Once again Church Leaders tell us that People are starving
in GB and Food Banks have become a must for a lot of people on Radio 4 a vicar
said he had homeless people sleeping in his church and he was feeding them. Very
emotive statement but the question should be why are they homeless? A lot of the
homeless have mental issues, many are alcoholics and drug addicts, and these
are the type of people who cannot manage their lives. Here is a suggestion for
those Priests; Bishops etc. who continual complain lets convert some of the
Churches into Bedsits for the homeless. If you look at some of the Churches
they are extremely big and most importantly they have a lot of height inside,
extra floors could be put in to house accommodation a section could be left for
those that wish to worship. The Government could help fund this but most of the
Religious groups are very wealthy so they could fund at least 50%. Once these
have been established the church could supervise all those in their care all
Benefits would be looked after by the Vicar in charge they in turn could pay
the dependants food, heating bills and clothing bills. As this group of people cannot manage their
finances or lives in general. They need a helping hand, benefit should not be
there to subsidise their bad habits, plus with supervision they could
eventually enter the normality of society. Part of the funding could go to
maintaining the buildings and lets be honest nearly all the Churches have a
restoration which the parishes have to fund it very rarely comes out the
extensive coffers of the Church.
With regard to Food Banks one Bishop said that a women came
to him and said I have not eaten for three days and as expected the Bishop used
this to slate the Government BUT nobody questioned why had the women not eaten
for three days? Was she a drug addict or a Alcoholic? Had a anyone investigated
her background i.e. where she lived, did she live alone, did she rent a
property and so on? Was the Bishop telling the truth did anyone question him
about the name of this individual?
As someone who rents one bedroom flats and bedsits I do have
several of my Tenants on benefits and I know two of them have taken advantage
of the Food Bank System. Let me give you an example Tenant 1 is 62 years old
been unemployed for a year, the Department of Employment recently decided to
change his entitlement and because there was a change his benefit was suspended
till the new one became operative so his weekly money went from £70 to £60 and
all money including Housing benefit was stopped this lasted about 2 weeks. So
he went to library and collected a Food Voucher. He was asked many questions
but nobody came to his flat to see if his cupboards were bare? the food was
supplied by ASDA and he showed me the box which contained about £70 of various food items and if he was on an electric key he would
have got help with that as well. Now the point is he did have food although not
a lot and when the Department of employment sorted his claim out he was
reinstated and his money was backdated. So why was he not asked to pay back
what he got on the Food Bank?
A true Christian would look after the very vulnerable in our
society and the Homeless are a prime example but the rest of society should aim
to get the dignity of being employed, it is not Christian to sponge of others
and it is not Christian for others to encourage that behaviour.
I believe the government is on the right track
Martin Clarke
