A squat? I don’t think so

Last night when we arrived at the porch we sleep in, we discovered a couple had taken possession of it and were in a corner trying to look like they were hot for each other, but other than that not moving at all. So bogus, you would think they had just met and didn’t even like each other. They stayed in the porch for what must have been a very long, boring and cold 55 minutes.

So, two nights ago it was a worker that wanted us out of the porch for the night because he was going to do handiwork inside the building – but couldn’t open the door with the keys he had … and last night this couple. It doesn’t take rocket science to work out the latest idea of the Metropolitan Police: to put people in our porch, our guess is, with the intention that we voluntarily abandon it – too much hassle. They should put next a homeless, lying on cardboard, with a few cans of beer by his side. That would put us out for the night!

Declan and I have put two and two together and reached the conclusion that the police want us to move into a squat – we have heard the word “squat” quite a bit recently.

A squat! Where some homeless can assault Declan without floor staff to intervene, like in the Whitechapel Mission? Where we can be robbed, or spiked with drugs? Which the police can raid any time it pleases them, under any pretext and have us arrested? I don’t think so.

The only way the Metropolitan Police are going to get Declan and I into a squat is if in our next reincarnation – which we don’t believe in – we come back as rats. Oh, I forgot, we are not going into an empty building either.

This morning we arrived at the gates of the Sisters of Mercy run Dellow Centre at 7.30am to do our weekly laundry and were first in the queue. (The Dellow Centre doesn’t open until after 9.15am but if we don’t arrive that early, chances are we will not be given a washing machine.)

Having been told by the worker in charge of laundry that yes I can do a laundry, I nevertheless discovered when I came out of the washroom – Declan was still changing his clothes in the men’s washroom – that two homeless were in the laundry room getting undressed at breakneck speed into the only two washing machines available. When I pointed out to them that I have been outside since 7.30am and was first in the queue, they laughed me off. When I pointed out to the worker that he had told me that I could do a laundry, he says sorry, that my name wasn’t on the list and the two homeless could carry on – which they were doing anyway.

This morning also, but after the laundry business, Declan collected his new badge to sell The Big Issue from our co-ordinators in Liverpool Street – current badges become obsolete from this coming Thursday. The co-ordinators didn’t have my badge though. So Declan and I decided it was in our interest to take a bus and collect it from head office rather than have a lunch. Oh well …