Shelter! Give Jason Evans a Job!

Shelter's aggressive begging team

Shelter were today on St James's Street in Kemptown aggressively begging for money. The sad irony is that Jason was in police custody at the time, probably for going up to people and asking for money thus breaching his ASBO. St Francis of Assisi certainly never reprimanded beggars, choosing to be a beggar for God Himself. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta encouraged the poor to beg. Jason's approach to begging is, at least, more respectful than asking people for their credit card/debit card details.

Further, I know that Shelter have a charity shop on Western Road, but as far as I know they don't actually do anything for the homeless in Brighton. I'd be happy to be corrected on that point.

The two chuggers I saw today on St James's Street even had the brazen audacity to do their charity mugging right in front of a guy selling The Big Issue!  I'd never busk right in front of a Big Issue seller. It's so flipping shamelessly rude!

At least if when people give a quid to Jason it goes straight to him. If you give money to Shelter, the majority of it probably just pays for running costs and staff.

From Shelter's Annual Report 2009-10, here's a breakdown of their expenditure.

Money in £51.1 million

£25,532,000 Voluntary income
£7,914,000 Shelter shops
£6,312,000 Other grants and contracts
£5,497,000 Legal Services contracts
£4,117,000 Government grants
£1,544,000 Training courses
£216,000 Other/Publications

Money out £45.9 million

£27,809,000 Housing and legal services

£6,729,000 Shelter shops

£5,404,000 Fundraising

£3,366,000 Campaigns and education

£1,166,000 Publications

£1,225,000 Training courses

£201,000 Governance

Gosh. That's a profit of £5.2 million pounds. Isn't 'charity' just so lucrative!? I wonder what happens to that.  Anyway, so, I don't know how much of the money you give to Shelter goes to actually housing homeless people. Certainly none of it goes to homeless people. God forbid that the poor should actually be given money! All I do know is that the street 'fundraisers' get about £7 an hour plus commission for getting your bank details and that they're far more irritating than Jason.

I know that they're one of the UK's biggest homeless organisations, bringing in a lot of funds and paying their staff the usual wages for the 'voluntary sector'. All in all, they're a very good job creation scheme for the middle class. I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but in respect to Jason Evans and Shelter, why is it one rule for one set of beggars and another rule, for another? Still, that, I suppose, is the way things are and the way things will always be, but it does lead me to say this...

Shelter! Give Jason Evans a job! He's far more loveable than your current staff, he knows just how to press all the right sympathy buttons, he'd earn your charity shedloads of money and he wouldn't get arrested anymore! Everyone's a winner!