Locking up time.....

This is our bin store, which we lock from dusk until dawn (when I remember). Typically when I don't remember one or more homeless people make it their bedroom for the night.

So now you are thinking that I'm being heartless and cruel to people who can ill afford such treatment (no-one would choose to sleep in a bin store afterall), and in part you are right but our visitors don't just sleep here they pull rubbish out of the bins looking for useful throw-aways and leave it strewn around the store floor. However, that's not what causes us to lock the store; it's the empty tin cans of human excrement and puddles of pish we find every time we've had a visit and the rats feeding on everything left behind which drives us to lock-up.

It makes me sad to exclude the excluded even more from my rich, warm, well fed, enjoyable life, but I was full of hope when in 1999 the Scottish Executive took over from the Scottish Office and set a target of ensuring that no-one need sleep rough by the end of 2003...clearly didn't work did it? Now the Scottish Government which has taken over from the Scottish Executive is pressing ahead with the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 . This Act intends that by 2012 every unintentionally homeless person is entitled to permanent accommodation. On the face of it, it looks pretty sound but it needs money and tight creative management. Is this administration capable?