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One homeless person's account of life on the streets of Dublin
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Thursday May 15, 2003 15:38 by IMC Editorial Group - IMC Ireland
One night I was woken up by a Garda, by him booting me in the ribs, because, he said, `I can't be arsed bending down and I don't like touching shit with my hands!' My name is David and I am homeless. I was asked to write a piece on the reason for my situation and my experiences of being homeless. This is it. I am sorry if it comes across as a sob story, it isn't meant to and I am not looking for sympathy or for people to feel sorry for me. As it is things are looking up for me at last but it probably does come across that way because after a long time spent thinking about it, there aren?t many good things that I can say about it. Contrary to popular belief homeless people haven't brought the situation on themselves and do not choose to live that way, as is the case with me. After my mother passed on, I decided that I wanted to get away from Liverpool and go back to my home country of Ireland, (having left when I was six or seven because my Mum and Dad split up, my Mum being from Liverpool she took me back to be with her parents.) as I had no family left there, being born an only child and late on in my parents life (my Father had passed on two years earlier and I had no family in Ireland either.) I had nothing to keep me there and I felt I needed a change. Continue to the rest of the story.
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4so if I was to do someting like you then it would not be benefitial to your image
Contrary to belief we are not here to criticize one and other and as for those who do are making things worse.
If anyone truly cares about this situation then they would not have written the first idea that came into their minds and into heart. Try empathy before sympathy and not waste time squandering with apathy.
Now obviously most if not all have proven that this situation is strangely mis-understood.
If any of you care I will post again with a report concerning these matters and I do believe that though dropping some words of wisdom in this area may teach some, but what we forget to realize is.
Are we directly reaching any of the people we need to through these arguments? (If they can't afford a house can they view your post)?
"While they are cultivating the soil of our age who is responsible for the harvest, I ask who? Let us pay attention to the direction of this wretched earth and ask ourselves again who have we made responsible? Some will say those in power others will say those without resources are the void. But what is power and how can we control it. How much of this do we really know and how much can we contain. Shifting the blame like others have done have brought about unforgiving consequences. Let us then together grab what we can with what has been given to us and use it for the betterment of those like yourself in order to create and shape for the greater good of man."
As I said in an earlier post I will be returning for those interested, maybe those who may influence or even those who will take their time to make this an active issue. Let us reach for our needs.
"One man in the hole is a hole for mankind."
I would like to make an update and address to my previous post. I said I will be laying some words down for the interested and the influenced.
I will. Firstly though, I feel this situation needs to be handled delicately and this is why I chose to split it in two.
1-to Liberate, this section.
2-Activate, next post.
The intentions for this one of course, is to liberate ourselves with away from the lesser of our opinions. This way we can be a true help to those who need it when the see we see as they do and know the out.
**********************LIBERATION*****************
I would like to first start by stating if others have not that there is a liberation in not owning a house, look we will all leave this earth eventually, what good is our house then? Will the house remain unoccupied? Will windows of the house grow mouths and speak English? Will it say to real estate agents:
"Don't sell me, I am still grieving over somebody who lived here eighty years ago, and do not destroy their belongings and their pride?" I believe not. Then the big deal is? We love to have security over here don't we? Even though that security is false. All it can take is for one of us to slip up somewhere at some time and boom, we are jammed.
It will not matter where you are. Then the big deal is? Anyone who gets into the experience of not having a home should not even see them selves as a home less person. I would have assumed that by the experience it would leave them liberated beyond the point of stereotypes. Not by what other people think, but by the opportunity the person can create by such a situation.
Actors are on the road. Filmmakers are on the road.
Politicians are in the air. Missionaries are always here and there. Musicians don't even know the meaning of homes, yet all these manage to create something profound through their absence than many millions of folk do by their presence.
No, the security of four walls is not the answer; otherwise colonies would not have sought other lands, foreign lands.
Four walls the "concrete jungle" waking up to the sight of a "brick wall" can't do it for everyone.
Otherwise why seek holidays or want to get away.
The atmosphere is here in our community and in our streets we don't have to run afar to cool of exotically when we are still living and can better it naturally. The atmosphere is here and it is for everybody, we just choose to view this as this one's property and that as that one's property.
Break down the walls and educate yourselves.
Stand up from floor and liberate yourself.
We both have something to learn and to give on and other. Through this we might just open the door to wiping off completely the "image" we like to use on people like you and me who just don't own a home.
You desire a revolution for them, for us I have left this you link, you may check it first to amend your ideals then?
Next post *.ACT,
"The grim necessities of a huge Campaign carried on for many years against the evils which lie at the root of all the miseries of modern life, attacked in a thousand and one forms by a thousand and one lieutenants, have led me step by step to contemplate as a possible solution of at least some of those problems the Scheme of social Selection and Salvation which I have here set forth.
When but a mere child the degradation and helpless misery of the poor "Stockingers" of my native town, wandering gaunt and hunger-stricken
through the streets droning out their melancholy ditties, crowding the Union or toiling like galley slaves on relief works for a bare
subsistence kindled in my heart yearnings to help the poor which have continued to this day and which have had a powerful influence on my
whole life. A last I may be going to see my longings to help the workless realised. I think I am." Bless him.
These are just some words reflect what the activist and founder of what has been one of the Late Great genuine aids in our time to the common people.
As of now and as a Christian I am getting through the pages and seeking what this man sought.
The statistics of what he achieved goes beyond any sort of measure which people give credit to in this day and age.
But this man did not live very long ago, he was human like you and me.
He was no myth but an activist for the people and for the spirit of men.
Certainly if anyone would apply themselves, relate themselves, effectuate them self with the situation of the people of the streets the way this man and his companions did then the issue we just read about cannot possibly be happening in today’s world where we have the most amount of charities and NGO’s one can ever imagine.
But it’s credo, rep, and status now isn’t it? Not with this man he even autographed for your king with his words of wisdom and his care for men.
The man and his companions are what we need today and by God’s grace some of us will read his words that are here and will seek what he sought, salvation for the souls of men.
*****************Activism*********************
"If we are to really benefit the poor, we can only do so by practical measures. We have merely to look round and see the kind of advantages
which wealthy men find indispensable for the due management of theirbusiness, and ask ourselves whether poor men cannot be supplied with
the same opportunities. The reason why they are not is obvious. To supply the needs of the rich is a means of making yourself rich; to supply the needs of the poor will involve you in trouble so out of proportion to the profit that the game may not be worth the candle."
His words. “Darkest England, and the Way Out.” The Book. Available here for free.
This man they don’t teach about him in British history, while they don’t mention his name on the streets no more, but he lived and his influence is can be relived today. And it still lasts till this day. But we must be prepared to take it as a need, a need for us and the greater community at large.
Known originally as the General’s mission.
The man Commander in chief of the army for salvation, better known as the Salvation Army. Messengers of the Gospel the good news, while social reformers for the less attended in their day. Lived in the Victorian era, but not commended to that effect. He kept by his rule and served his God, our Lord.
His name is General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army,
And his words can be relived as the situation of this day have us needing it. It can be read by the following link. Here you will get a first hand treatment of what it was to be in the shoes of this Christian social activist. A true reformer. Brethrens this book is not just some re-collect flash back on being down and out on your luck. No, this book is an active proposal a campaign yet to be fully fulfilled by any one man. This book is where contracts and appeals were made. When this book was written as if by a proclamation of faith what the author that is William of course was putting into action when writing was being done as it was written during its writing.
He even goes into illustrious imaging of how to view ourselves as no better than a fallen horse or what he calls the “Cab Horse fallen treatment” which human beings can only dream of. Quite a potent analogy it is.
Here is the book fellow activists, and influencers of our generation, learn of this man and his influence, seek what he sought and do the same if we want to help and if we want to heal.
I don’t know what most of us are waiting for but for those who choose to act and are already acting send this post to the concerned and I dedicate it to you all there, where? Where the work is.
Thank you,
Act now, it is never too late. But read first.
“Darkest England, and the Way Out.” The Book. Available free.
find the book at or click related link.
ftp://sailor.gutenberg.org/pub/gutenberg/etext96/detwo10.txt
End.