Life in one of the most violent cities in Western Europe eventually catches up with us even when we cocoon ourselves in our own safe little lives.
As the blog implies, my home is at the very top of an ex council tower block in Glasgow. The block is now owned and managed by GHA (Glasgow Housing Association). In the old days when the tower blocks were first built to help alleviate the slums and enable to demolition of the slums to pave a way for social progress, a tower block address was a very desirable thing.
When the slums were cleared and the mostly working class of Glasgow sought to be rehoused in what was then luxury accommodation by comparison to where they had come from, three references were required to be considered for a flat in these buildings.
Even now the housing officers call them streets in the sky. However life in the tower block is not what it was 50 years ago. These days its mostly people without references and the accommodation allocation is hugely varied. To aggravate the situation GHA allocate a large number of flats to the Hamish Allan Centre Homelessness team. These allocated flats have transient occupants that have no desire to invest in the communities they have been housed amongst.
Of course a large number of homeless individuals that are being allocated the flats in the tower blocks cannot get accommodation anywhere else. They are often newly released from prison, cyclical homeless addicts that don't pay their rent but have to be rehoused because they are vulnerable. I am not for a minute saying these groups are not needy and in fact, I suspect that they are being provided for on paperthin budgets that keep the system afloat with a sellotape like effect on continuously reducing budgetary allocation.
This blog is not about them singularly and the social condition that perpetuates their existence. That's for another day. It appears that the system has become one of pot luck however. When I accepted my flat on the top floor of one of the best views in the city, I didn't realise that only two of the six homes were permanent. The other four flats are homeless allocation and I can find myself with new neighbours as often as three or four times a year in one flat alone. Multiply that by four - and you'll get the picture - no consistency for me, my family and other permanent neighbours.
Of course you would expect the council to consider a duty of care when they house violent offenders next door to vulnerable people with disabilities and small children, but that seems to be something that local authorities are exempt from. Aside from that its wholly irresponsible to house a person with a sever psychotic mental health problem on the top floor, unless of course its deliberate because by him jumping, there would be one less case for the overworked homeless officer to worry about. I kid you not, If I hadn't of called in the GHA housing officer there would almost certainly have been an unnecessary death.
Unsurprisingly it was only a matter of time before it became my turn to be on the receiving end of violence. Attacked at my front door by a drug addled, inebriated offender on licence. Only 20 years old and his life is already a certain misery. I survived the attack, patched up by the local hospital and fled to a safer haven to lick my wounds. He wasn't a resident in my building,but he got in nevertheless. I know the addicts in my building. I know the alcoholics. I pray with them often enough. These people need someone to listen, to care and never to repeat their darkest thoughts that they share. I really understand the hidden humanity of these people, their inner turmoil, their struggle, their anger and frustration and why they get caught in these terrible cycles that system keeps them in.
A short while after the attack, I was visited by no less than 18 other people from within the building asking me not to leave, They said I was the closest thing to a dog collar that has been in the building, one of them quite adamant that he hadnt seen one for at least 15 years (excluding the ever persistent Jehovah's witnesses). I was taken by surprise by this.
I sometimes worried that my offers of prayer were seen as intrusive and something they didn't really want. But it turns out that actually for them it was often the only ever opportunity for conversations of absolute confidence. One neighbour said that social workers and doctors write everything down and use the information against them later on, Their friends that consume drugs and alcohol with them blurt out their confidences when the effect of these substances loosen their tongues, but for them for eighteen months I was the one person that never repeated their words to another soul. They knew it was safe and by sharing in prayer with them, I gave them hope. They would never turn up at my door drunk or high because they knew this was the one boundary not to cross. If they did while coming down or trying to lift themselves up, I would usually send them to bed until they felt we could manage a coherent conversation later.
Several of them, with substantial prison histories asked me if I wanted my attacker "sorted" out in prison. Apparently it could be be arranged with consummate ease. It was the only way they felt that they could return my very small acts of kindness. And so to their confusion I asked for something quite different. I asked that if "sorting him out" was such an easy task, could they arrange for him "to be kept safe"? A couple of days later I heard a knock on the door and was told that he was safe as long as he didn't break the rules inside.
Violence came as a twofold gift for me last Christmas. It shed light on my calling. The ministry that I received through baptism. I engage well with those trapped in a world of inequitable social environments, whose only way to get through it is with drugs and violence and moreso because I was able to show just one or two of them that they can use that little bit of power that they have to non violent ends. Whether it is in the townships of South Africa or the drug fuelled estates of Glasgow, I engage and am accepted by those around me. My ministry is amongst those that have no access to Christ.
The second gift was to channel the violent retribution on my attacker by those who expressed my value to them into the exact opposite. A second chance and a safe one. The messenger who knocked on my door asked me out of curiosity why I asked for his safety rather than his head and I replied: Because when he is sober enough and clean enough and able to talk to me, I want to go and visit him and tell him he is forgiven and that when he leaves that prison he and only he can choose never to go back. And that his safety in prison was not mine to provide, but a gift from Christ.
After all WWJD.
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