The Logic of Homelessness and Sleeping Rough: Some Meditations by Uncle Len, PhD in Bumology

Once again, large bags of emails have been piling into central office, cluttering the desk space, inquiring about the fate of everyone’s favourite degenerate, Uncle Len.

I live, barely. The hot weather in the shed has produced an attack of the mutants, with cockroaches as big as cats, and rats as big as small dogs. The combined forces of Mordor have waged war against my meagre possessions. But I have fought back, bravely, with chemical weapons purchased from Billy Bunter, the local hardware store. I almost poisoned myself in the process, but I killed all of the blitters. Until tomorrow. I trust

I still have two neurons, whatever they are, to rub together to get this great article out. Now what was I saying? I can’t make out a word of what I just wrote, but hopefully the editor, blessed with ESP, will decipher something.
But as I was saying, there is a homelessness crisis in Australia, and being an eternal victim, I know something about it. (The Weekend Australian, January 14-15, 2017, p. 4)  It seems that the rise in the number of rough sleepers in big smoke cities such as Melbourne, has increased by 75 percent in the past two years because of domestic violence. I have a lot of sympathy here as my old man, a drunk, almost killed my mother many times. I even got stabbed in the arm, once, and shot at. Unfortunately, he missed me. Anyway, you don’t want to hear why I am as I am.

Awareness campaigns have led to authorities removing women and children from dangerous homes, but public housing has not increased. So the women and children get what housing is available, which is fair enough, and the blokes sleep rough in the street.

I am not implying that women should – they should not. But something needs to be done about housing for men. One bloke in Sydney has been waiting for housing since the year 2000. I think I put my name down for public housing sometime in the late 1980s and have never heard anything. Then again, I am pretty lazy and apathetic and depressed as hell most of the time, so I probably dropped off the system, not following things up. That, or nobody just cares about me, which makes sense.

The only kind thing ever done for me, was letting me rent this shed, for half of my unemployment benefit.

What can be done about shelter for homeless men? Plenty; you have come to the right place. Camping gear such as tents and swags can be obtained relatively cheaply, and the government could get a heap from Asian sweatshops. Our neglected parklands at night could become vibrant multicultural tent cities!

Assign one police officer, or security guard to look after things, and Bob’s your uncle. Or Len.

Houses, in my opinion, and I am nobody, are overrated. And, overpriced. So plenty can be done about homeless men. But I can’t help but think, when I see my brothers put down their dirty old quilts on the city sidewalks, that the elites want this display, to warn every on-looker, that if they step out of line, that will be their fate.

We are all, a few steps from becoming, an Uncle Len in the jungle of globalisation.