| |
Who’s to blame for decline of Arlington House?
• I WORKED at Arlington House for 10 years and when I arrived in the early 1990s it was the biggest and best of the hostels in London providing a range of healthcare, dependency, life skills and resettlement options for the 400 men there.
Over the years all of these services were eroded particularly healthcare. By the time I left the biggest “wet” hostel in Europe had no nurse or alcohol worker or indeed any doctor’s surgery.
Camden Council were as much to blame as Novas for the running down of an exemplary service but Novas must carry the can for the disastrous, hubristic excursions into art and fashion which resulted in all the ridiculous follies of recent years
Central government and the Housing Corporation have to take responsibility too: there were plenty of audits which must have somehow missed the wasted husks of men isolated in their grotty rooms. By the time the renovations started which at least held out the prospect of better living conditions for the men Camden and Novas decided they wanted them out as they had plans for a “new kind of hostel”. Of course, anyone who has experience of the homeless sector these “new” initiatives come along every few years before sinking into inertia.
Most of the men have now moved into new rooms in the partly renovated building but they are more isolated than ever as, under the new security system they only have access to the corridor where they live and there are no communal spaces, there are no cooking facilities in any of the rooms and there is only a limited canteen providing meals on wheels once a day.
As the Housing Corporation must be near its end, can we hope they have learned some hard lessons, albeit at the expense of some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged men in London.
Name and address supplied
|
 |
|
|
|
Your comments:
Don't work for novas scarmana website dedicated to keeping the thoughts of workers and former workers of novas scarman http://dontworkfornovasscarman.blogspot.com/
Danny
|
| |
