No room at the inn?

About a month ago, I was made aware of an apparent case of religious prejudice against people trying to help the homeless. I was reminded of it again when I saw http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/church-to-host-christmas-day-meal-event-1-6990614 . Then, last night, I was finally introduced to the victims of this odd incident of discrimination.
Briefly, some well meaning hippy types had managed to find a way to regularly obtain surplus vegetables from farmers and small-holders. Their plan was to cook this up and have a regular free lunch for the homeless.
First they approached the owner of an alternative cafe about running the project. He, reasonably enough, pointed out that he couldn't really offer free food to some of his regular punters and not others without confusion or arguments.
Next they approached the wardens of a church with a large hall. The wardens were totally disinterested in the whole project until the hippies offered to pay, and even then not until they offered to pay the full commercial rate expected of, say, a mid-sized business hiring the gaff for a few hours.
That was bad enough. What the hippies tell me happened next was even worse.
They suddenly got a phone-call in which one of the church wardens said that the Parish Church Council had seen fit to hold an emergency meeting. At the meeting, as far as I can tell, the PCC not only voted to refuse permission for the lunch, but to bar anyone involved from hiring the hall in future.
And here is the sick joke.....
The church hall concerned is run on the proceeds of one of the earliest ever Manx charities. The will of the Victorian benefactor provided for a school house and soup kitchen. Under the terms of this will, the property was demised to the vicar and wardens of the adjoining church “and their successors in office to be held on trust for such good and pious uses as they from time to time may determine with full power to dispose of the property and apply the proceeds to like uses.”
I should also say this is not the first story I have heard about the church involved barring use of the building for genuine community initatives, even when the organisers offer the full going commercial hire price. By comparison, pseudo-charities and snooty little cultural soirees run by well-heeled townspeople seem to find no such obstacles. Neither( it has been suggested) do some of them even pay a token hire fee.
Another funny thing. I passed by the church recently and couldn't help noticing the Baby Jesus was missing from the Nativity display.
Maybe the wardens decided there was no room for him either.

Crime, damn lies and logistics

A recent advert for the Centre Manager’s job at David Gray House, the island’s bail hostel which is run for government by the Sally Army, not only contradicts lies told by past and present Ministers for Home Affairs but gives away other secrets.
The main lie spouted by the DHA is that, though run by a religious group, DGH services are equally available to those of all or no religious affiliations, and that attending daily acts of worship does not get you a better probation report.
All this came out a few years back when Muslim men were detained in the old Victoria Road jail because, as they would not or could not attend a daily act of Christian worship they were told was compulsory, DGH wouldn’t take them. When the Minister of Home Affairs was challenged over this he had to ask his staff if it was true.
It cannot be established if he was then misled by either the duty probation officer who told the men’s lawyer or the DGH manager (both Broadway Batshit klingons who were, as it happens, quietly trying to set up a rival operation at the time), or if the minister just decided to be ‘economical with the truth’ to his critics.
What is known is that the DGH management then got brown underpants and attendance for residents at the daily worship stopped being compulsory, though as the court reports continued to be given by folk who thought it should be those who did not attend were inevitably marked as ‘uncooperative’ with the program. One other affect was that future adverts for DGH staff stopped short of demanding applicants were Salvationists or at least Christians, and merely asked that they be prepared to work within the ‘Christian ethos’ of the project.
If that ‘Christian ethos’ phrase sounds familiar, that would be because it is a fudge term introduced by a notorious CARE workshop held at Stepford Central (Tynwald Mills) for Christian employers who only want to employ bigots and brown-nosers but are worried they might end up in court. Several known attendees hold key ‘gate-keeping’ positions in Government departments and two are now government ministers, which rather explodes the myth that government don’t go along with this flat-earth nonsense.
So it is interesting that the mid-March advert for a new DGH Centre Manager says “You will need to be a committed and practising Christian who can work with the chaplain to promote the spiritual ethos of the centre.”
As well as being illegal – even in the Isle of Man – that lets several cats out of the bag. By the way, DGH does not actually have a ‘chaplain’ - or any kind of trained/licenced minister of religion - on tap. But explaining why also allows me to explode another myth – that the Salvation Army is an independent Manx charity.
The advert helpfully directs applicants to the Northwest Divisional Headquarters of the Salvation Army, which actually manages the centre and receives the income from the Manx government, although both parties to this shady arrangement would rather you did not know that. All this last came up in the 1980s, when some old biddies left houses to the Manx Salvation Army to be used for housing vulnerable people. Against the wishes of local Salvationists, Northwest DHQ decided to cash in on the property boom, flogged them and banked the proceeds off-island.
At the same time, the local SA also had a £100K legacy, given on the understanding that they would turn their old hall into the island’s first purpose built youth centre - to be managed by a committee of influential Christians as the donor did not trust the government to do it. Problem was, the committee of influential (non-Salvationist) Christians they set up thought there was more loot in flogging the building to a brewery for a nightclub, which flatly goes against the core teetotal culture of Salvationists. They did this by placing ownership of the building into the hands of a Jersey trust, set up by the bank which brokered the deal –or to be more precise by an individual now employed by government to oversee the murky ‘Third Sector’ deals between government and churches which are gradually handing over social services to religious charities.
Because of the rows this sparked between local Salvationists, their English HQ and the bogus management committee which allows the Manx Salvation Army to be passed off as a ‘Manx charity’ some of the £100K legacy and some of the house sale money (but none of the much bigger pay-off from the sale of the old hall) was re-invested locally in the purchase of a local boarding house which became David Gray House. Up until about 2003 the DGH manager was a Salvation Army officer (i.e. a church minister) directly appointed by Northwest DHQ – a separate appointment to the minister who runs the Douglas Salvation Army worship centre. Then, due to cut-backs, Northwest DHQ dropped that arrangement and appointed a single officer with social work qualifications to (on paper) run both projects. In practice he ran the church and oversaw a DGH manager with minimal qualifications or experience in order that the DGH income continued to flow to Liverpool, thus thwarting a bid by a rival local evangelical sect to muscle in on the opportunity. He was also ‘invited’ to chair the QUANGO which set up both Manx homelessness ‘charities’, which, despite the personal fair mindedness of that officer and one or two others, resulted in the current less than satisfactory situation for any government attempt to (on paper) deal with core homelessness and rehabilitation problems.
The core problems, I would have to suggest, are not crime, poverty and social deprivation, but evangelical avarice, government disinterest, and the tendency towards flat-out porkie-telling of both guilty parties.

Missing, inaction

In all the excitement of Tynwald Day and other Manx events during July, an important change at two of our government’s pet ‘social service providers’ has gone un-noticed. Hard to know why, as the individual at the heart of the changes spent so much time in the office of the Director of Social Services it’s rumoured he kept a mug there (who the public pays a £100K+ salary).
It was known for months beforehand that Nigel Collins was leaving the island this summer. See http://www.douglas.gov.im/Mayoralty.asp?Action=ShowFunction&ID=3418 for example.
The thing is, Nigel and Lynne ran the local branch of the Salvation Army, which has had a strict policy since the 19th century of rotating officers every few years to stop things getting too stale. They were sent here specifically because previously they’d run the SA’s largest UK homelessness shelter, and David Gray House (the island’s only bail hostel, and run by the Salvation Army) was - to be blunt - not working.
Incidentally, though both shared skills and duties equally (as is usual SA practice), because the island is in a sexist timewarp Nigel had to be the public face as the Rotary Club and other causes of social inequality still don’t know how to deal with girlies. For the same reason it was Nigel who was then ‘suggested’ by one of his employees at a regional Rotary club night where the management committee for Kemmyrk (the government run ‘independent’ homelessness charity) was decided – even before the steering committee which officially set things up had a chance to consider possible candidates.
So, DGH now lacks a Salvation Army officer to oversee things 'officially’ - thus distancing the DHA (Department of Home Affairs) staff who dictate policy decisions. And Kemmyrk lacks a chairman, with the possibility that the temporary replacement may lack even a basic grounding in either homelessness in general or the particular difficulties faced by the Manx homeless (some, it must be said, actually caused by those who control that charity). Additionally, the replacements for the Collins’s are not thought to have a social work background and by coincidence the Salvationists who aided them liasing between the worship activities and ‘Christian outreach’ activity such as DGH are also leaving the island.
Their departure leaves other difficulties too. For one thing, the real fate of DGH is now to be decided between the Salvation Army’s regional headquarters (who see the island as nothing but an offshore adjunct to their Cheshire and North Wales activity, and the hostel and other property as little more than potential capital to be realised if onshore business goes slack), the ‘independent’ trustees of Manx SA philanthropy (a group of non-Salvationist bigwigs whose past record – e.g. flogging a building earmarked as a youth centre to a brewery via a Guernsey trust – shows distinct ignorance of or respect for Salvationist values) and the DHA, who frankly never had a clue or gave a monkeys about the Manx dispossessed anyway.
Not, in short, good news for anyone local either with social difficulties or with good intentions for resolving them.

Homelessness whitewash

I was frustrated this week to read the report of the AGM for one of two Manx government misrun homelessness pseudo-charities (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Govt-offers-homeless-charity-new.5272498.jp).
I was on the steering committee that set up Kemmyrk around two years ago. I was so involved I even named the charity (‘Kemmyrk’ is Manx Gaelic for ‘Shelter’), so my sorrow is well informed.
I am saddened because I know how much public good will there was to solve the problems and how it has been utterly betrayed, mostly by government staff on six figure salaries who are, in effect, employed only to come up with bogus solutions while avoiding government expenditure or effort to eliminate absolutely solveable and particularly Manx problems. I am also saddened because I know the few genuine good guys involved in Kemmyrk, and therefore that they mean well but are fighting with their hands tied behind their backs.
Right from the start it was obvious Social Services and local evangelicals were pulling the strings. Suggestions and comments we made at the steering committee meetings never even made it to the next meeting, and at each new meeting we arrived to an agenda set elsewhere.
People who didn’t attend the meetings mysteriously became officials, and an agreement by steering committee members not to stand for membership of the official charity committee was forgotten on election night, when evangelicals none of us had met appeared out of the blue with a crowd of supporters and got elected.
Then there’s the laughable comment in the story that: “Information and statistics on homelessness can be difficult to obtain because the problem is often hidden”, and further that: “A homelessness database was established in May 2008 and all agencies likely to come into contact with the homeless were asked to put details on this anonymous database. The statistics will be collated and analysed at the end of the 12-month period.”
That is utter tosh, and whoever at Social Services supplied the story to IOM Newspapers to reprint verbatim knows that.
I and one other steering committee member, along with Fiona Robinson, attended the meeting of government agencies at which the database details were to be thrashed out. A two page questionnaire provided by Shelter was offered as an ideal template . The public sector time wasters who could be bothered to turn up and claim overtime disliked that so much they reduced it to a ‘manageable’ 14 questionnaire, then took it away and further reduced it to 10 questions.
Curiously, most of these were directly or indirectly about racial origin. Even curiouser, none of the questions left would produce evidence of the major problems which cause Manx homelessness, such as the racism, sexism and homophobia of evangelical Christians and relevant public sector staff (some are notoriously both), their unavailability for advice or help at key crisis points, slum landlords and in particular properties run by front companies for local politicians, the absurd qualifying rules for local government housing which mean, in effect, you can only join the long lists after 10 years island residence and 5 years continual residence in one town, and so on, and so on.
Then there is: 'A multi-agency housing option programme will include input from health professionals, guidance on housing issues, benefits and finance, assistance in funding and job careers advice and training in basic maths, English, IT, social and life skills, designed to improve opportunities for funding and sustaining accommodation.'
Actually that already exists – twice!
It exists once as a program at David Gray House, the local bail hostel run by the Salvation Army. As the chairman and secretary of Kemmyrk are, coincidentally, the local Salvation Army officer and the manager of David Gray House you would think they had noticed.
It exists again as a service run between the probation service and the prison and based at the Department of Home Affairs. That is also run in conjunction with David Gray House, and the relief family liaison officer at the prison is one of the key figures at Graih, the other government run homelessness pseudo-charity.
Finally there is the worrying news that: “To try and reduce the number of young people leaving home, Kemmyrk is working with St Christopher's UK and the Department of Education on a peer education scheme.”
For the benefit of off-island readers, St Christophers UK got the contract to run secure accommodation for Manx kids after the previous service provider, also faith-led, lost it because of a double murder at a kids home. They put in by far the lowest bid and it shows. The local youth professionals I talk to, without exception, regard them as worse than useless and warn that it is now a matter of when, not if, another death or serious tragedy happens in a Manx government run care facility for kids.
In short, the Manx government are paying or taking advice from the very people abused kids leave home to avoid in the first place.
In addition, the only database capable of getting to the root of Manx homelessness has been doctored. When it first reports - which will not be to the general public - no evidence of the cause of the problem will be found, because those who know they are to blame have ensured any relevant questions cannot be asked and that evidence gathered.

Nice try,but no cigar

One of Tynwald’s good guys is making an attempt to get the empty eight bed drug & alcohol unit at Nobles open.
Politicians won’t admit this, but the hold-up is because the DHSS doesn’t want to pay trained staff the going wage. Everything else is in place – always has been, but the politicos would rather quietly refer folk who admit problems to religious parasites, who make church membership and payment of church dues a condition of treatment.
Peter Karran MHK is at least, as he says, trying to ‘break the log-jam’ and get the unit open, which he attempted in the House of Keys on 27th Jan.
Sadly, he’s also mistakenly helping to hand other people’s money to zombie-loving parasites.
At the same session he was moving another amendment to the Social Security (Amendment) Bill. His amendment, officially, would hand some of the benefits of anyone likely to stay a night with Kemmyrk or Graih directly to the hostel management. This could allow both a directly state-run homelessness charity and a confidentially state-run homelessness charity to steal further funds from the homeless.
Religious groups have a habit of invoicing the state for services not actually provided to people who don’t even know they appear on the system as having a ‘problem’. It can happen with youth services or drug and alcohol counselling. All it takes is for an enterprising ‘community worker’ to gather a list of people who sit outside the youth club, or someone who talks through an alcohol problem on church premises being encouraged to give names of others ‘so that they can be offered help’.
Will people who sleep in a doorway now mysteriously find benefits they couldn’t claim for lack of an address being paid to a ‘charity’ for a bed they never occupied?

Homelessness, Sweet Homelessness

The Kemmyrk newsletter dropped through my door this week.
Kemmyrk (Manx Gaelic for 'Shelter') is the island's homelessness charity (in theory), and I was on the steering committee that set it up last year. In fact, I even named it.
But I doubt Kemmyrk could get accepted as a bona fide charity anywhere except the Isle of Man, because the hands of government and faith groups who now benefit are too obvious.
I got involved from the first public meeting - partly because I have a 20 year record of campaigning against Manx homelessness, partly by being the only person in the hall without a vested interest to volunteer, but mostly to ensure the parties planning to steer the venture could not just rubberstamp what had been previously agreed in private.
At least that one was a genuine 'public meeting', packed with ordinary people wanting to get something done. However, after another two months trapped in a room with rabid evangelicals I had great empathy with Alan Johnston.
At the second public meeting launching the charity the rot was setting in, with a last minute venue switch from a government building to the island’s biggest Baptist church. This meant evangelicals, not the general public, attended and duly elected their stooges to run the charity.
I left so depressed that I quipped in the next print column of Clinging To A Rock that perhaps now we needed a charity to protect the homeless from being exploited and humiliated by the Manx homelessness charity.
I still hung on in there, most importantly to ensure Kemmyrk and the government set up a database to which all relevant agencies supplied information via a questionnaire, which would gradually establish the real nature and forms of Manx homelessness, and demolish the folk myths peddled by faith groups trying to beg donations for non-existent 'community work'.
I was partly successful. The questionnaire model used was supplied by Shelter, and was detailed enough to reveal factors in homelessness like racism, sexism or homophobia, as well as government ineptitude or inter-departmental lack of communication. Then the 'invisible hands' whittled it down to a 10 question form, thus removing all evidence of their own role in perpetuating such problems.
The newsletter is worrying. It uses photos obviously lifted from US evangelical material,which suggest to me those involved favour the US model - run down public sector services and hand them over to churches as pay-off for the 'faith vote'.
It also mentions residents being 'invited' to join a community liason group for Kingswood House, the government building leased to Kemmyrk as a night shelter. Actually local residents and politicians demanded the committee to prevent repetition of the situation with David Gray House - the Salvation Army bail hostel - which Braddan Commissioners (local council) were astonished to find is being relocated to their area after the Department of Home Affairs pushed through planning permission without even consulting them.
Significantly, two David Gray House officials are now the chairman and secretary of Kemmyrk - though to be fair I proposed the secretary myself as at least he had the decency to turn up to some steering committee meetings and prove his worth! Also, to be fair to the local faith community, I know there are Christians involved in pushing for homelessness action as frustrated as me.
Still, there will be many Manx people in housing dificulty this winter, and neither government nor their puppet charity are likely to tackle the root causes - which, to me, centre on faith based bigotry and government 's lack of interest in doing their duty to any Manx citizen with a less than six figure income.