AFTER reading the reports and features about the Arc Light Centre, I wondered why Paul Willey chose to debase all the homeless people for having wasted part of their lives on alcohol or drug abuse (September 23).
Last year I became homeless through no fault of my own. I have never touched alcohol nor taken drugs. I was evicted from the family home when my parents died because my elder brother wanted the house for himself.
Being old I found the trauma of suddenly being without shelter very hard, even more so when I couldn't get help.
At the very last minute, when I did find a Christian hostel to take me in, I was interrogated a long time, about did I take drugs? Did I drink alcohol? And, once when I lay down to rest in a graveyard where I thought I'd be safe, some people came up to me while I was asleep and gave me a good kicking, and I suffered severe bruising.
Because your reports on the Arc Light Centre move to Shipton Road in York seem to put into people's minds that all the homeless are somehow in that state because of their own fault, it doesn't make it any easier or help the homeless lift the stigma which attaches itself to them.
Ms Kath Peek,
West Avenue, York.
Updated: 11:40 Thursday, September 29, 2005
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