Letters: I was homeless once. Now I'm filled with gratitude for how my life turned out

Being homeless wasn’t the end

At the age of 16 my father threw me out on the street. I lived under bridges and found a place in Croydon’s Wellesley Road for homeless people, and then moved to a place in King’s Cross, London. It was here my life changed. I watched a man die opposite me in a single bed; every morning he would reach down and drink a strong beer and take tablets. I decided I did not want to end up like this. 

I started to read books like Think and Grow Rich, and my life started to change. I got a flat in Dulwich from the council and started a career as an entertainer. I spent around 44 years travelling around the world working for royalty, TV, and even appeared in a Bollywood movie with Shah Rukh Khan. Covid killed my career, but my life is filled with gratitude and happiness to know where I started from.

I was inspired to write after reading about the homeless French man in your article who played piano at the train station and changed his life. 

Owen

Responses to: Why we must end the stigma of women experiencing abuse  

In France, AXA insurance have added domestic violence support to their standard home insurance package. So if someone needs to leave for safety, accommodation costs are covered, along with some other bits. This should be universal.

Rachel Bee, Facebook

There should be no stigma just condemnation of the perpetrator but in a lot of cases they get away with it!

Denise Leech, Facebook

Do you write about many issues affecting men given how most homeless are men? The ONS figures show domestic abuse is almost at parity. Why the gendered language? Most of your service users will be male and research suggests a vast majority will have been abused. This is quite insensitive.

John Hodgson, Facebook

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Profit and loss

In response to Subahu Shah’s letter, I’ve been renting out a large, shared flat in London for 22 years. It’s always been profitable and the mortgage is now paid off. We don’t use an agent, which keeps our costs down.  

I also know a landlord who wanted a property empire off the back of rising property prices. They ended up with 10 properties but their scheme fell apart when interest rates went up and they had to sell five to stay afloat. Some landlords don’t understand simple economics. 

I don’t particularly welcome the takeover of private renting by large companies but if the Renters’ Rights Act is scaring away landlords, then maybe they are the landlords who need to be scared away. 

Robert Williams

Read more:

• How many people are homeless in the UK? And what can you do about it?
• There is no single image of a ‘homeless person’. Let’s bust the myths about homelessness
• Everything you need to know about Labour’s homelessness strategy

Gone to the dogs

While I appreciate many people love their dogs, please spare a thought for those of us with a different view. Dogs bring many benefits, but there are also societal problems associated with them. You say dogs help save the NHS £2.45 billion a year, but you are only looking at one side of the equation. Nearly 10,000 people are hospitalised each year due to dog bites. And sadly a number of people, often children or babies, are killed by dogs.

There were 31,920 dog attacks in 2023. Then we have dog poo. Dog bins have to be emptied – in our town it costs £16,000 a year, at the expense of council taxpayers.

So love your dog by all means, but don’t expect us all to make a fuss of it next time it comes bounding towards us. Last time, I got bitten!

Steve Cieslik, Chepstow

Responses to: Millionaires tell Rachel Reeves: tax us more or lose to Reform  

Taxing the rich at ever-higher rates is counterproductive because wealthy people move their money, investments and businesses elsewhere, shrinking the tax base and hurting job creation. High taxes punish the risk-taking that lifts living standards. And the idea that government should heavily tax “the rich” to redistribute wealth is a soft form of socialism. This approach has repeatedly failed because it destroys incentives, slows growth and leaves everyone worse off.

@Kisskiss, TikTok

The top 1% pay 30% of all taxes and take very little out. The bottom 50% pay 10% of the taxes and take everything they can out. But apparently it the wealthy who are the problem? We deserve the mess we are in!

@phoenix134, TikTok

It’s just so obvious that the extremely wealthy aren’t paying enough tax. There is no way to deserve the amount of money that some people have, and its corrosive effect on our democracy and wellbeing is undeniable.

Fergus Murray, Facebook

Each and every government that comes to power is kept in power by the super wealthy in the shadows –
in the UK and overseas. They will indirectly have the government in their pockets and in their hands. 

Labour is not going to tax the billionaires any extra.

Shaheen Hamadani, Facebook

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