London Beggars

What was once the suburbs of London have now become and integral part of London, though not central these areas are just as much suffering from the pain of being in the very centre. The reason for this is the ever increasing need for housing and transport systems updating. There are hundreds of thousands of new properties  lining the Thames gateway into London. Many of which are empty as they are owned by investors all over the world seeing them as pots of interest growing gold.  These once derelict and impoverished areas have become posh looking and have the whiff of gentrification.  This putrid stench attracts rats who pick up the scraps, in search of poverty, homelessness, exorbitant rents, there is worse crime gang violence, slavery and this little thing of begging, however you name it we got it. To think of us as the sleepy suburbs is to be mislead. It is just used by employers so they don't have to pay London weighting.  The Thames Gateway is part of urban London and anywhere the Crossrail has encroached should be considered as part of central London. It has inherent crime and a struggle for survival is an ongoing daily event. They may be mistaken in the belief the streets

of London are paved with gold, but perhaps in comparison where these migrants come from, for it is a lot different, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. The London Begging scene has grown to the extent it is  a professional business and appears to have been taken up by a multitude professional Eastern Europeans beggars. These people have  taken the right of free movement across Europe as EEA nationals and made it the right o beg wherever they want. So here on what might of once been thought of as the outskirts of London real inner city problems have multiplied. Side by side is the stench of poverty and the rich.

Each morning I go to work, mostly catching a bus, the journey is less than three miles but it can take up to an hour or more.  An hour is significant marker, because this is exactly how long it takes when setting out with the purpose of walking to work. Walking three miles in what I view is central London but without the view of St Pauls or Embankment. When I get off my bus and then walk the short distance to my work place I pass three or four beggars, sometimes more. What marks them out is their appearance. They don't have the look of British people, they don't talk, they just hold out a hand, one man does not have a hand and he holds out the stub where his hand used to be. It's a sympathy vote ploy to get more coins in his other outstretched hand. A little like what goes on in India where young children may be purposely disabled so their ability to gain coins begging increases. They become a human asset. This man uses his stub in the same way. An elderly woman with a scarf reminiscent of the 1950s when British women used to wear scarfs also holds her hand out. In Both instances they look dirty, grubby and like they are likely from a family or group of people. The place they stand is the same place day in and day out. Except its a part time job and they do it rush hour mornings. Once when I went to put some money on my Oyster card I saw the one handed man filling out a Western Union form. His begging money is on the way to his home, because London is not his home, London is just a convenient place from which he gets begging money and no doubt claims benefits.

EEA nationals can stay in the UK and claim benefits here providing they can show they work. It doesn't matter what their work is and many of them will say they are cleaners. The funny thing is they usually clean houses which are occupied by fellow EEA nationals who are willing to write out letters saying they work there. It's a scam, so a friend of mine told me. They then claim both Working and Child Tax Credits. The key is being self-employed and they also gain another valued benefit Child Benefit. Their income for this bogus work means they are attracted to live here. They keep within their own communities because it might be a little too difficult to learn English, or they don't have the time to attend classes, afterall they are here for one thing. It is money. There is good reason why this year we have seen the net migration level now raise to 345,000 immigrants, more than last year's record level of 333,000 which lying ex prime minster Cameron said would be in the tens of thousands. Their children are then put into already over crowded schools that's if they decide to keep their children here. There are instances where the male of a family will claim all these benefits and send his wife and kids back to his own country. He'll even register them with the health service because in his own European country the health service isn't as good. Not all countries in the EU are equal and this has been the biggest mistake the EU made when they began to include substandard poverty stricken lands.

It's not like London doesn't have it's own indigenous population of beggars because it does. There are British beggars who are on the streets because they have no home for the property which they might of been given has been allocated to a family from Eastern Europe. A family who have never put into the tax system of the UK but can live here and work here. Or should we say pretend to work here. There are British beggars who are in the position of homelessness because they have ongoing mental health issues. Illnesses which have never been properly tackled by the defunct NHS system we have. A health system which does not believe in helping the mentally ill, because ring fenced funds are kept for real physical health problems. But mental health costs more in the long run than does physical health. Someone who can not contribute to society because they are mentally ill will stay mentally ill. The real health issue is to bring these people out of mental illness back into the land of sanity. To give them every possible helping hand they can get. Imagine the best possible mental health support given to someone with severe anxiety, depression or PTSD and then those same people finding they can with guidance integrate back into
society. It would mean they would come off benefits such as Employment Support Allowance and become real tax payers. They would no longer be stuck in a system which doesn't care for them. Stuck for decades, where they are then hospitalised at times of severe crisis.

Every beggar is a human being and needs support to stop begging. Every beggar wants to be part of society wants to be productive, has the loves, hates, desires and needs of any other human being. However some of these beggars are avoidable, some should not be in London in the first place, some have travelled hundreds of miles if not thousands to be here so they can stand on a cold pavement and take non taxed monies to support themselves and they have very little if any English skills.  They have no desire to integrate and view this country as no more than a pot of gold. Although it is probably no more than a pot of copper coins, those copper coins add up to a hell of a lot more than an Albanian or Romanian beggar would be able to get on their own streets. Streets where life is tougher, so why not make it easier and come to Britain? And they do, so now we are becoming the begging capital of the world. Or so it seems to me. Yet I am told by relatives who have gone abroad it is now the same in Italy, Spain and Greece. There is it seems no escape.