Keith Blake, Ottery
This is an open letter to ward councillors and business owners in the new year to consider the poor and the homeless in our various communities.
The poor will always be in our midst and we must change our attitude towards them – the unseen, the unheard and the unaccepted – and make a new year’s resolution with the poor to help from day one in 2019.
I see daily how our poor struggle to make a living, to put that little extra in their mouths, how they are treated worse than dogs.
I want to propose to the ward councillors and businesses that you have interviews with those begging in front of shops and other businesses for alms and pennies and allow them to, via a written contract of understanding and with your blessings, become car guards and parking attendants.
The best car guards and parking attendants are those you have chosen to keep law and order; you will find a dedicated all community protector who keeps control in your parking areas.
They will receive voluntary tips which amounts to a minimum wage and create employment.
You cannot ignore our poor in this time and age – become part of a possible solution by allowing a poor person to better themselves by giving them a position and the dignity we as society have denied them; the unwanted, the unseen and the unaccepted. Someone once said, “Put yourself in their position.”
