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To: Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart should Kip with Homeless Paul Atherton

Please sign this petition to encourage Rory Stewart to select Paul Atherton to #ComeKipWithMe

We want Rory to spend 24 hours with homeless man Paul Atherton so he can truly understand the problems that those without homes are facing in the Capital. Paul sleeps at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 most nights.
https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1227165803247816705

Rory has today (Tuesday 11tth February 2020) launched an initiative entitled #ComeKipWithMe to support his run to be the Mayor of London.

Why is this important?

Paul has just closed an art exhibition in the Gallery At Oxo, Paul Atherton's Greatest Londoners: A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way When You're Homeless. It was designed to change the media narrative away from simply the Street Homeless to all those who find themselves in the situation.
https://www.oxotower.co.uk/events/paul-athertons-greatest-londoners/

This is him explaining on Newsflare
https://www.newsflare.com/video/338047/other/paul-atherton-talks-about-his-groundbreaking-exhibition-paul-athertons-greatest-londoners

Paul has insights to the problem that he can elucidate clearly and knows London way better than most. He spoke at the House of Commons to Bob Blackman during his research for the Homelessness Reduction Bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xbxRe9Ud64

And advised, but was totally ignored, by the Housing Team at City Hall when he was residing in the No Second Night Hub in Shepherds Bush for over 3 months, though should have been there for no more than 48 hours.

He's even written a play about his experiences, entitled "Fifty Years Of Trying" which he describes as Kafka's "The Trial" for real as he's battled with insane bureaucracies like having to prove he's homeless "How do you prove the absence of something, it's mathematically impossible."
https://www.cptheatre.co.uk/production/big-bang-sprint-2020-1/

We'd like to see Paul take Rory through the problems with Credit Files, Estate Agents, Council Housing Offices, but mainly the failings of the DWP to assist him in getting a deep understanding of the problems of Homelessness in the capital so he can share it with the city as a whole and if he becomes Mayor, end the problem once and for all.

So we would all urge Rory Stewart to accept Paul Atherton's application to "Come Kip With Me".
https://twitter.com/LondonersLondon/status/1227237132848312321

London

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Category

Updates

2020-02-26 18:33:22 +0000

Tomorrow evening I'll be speaking with journalist and author Mary O'Hara about the very essence of this petition. How do we change the narrative used by the media and politicians when it comes to Homelessness.

The "it's your fault", "poor decisions", "it would never happen to me" mythologies need to be broken.

Mary's book explores the massive damage a single media narrative has on both the public and in turn the politics that's informed by it. Her new book The Shame Game is being launched at the RSA Thursday 27th February 2020 between 18:30 - 19:30 in a disucssion entitled Changing The Way We Talk About Poverty.

The event is SOLD OUT but you can listen to it Live here

https://www.thersa.org/events/2020/02/changing-the-way-we-talk-about-poverty

2020-02-25 16:53:23 +0000

If you are free on Thursday at 12:00 - 13:30 in the Charing Cross Road area do please come to Folyes Bookstore Gallery and join me on the roundtable, discussing the issues raised here around Homelessness.

If you want to understand how fargile your housing situation is, how impossible it is to get out of a homeless situation once you're there and the real problems with the demise of cash and housing, then please come along, ask questions, educate yourself.

It could well save your home, your family if not your life.

https://futurecity.co.uk/futurecity-invites-you-to-two-forthcoming-events-as-part-of-the-anthony-luvera-taking-place-exhibition/

2020-02-16 18:01:13 +0000

100 signatures reached

2020-02-13 12:26:00 +0000

50 signatures reached

2020-02-11 23:05:57 +0000

25 signatures reached

2020-02-11 20:25:44 +0000

10 signatures reached