See that nice little picture? Being homeless isn’t like that. You don’t have a spotty hanky with your things in it, you don’t have the money for tobacco and as for sausages, well it’d more likely be the dog roasting over that spit – or a roadkill rabbit if you’re lucky. No fancy hat and definitely no newspaper in your pocket because it’d all be stuffed inside your clothes.
I spent some time homeless (my own fault) and found my own way back out of it. It wasn’t pleasant at all. So I can have a little sympathy for those who find themselves in that predicament now – but only where it’s through no fault of their own. Those who move to another country, believing they’re going to get a job but without even bothering to learn the language of that country are idiots. There’s no nice way of putting it. You can call it right-wing or racist all you want but the fact is, if I wandered over to Spain, speaking no Spanish beyond ‘huevos, fritos, cerveza’ and expected anyone to employ me then you’d call me an idiot and you’d be right.
If you were one of those Spaniards, and you heard that your taxes were going to buy me a £50 coach ticket out of your country, you might think ‘fair enough, he’s no bloody use, send him home’. What would you think if your taxes were paying for a British outreach worker to fly over, look after me, and fly the both of us back after a nice little stay in a Spanish hotel, all at your expense? What would you think if the £50 coach ticket suddenly cost £1000? What would you thnk if there were hundreds more just like me, all costing the same?
Well, that’s what’s happening here with all those homeless Polish immigrants who couldn’t be bothered to learn English but who thought they’d get a job in England and we’d all learn Polish to accommodate them.
Petra Salva, the outreach services manager at Thames Reach, said that most of the immigrants had trades but were unable to obtain work in Britain. “They arrive and the language has got in the way and they don’t understand the system,” she said. “Often alcohol gets in the way or they have other support needs that preclude them getting work.
The language gets in the way. Look, the first thing you do if you plan to move to another country is learn the basics at least of the language. It’s not the same as going on holiday for a week or so, when you can get away with few words here and there. Working in that country is going to bring you into close contact with the locals and they are not going to learn your language just for you.
As for alcohol getting in the way, well, no it doesn’t. Booze does not jump out at people in dark alleys and force them to drink it. You have to go looking for it and in this country, it’s not cheap. If you have hardly any money and no job, blowing it on booze is the worst thing you can do. Nobody will employ you if you look like crap and stink of it too. That’s not the fault of the alcohol. It’s the fault of the one drinking it.
I don’t wish to be nasty to these people. As I said, I’ve experienced it although I was at least speaking the same language as everyone else. This rant is not aimed at those homeless Poles, although I do still think they’re idiots to try their luck where they don’t understand a word said to them. No, the brunt of this is aimed at those halfwitted ‘charities’ who think they need to spend so much money for no reason.
These people found their own way here. No outreach worker brought them. All they need is a wash, a set of clean clothes and a bus ticket home. They do not need to be babysat all the way.
£50 for a ticket, maybe £30 for a set of brand new clothes from a supermarket, and a little wave goodbye. That’s all that’s needed. Their outreach workers can meet them at their destinations and that won’t cost any more at all.
The Righteous will blanch at the mere suggestion that anyone who wants to live here should at least learn the language. Why is that so much to ask, when every other country in the world requires the same thing? It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Why are the French not racist for insisting that people who live in France can speak French? Why are the Spanish not racist for insisting on the same? Why is it just us, Righteous, who have to print every damn leaflet in every language in the world?
And why, when those who come here with no intention of learning the language find themselves unemployable, is it necessary to spend quite so much sorting out what is, in effect, a problem of their own making? A coach ticket home is fine with me. But hotels, planes and outreach workers? You are just taking the piss.
It’s time people took responsibility for their own lives. We cannot afford to sort out the whole world’s problems, and we certainly can’t afford to do it with all the trimmings.