the fourth place

I just had an interesting conversation with a guy from Shelter who'd been doorstepping me for a few days and I'd managed to fob off several times.

He did a pretty great job of not showing his real anger when I finally got around to telling him I wan't going to give to Shelter because they lobby Government for hand outs. I told him "I don't want Governments to do things, to build houses", which I don't. I'm simply not persuaded that it would really help, certainly without propping up house prices, or creating bigger issues such as the flooding of homes built on flood plains.

The particular thing they want from the Government was more housing and better lawyers and legal support for people in danger of loosing their homes. At the same time though, he was able to tell me that Shelter do provide their own lawyers in these situations and that this makes a lot of difference. If I was able to support that - only - I'd have been sold. We also agreed that buildings are frequently wasted. I can think of at least three buildings just on the highstreet that are empty and this is, in the least, a shameful waste of great architecture.

We had a conversation about how this could be addressed by charities. He advocated state action to confiscate property and I demanded statistics on how many approaches to buy property from landlords had been unsucessful.

I guess this boils down to a philosophical point. The use of force to acheive moral aims being wrong, or not. Do we use veiled threats to force taxpayers to pay for homes or give them up, or do we ask those able to pay or provide properties to do so vountarily? Is charity action a replacement for the use of force or an excuse for the Government to avoid unpopular taxes? I've listened to the arguments for voluntarism and the only half decent argument I've heard against it is that the scale of the problem is too large, with which I counter that the ambitions of charities involved in direct action are deficient.

I feel rubbish for dragging this poor guy out in the cold only to be turned away. I also feel rubbish walking by homeless people knowing thatits best not to give to them directly but not bothering to find someone better to give to. That's why I want to hear about openly right-wing charities that agree with me philosophically and which refuse to act as mere proxies for the begging that goes on in the streets.

This charity would need to work on preventing homelessness, providing cheaper housing to people without a home, or both.

Mr Bird of the Big Issue seems like a good starting point based on his assertion that:

A lot of homeless organisations never give people the opportunity of growing up and looking after themselves.

My big beef is that I think homeless people are kept homeless by the generosity of the public. That generosity gives people hope, we don't give them opportunity.

Someone at some stage has to put some big bucks into prevention, because the bath is filling up faster than it is being emptied

At first glance Emmaus look like a good active charity. Crisis let themselves down by showing off thier policy and research unit and (again at first glance) Centrepoint seem to fall into Mr Bird's category of mollycoddlers with an emphasis on short term acommodation and policy and research.

So, lots of reading, but I hope to solicit a recommendation through this post. In the meantime, I need to look after number one and find myself a meal.