Get Fillipped!

You may be distracted like I was by Brexit, Trump, famine, terror attacks, etc., etc...But this story caught my eye. Whatever you feel about the reasons behind homelessness and what a civilised society such as ours should do about it, this story should wake us up somehow. 

Essentially the arrangement was, you want accommodation you need to do voluntary work. If you don’t do enough hours then you are no longer eligible for accommodation. In this instance the work was 40 hours of heavy lifting in return for ‘bed and board.’ The voluntary element is both voluntary in the sense of being unpaid and in the sense that he didn’t have to do it. He could choose to go back and sleep on the streets if he wished. 

It’s World Social Work Day today folks!! I won’t take the opportunity to go on about it...but will just say this.... The next time you hear about, or read, a human story that has distress, poverty, disability, tragedy, abuse, illness at its core then spare a thought for the social worker in the background who will have worked so hard to find a way forward into the future for the individual involved.