Housing Shortage

    The other morning as I headed up to Vauxhall tube station I saw a group of commuters standing on the pavement, looking at a gang of policemen on the other side of the road. One of the policemen had an iron bar and was wrenching a sheet of corrugated iron off a window of an abandoned shop. I looked up to the top windows and saw that it was not abandoned after all. There were squatters living inside, one of whom could be seen frantically pacing back and forth in the makeshift bedroom. The crowd milled about, smugly enjoying the theatre. An old geezer now approached where I was standing, wheeling his bicycle on the pavement beside him. He looked disgustedly at the policemen. And then he yelled at the top of his voice, "Go and arrest some real criminals, you fucking cunts!" Several in the crowd clapped and one elderly woman cried, "Yes!"
    The policeman with the iron bar pulled the metal off and it fell with a clatter, revealing some old couches and a mattress inside. I could have stayed to watch the conclusion of the eviction, but I didn't particularly wish to witness the pathetic sight of someone being turned out into the street, with all their meagre possessions, in front of a crowd of vultures, so I hurried on for my train. 
   In the evening, when I returned, the shop was boarded up afresh with new sheets of metal and chains. It made me wonder about the mentality of the owner, who would obviously prefer his decrepit shop to sit empty and mouldering rather than house two or three homeless persons, who, from the brief glimpse I got in the morning, had made a relatively clean and tidy haven for themselves.

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