What is Operation Poncho, why not to trust street ... - The Pavement

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22 / The Pavement, September 2007 The Insider Insider’s back, with his view of life in hostels There is a trend among homelessness organisations of referring to their residents and service users as customers. We need some kind of rating system so that you, the customer, can make an informed choice before you move into a hostel. The finest minds in the industry are working on this, and some confusing shape-based rating system (I don’t think parallelogram is taken yet) will spew out of a working party some time in 2009. Well, your friendly ‘insider’ can save them the time and effort. I scribbled my own system on the back of a cigarette packet whilst trying to avoid eye contact with the people on a packed night bus. The essence of ‘The Mum Hostel Rating System’ (TMHRS) is: “If this hostel was a mum, which kind would it be?” I would not suggest for one second that all hostel residents are children; however, all hostels are – basically – trying to be your parents. Some are the baby-boomer, modern-parent types. They let you call them by their first name, carry you around in a papoose and turn a blind eye to your drug use, maybe even hinting that they dabbled in their youth… They will advocate fiercely on your behalf to other agencies such as the police or out-reach workers (fascist pig tools of the state, obviously), regardless of what you may or may not have done. They will occasionally implement a rule, but don’t worry: it will be forgotten by the end of the day. These hostels are almost impossible to get thrown out of, even if you want to, and would be pretty nice places to live if it weren’t for the fact that the other residents are also allowed to do anything they want. Unsurprisingly, conflicts are a daily event, and the staff are usually unwilling to intervene for fear of preventing the residents from expressing themselves. Some of London’s larger hostels are akin to the (possibly nonexistent) Daily Mail “dole mum” whose kids run riot, annoying the neighbours, while she sits on the sofa smoking fags and watching the government money roll in. The obvious drawback to living here is the constant chaos and the feeling of anonymity – it’s not great when your mum doesn’t remember your name. Some London hostels, essentially run by religious organisations, would be an initially kindly, religious mum who possibly lost her virginity and had kids at quite an advanced age. They will be tolerant and sympathetic, and may see your problems as a phase you are going through – nothing some mild (barely religious) religion and a good, hot old-fashioned meal won’t cure. After trying this approach for a while, they might become exasperated if you haven’t changed to their liking and suddenly become the mum from Carrie… They probably won’t lock you in a cupboard with a Bible and a torch, but may move you on to somewhere that would suit you better – probably another hostel, possibly the streets. A fairly pleasant, if boring, place to live, but you may tire of naïve and simplistic solutions and the ever-present feeling that you are being judged. Next: the hostels that if they were a mum would be TV’s terrifying Supernanny. These will be very strictly ‘boundaried’ and any breach will be met by a demonstration of the staff’s comprehensive understanding of the patronising dog trainer tone of voice. Superficially, they will not get angry, nor will their demeanour change, even though they perpetually remind you of the rules of the establishment and the boundaries of your relationship with them. Almost any comment, conversation or behaviour could be seen as a transgression. Living in this type of hostel can be a daily tightrope walk over a pit of ‘inappropriateness’. And, of course, they will have their own version of the naughty step: back to the streets! So these are the most common types of hostels. Among the less common types covered by THMRS are the parents who went to a festival in the mid-Seventies and instead of going home at the end, ran off to a teepee community somewhere cold in Wales. The main problem is the confusion over who the parents are – the ‘staff’ or you? If it’s you, how did you suddenly become a parent when you just wanted somewhere to live? So there you have the HMRS, soon to be adopted by the rest of the industry. Let us know what you think of it and what improvements could be made. And, of course, tell us what kind of mum your hostel is. Insider • If you’re anything to add to Insider’s rating system, or even rate the hostel you’re in, get in touch with the author at: Inside@thepavement.org.uk
The Pavement, September 2007 / 23 Cold Turkey Putting methadone into perspective Can I – with my hand on my heart, and looking at the broader picture – take money from the government as a drugs worker? Do I trust what is going on in the drugs business? To be perfectly honest, the answer would have to be ‘No’. Any agency or individual taking money from the government to deliver their drug strategy is legitimising the government’s stance on drug prohibition. By aligning myself with government strategy and taking the ‘king’s shilling’, I am complicit in supporting a prohibition which, in my opinion, does not work. I could also be seen as being complicit in providing services that are ineffective and unfit for purpose. I could also be accused of indirectly supporting a worldwide coalition of countries which imprison, in some extremes execute, and in most cases scapegoat, pathologise, medicalise and criminalise people for using one substance as opposed to another. Once our government made the link between drugs and crime, all bets were off. They showed their hand and (in poker parlance) it wasn’t the royal flush they had promised: it was more a sad little pair of sevens. This sad little pair was not about helping the individual, but about the government maintaining its position on prohibition and winning the losing war on drugs, whatever the cost. This was done, in part, under the banner “treatment works” but it failed clearly to define what treatment is or was. Methadone treatment and prescribing have to be viewed with this in mind and in this wider context. And methadone has to be viewed with a healthy amount of caution and scepticism. Dressing its prescription up as ‘treatment’ is an out-and-out liberty. Statements such as “higher doses of methadone keep people engaged in treatment longer” make me shudder. What a corruption of the English language. Drug dealers have being saying the same thing for years: “I have the biggest and the best deals on the block. If I didn’t turn off my mobile, people would be ringing me 24/7”. Look at crack houses and the old opium dens… The reality is that using high doses makes methadone a real hard drug to come off. Once addicted to it, people stay on it for years. Many addicts don’t want to go on it, and who can blame them? If we can accept that people use drugs for pleasure and to escape from their internal conflicts, methadone use gives the user no real pleasure and only numbs the issues. It’s an emotional crutch with no pleasure quotient. No fun at all. What a boring, insidious little drug it is – eeeehhh, nasty. Mind numbing indifference by the millilitre, a glorified cough linctus! It’s little wonder that the majority of users drink or inject illicit drugs on top of their prescribed dosage. Methadone prescription is all stick with very little carrot and engenders little real positive change in the individual’s thinking or behaviour: it’s about compliance, coercion and control. If people use illicit drugs (though not alcohol) on top of their prescription, they will be taken off their methadone programme. This is not a bad thing, but here comes the clincher: if clients use on top, they can also have their methadone increased to stop ’em “using illicits”. And if they don’t comply with the increase, they can be thrown off their script. And lastly, just to add to this cacophony of pottiness… A recent article in Drink and Drug News on homelessness and drugs stated: “When treatment and housing services do work together effectively, the benefits include lower rates of both repeat homelessness [OK] and anti-social behaviour [Ookaay], and that people are far more likely to stay in treatment programmes”. Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I thought the point was to get people out of treatment programmes (the current focus is about in not out) and living successful, independent lives in the community. Not forever trawling from one service to another or from one treatment regime to another (DIP, hostel, third-stage, street, hospital, social services, prescribing services, benefits, prison, CARATs, Detox, GPs, needle exchange, probation, rehab etc etc). And lastly – and I mean it, now! If the only fast track into treatment in many boroughs is for methadone prescribing, thanks but no thanks! Andrew Zapletal
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