Saturday. Chatting with a homeless guy.

Seems like in Sheffield at least homeless people are still homeless. It’s so hard to know if anything is really being done for them. And if they are accepting it. I got chatting with a homeless guy on Saturday, he was just sitting on the pavement, his little pile of belongings around him, a few people had put a bit of money in his hat but can’t be many. Almost no one around, and those who are walking the streets are keeping their distance, and who carries cash now anyway.

I asked him about housing, I thought they were putting homeless people up in hotels? He chuckled and said yes, that’s what they’ve been saying, but it’s not actually happening. His outreach workers didn’t even know anything about it. Was is one of those ‘initiatives’ that are announced then fizzle out? How do they put homeless people in hotels? Which hotels? Are hotels even open?

Maybe it was one of those well meaning ideas, that’s actually very hard to implement. Certainly the homeless people and begging people around Aldi I see every day, they are the same faces as ever before. Sometime the Police move them on. But to where?

Saying ‘We are going to put all homeless people up in hotels’ is one thing. Actually doing it, that’s a lot harder to deliver.

I had one of the chocolate rabbits in my bag. Gave it to my friend, he was pleased and happy with it. A 19p chocolate rabbit and five minutes chat. Probably one of the good bits of his day. God this World upsets me.