“We have to declare war on it. Don’t do anything about it, but just declare war on it. It’s the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving a problem. It’s called “declaring a war on it”. We got the war on poverty, war on crime, litter, cancer, drugs. But did you ever notice, there’s no war on homelessness, is there? You know why? There’s no money in that problem. NOBODY STANDS TO GET RICH OFF THAT PROBLEM.”

George Carlin

Comedians always say it best. And George Carlin is pretty spectacular at succinctly delivering an uncomfortable truth, convincing you to see absurd realities that give you the only reasonable reaction: laughter.

Looking around the world at what human beings are able to achieve when they work together, like that time people went to the moon, miracles like anti-biotics, soy milk, wolf t-shirts, play-station, YouTube and the Rocky films, it’s wacky that we have not yet managed to end homelessness. So when George Carlin says, “there’s no money in that problem” you know he’s making 100% sense. When have we ever managed to solve a problem that makes no money for the already wealthy? If you can think of a time, I’d love to know what it is, please post it in the comments below (genuine curiosity).

So, the Government spent £5m in 2016 on advertising. Guess what they were advertising? THE LIVING WAGE . I know. There are no words. Stuffing the pockets of the Government to serve a conservative agenda with a fucking TV advert for the living wage. A move in the direction of making the worst off, worse off. That’s where taxes are going. We as a nation cannot afford the NHS, the mentally ill, the disabled, benefits for single mothers/fathers, housing benefit for young people, social housing for the homeless, but somehow, we can afford to pay for prime-time television adverts selling politics? No bbz. I don’t think so.

Why do we tolerate this? We shouldn’t. We all deserve better.

The war on homelessness needs to happen. It’s not difficult to get started. We just need to say “no” to a bunch of things. But say it LOUD. No to taxes spent on TV adverts, no to selling off the NHS, no to eliminating housing benefit for young people, no to reducing ILF. When we’re confident telling the Geezers what we don’t want, we can start telling them what we do want.

If you hang on a bit, there’ll be more on how to get active with us. We want you on board. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this,

Your big friend,

Shannon

xx

Shannon is a Bristol based homelessness activist at HGB. She is an experienced healthcare worker with a dedication to supporting people experiencing homelessness.