This is the Message I sent to Angela Rayner the Labour MP.
The names and location have been changed or removed to protect the innocent.
Along with many Labour supporters last night, I was sleeping outside the Council Offices along with 40/50 homeless folk, to highlight the desperate plight they are facing here in the Bay …. 2 young homeless girls, Sally and Alice (names changed for their protection) helped me pitch up my tent next to theirs and we had a laugh and chatted …
The tent I had brought along was similar to theirs, so they had no problem setting the old dilapidated beach fishing shelter, I had dragged out of the shed … some of the poles were a bit rusted, theirs was a new tent Humanity X… had given a new one as their old one had been taken off them by council workers the previous night, I asked where they pitched the tent and they said in the park in X, they were really indignant! …
They went on to tell me the council worker tried to serve them with an ASBO which they refused to take, saying they had no permanent address and only the police were allowed to serve ASBO’s. The council worker said he had been given the authority to serve them to the homeless by the council ? (can’t be legal surely?) …. they told him to stuff it ….
I asked about the circumstance which had led them to living on the streets and they each told me their stories …. Heart breaking accounts but the most horrific piece of information was, Sally is dying and 26 year old Alice is her carer ! … Sally is 24 and riddled with cancer … She has terrible seizures due to her Epilepsy becoming more frequent and violent due to her brain tumour …
I told them about CBD oil and they enthusiastically said it was amazing stuff, they had used it to control the seizures and it worked almost instantaneously …. Unfortunately they had it confiscated by the police when they were sleeping in a doorway before they had a tent and they couldn’t afford to buy any more …. Alice has to phone several times a week for an ambulance and now she is allowed to stay with Sally on the ward until she recovered ….
During the early hours of the morning after the BBC camera crew had left and every one had settled down to sleep Sally had a seizure, I heard Alice talking quietly to her and I asked if there was anything I could do to help and she said there was nothing anyone could do and it was just a waiting game until the fit ended, that Sally couldn’t communicate but she could still hear and then she apologised for disturbing me bless her, crying just thinking about it … These girls shouldn’t be on the streets Angela …
Corbyn’s Labour Government can’t come soon enough xx
Lesley
