This is going to be a long one but bear with me, I think this is a serious issue that effects men mostly. I often have to travel to the city for meetings with my clients and on the way I see a lot of homeless men, a lot of them are vulnerable men with mental health issues.
However there are also a lot of unemployed single men who fall through the UK's welfare system and end up being homeless if they are refused housing benefits. The only help available right now is to just throw all the men in one under-funded shelter, this is where problems begin because not every man there is a crazy drug addict. There are unemployed men who are not comfortable around mentally ill drug addicts because they often end up getting attack by such men.
There are a few special programs for the drug addicted mentally ill men but obviously most of them refuse help and they need to be in a special facility and often are put under care. I'm more concerned about the rising number of young unemployed single men. It seems like they are the truly forgotten ones, they would then end up abusing drugs(they are the ones who then become the mentally ill drug addicts), physically and sexually abused.
What will it take the UK government to help these men? Men are losing jobs at a fast rate, dropping out of universities, a lot of mental health issues regarding men are ignored. I'm not a millionaire, I run a medium sized company and managed took on a office apprentice who used to be homeless, he has turned his life around but I can't rescue every one. I feel guilty and frustrated and have had a few nightmares about those men been beaten and lit on fire(happened to a homeless man recently in a town nearby).
What do you guys think we should do? How do we get men to unite over this issue? I don't have much hope from the gynocentric establishment. The Tory party couldn't give two shits about lower working class men, the left wing Labour party is too busy trying to appease Marxists, the Green party are openly misandrists, the Liberal Democrats are just weaker version of Labour.
[+]kitecurbkicker11 points [recovered] (1 child) | Copy Link
Not in the UK, but I dealt with homelessness a number of years ago.
It stemmed from chronic unemployment. The cause of that unemployment was a job caused injury that blew a disc in my back, pinching my spinal cord, preventing my leg from working normally, as well as severe pain. I spent 3 years not really walking.
The US has "protections" for injured workers, but my boss covered it up, technically through a hospital friend, so the worker's compensation claim fell through and I received no treatment, along with being double billed for an MRI (a nice $5,000 charge) on top of it, when I shouldn't have paid anything. I was uninsured.
Because I couldn't reliably walk, I was fired from several jobs shortly after getting them. Most others refused to hire me at all, lying about the reason. I was engaged at the time, and my fiance' chose to listen to her misandrist mother, believing me to be a deadbeat. Ultimately, I was thrown out and dumped.
Fortunately, I was able to get in touch with my dad, who allowed me to move back in with him, and I spent two years struggling to walk and gain strength while job hunting. After that time, I landed one and got back on my feet, literally and figuratively.
The entire time, I tried finding lawyers, representatives, programs, anyone who could help. Not one single person cared. Literally nobody. I lacked the thousands of dollars for legal retainer fees, and was faced with literally every attorney certified to practice in the state wanted one before even looking at details, because of fighting worker's comp, a hospital, and large corporation.
Not everyone is a drug addict or substance abuser. I never was, but was treated like one, simply for being a homeless male living in his car made from scrapped cars. No men's homeless shelters existed anyway. At best, people would get drunk in public to spend a night or two out of the cold, and have some semblance of a meal.
My overall opinion is still that men aren't valued, and have more in common as slaves or beasts or burden. I also have a distinct hatred for America due to its treatment of many of its citizens. If one has money, life is good, options are plentiful, especially if born to wealth. If one is poor, death is the answer, because life will forever be suffering. Hard work achieves nothing in my experiences.
I'm sorry that the UK has turned its back on the homeless men, and I have no answers.
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