It's only recently that I had a thought that made me feel less guilty about having my own place. How chuffed my Russian peasant ancestors would be, after they'd been persecuted by pogroms and Cossacks and no doubt had to face a lot a lot of corruption and blackmailing officials and a terrifying journey before they hightailed it out of the place for the dream of a better life in England, to see me here. (Lots of Jews thought they were in New York when they arrived off the boat. Because that's where they thought they were heading, and that's where the traffikers told them that they were...) And what a warm welcome they must have got, once they were here...
That's the dream of the immigrant, to see your children or your children's children having a better life than you did. I feel guilty (what Jew doesn't?) but really I should feel grateful, that's what they went through all the hardship and persecution for.
Still I can't help it. Does it ever strike you, walking around London, how many boarded up properties there are in the city? Or in your town, if you're not in London? You know how many people are homeless in this city? Just to give you some idea, the official average stats for homeless people in Hackney for 2006-2008 are at 1051 (that's 1.21% of all households) 974 in Tower Hamlets (1.16%). That doesn't include all the people not officially recorded on the councils' records as being homeless - those in substandard or overcrowded accommodation, or staying on their friend's couch. (stats from
Crisis website.)
Yet in
Hackney there were 3,336 'empty dwellings' in 2008, 3.5% of which is Local Authority housing. And 2,948 in Tower Hamlets, 3% of it Local Authority housing stock.
I don't know if this includes all the buildings that I see around East London that are standing there boarded up and falling to pieces, when they just look like they need a bit of renovation. I don't understand why all these property investor flats that nobody can afford to live in are going up all over the place, when the perfectly decent looking buildings all along Hackney Road are rotting before your very eyes.
And what do the councils say to squatters, who can't afford to rent or buy and who take matters into their own hands? They say get out, you anti-social scum. (Not all squatters are drug users needing a place to crash. Some of them look after otherwise empty buildings and use them as - homes...) Then they kick them back out onto the street and pay contractors money to board up their empty flats again.
Oh my lord. This country is insane. What can we do about it? Me, I'm sending money to
Shelter, and to Crisis, in a lame attempt to make that guilt go away.
