What does Coronavirus mean for the homeless?

So finally we have a solution to homelessness across the capitalist world.

CORONAVIRUS

So, exactly how, Prime Minister, are we meant to wash our hands regularly, when we don't have access to a sink and soap?

How do we "self isolate", when we have no door to close?

How are we meant to work from home, when there IS no home?

Who will be there for us, when the public demonises us even more than already, for being 'dirty'?

What will become of us when frontline staff, previously helpful passers-by and volunteers, swerve us because they think we are diseased. What will happen when hospitals reject us and send us back to the streets to die?

Just when we thought we couldn't be any more unloved, this comes along to confirm our pariah status. Yet more evidence that those without a home are bottom of every priority list.

For those who have sat back and gloated, more homeless deaths will not seem like such a bad thing. Untermenschen, as the Nazis would have no doubt called us.

I've often described austerity, poverty and homelessness as a deliberate, slow, sly genocide of those considered a burden on society. The weak and the meek.

Well, now this looks set to escalate at one hell of a pace. The number of rough sleepers could start to tumble, for all the wrong reasons.

In these troubling times, please look out for your homeless brothers and sisters. They need you. And don't forget, there are enough empty buildings across this land to give shelter to our homeless, many times over.

It should be more apparent today than ever before, that no human being should be without shelter in these troubled times.

But as we retreat into our bunkers, please spare a thought, and a quid, for those at the bottom of the pile. It might cheer them up a bit. They might not have long left.

Andrew Fraser,

Author, Invisible: A Diary of Rough Sleeping in Britain.