Church and State blog: Email from the director of the WLCHC

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Email from the director of the WLCHC

This morning Declan eventually got the Civil Appeals Office in the Royal Courts of Justice to provide him with a stamped receipt for his Certificate of Service which confirms that yesterday he served on the Solicitor for the Dept for Work and Pensions/Dept of Health a sealed amended appellant’s notice (following his eventual receipt of the transcript of Judge Walker’s judgment of 11 December).

The last time he had to serve the Solicitor for the DWP/DH – having been given 3 days upon his receipt of the judge's order to file an appellant’s notice, or have his case dismissed – we decided to serve in person. On that occasion, Declan was told at the reception of the Office of the Solicitor (for the DWP/DH) that no form of receipt for post received could be provided, so we decided not to take any chances this time, just in case.

Last night Declan had another eventful night in the Monday rolling shelter at Chelsea Methodist Church, 155a Kings Road, which happens to be the address of the West London Churches Homeless Concern (WLCHC), and also of their day centre. 3 homeless guys decided to have a cut at him – 2 drunks, one of them a Pole, and a Romanian. (Yes, WLCHC runs a very multicultural rolling shelter programme, the majority of its “guests” having consumed alcohol prior to entry at 8.00pm.)

The drunk Pole put his mat in such a way that had Declan not moved away from him, his legs could have become the Pole’s pillow. The other drunk hurled abuse at Declan while he was reading his book by his sleeping bag, and it didn’t bother the guy in the slightest that he did so in front of staff and volunteers. And during the night the Romanian (we call him “Opinions”) moved a chair up against Declan’s feet, just as the homeless woman did with me two nights ago.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon Declan received a reply to his email to the director of the WLCHC. As far as Athienites is aware, there is no one currently in his shelter programme suffering from scabies, which neither Declan nor I find the slightest bit re-assuring in light of the amount of scratching that is still going on. I am sure the churches that are offering their premises to be used as rolling shelters by his organisation will be very relieved though, especially those which during the day revert back to children’s classrooms.

This is the email Athienites sent Declan:

Dear Mr. Heavey,

I am sorry if you have been made to feel anxious at the shelter regarding scabies. As far as I am aware, there is no-one currently in the shelter who has this condition. If you feel unhappy about anyone or any situation in the shelter, the best way forward is to speak to the project manager on duty that night (Danny or Katy) about your concerns, rather than get into any discussion with another guest.

As we are halfway through the shelter season, we will be replacing all the mats in the near future and also aim to provide new blankets. These will be given out as before.

I have also called you today - as requested - and left messages. I hope we can have a chat soon. I plan to be at the shelter on Wednesday this week and hope we can meet then, if needed.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Athienites
Senior Project Manager
WLCHC

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Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

Church and State blog

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Email from the director of the WLCHC

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