bedroom flat)? Lack of council stock is the problem if you ask me, and we all know why and how that disappeared.
So really, it’s a matter of hanging on in there to have my application for a council place passed and stamped, and in the mean time praying that I don’t overstay my welcome as a guest on the sofa of ‘me’ good old mate Col! We’re already starting to look like ‘the odd couple’ – not a good thing in these parts – two blokes living together, so the sooner I leave the better anyway.
The future can and will be bright however, of that I have little doubt, but without somewhere to call home and a worthy enough job and resurgent practice, then as a virtual down-and-out trying to come to terms with so many things right now, I do feel about as alive as a doornail in freefall. I'm ok though - and, reckon I'll land Sharp End first!
posted by The Slide at 8:50 am
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