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Lost Community

GeoffBosworth195661
GeoffBosworth195661 Community member Posts: 161 Pioneering
It may be strange for me to give a heading of this type but in the reality of life we do have a lost community. 

After giving a seminar at Keele University and other Universities on this topic I ask one question which I found that a link as being lost into society. How many know people next door to you or across the road. This is just one issue as we must not forget how many community centres where lonely people used to go and visit for half day or full day.  Cuts in the last 10 yrs scale have plummeted by 63% around the country and slowly it is increasing. Community are becoming further away and with parts of the country are effected more than others it will be a matter of time it will be a full reality of lost community.

After hearing of a 88 YR lady who had no family and worked as a nurse all he life helping others had been in her home curtains closed for seven weeks. It was only by a old friend who used to live in the same street before moving into a home, gave an old friend a visit. The neighbours did not know her name or spoke on both sides. Surly those days of looking out to the lonely have slowly diminishing. By opening the letterbox the lady was in the hall way and you just know how long she had been on the floor in a dressing gown. What would have happened if the community the lady loved going too and meeting up with many friends would the situation been different.We have lists after lists of closers and singles that have lost what is going on in society.

Those days have gone with life with neighbours we knew those days are over with daily communities those days are over when when things did not look right a check would have been made. We have continued cuts and sadly a lost community .

Comments

  • GizmoTiddles
    GizmoTiddles Community member Posts: 159 Pioneering
    It's a sad sign of the times I believe.
    Use to look forwards to the community get together doing the and weekend cutting the old folks grass (with a pair of hands sheres?) For 3d running errands for them knowing all of them .
    Now I am one of the old folks 
    And everyone is hiding behind CCTV and closed curtains 
    Gizmo
  • GeoffBosworth195661
    GeoffBosworth195661 Community member Posts: 161 Pioneering
    Hi @GizmoTiddles The days of honest and helpfulness was part of life. When someone on their own people pops around with a small hot meal. A small chat as this would be for that day the only chat they had communication with. Gizmo I thank people like your self of a Samaritan duty and did it to make it easier for the elderly. What you say time with age as caught up but you are an inspiration for younger fitter people to carry on where you left off, It is hard to find this now with very few with a much faster lifestyle and closed doors not even know who is your neighbours names. Thank you for sharing take care. 
  • Geoark
    Geoark Community member Posts: 1,463 Disability Gamechanger
    @GeoffBosworth195661 while I agree with much of what you say there are communities in which this does not happen and many people who do care about their communities and the people in them. Co-operatives, tenant management organisations, resident and tenant associations.

    Communities where the elderly are not simply forgotten and where people do things for one another every day. Communities where activities are organised by the people living on those estates, creating jobs, where sink estates have been turned lead by the community working with other agencies. 

    Like many communities around us we have a number of properties where leaseholders let their properties and particularly to students. Creating a significant transitional population who are more often than not seen as a problem, rather than a potential resource. From my experience the students in particular can be a fantastic resource but often one which is left untapped.

    Particularly where communities are managed by themselves services tend to be better and satisfaction is much higher, something which feeds into the landlords own figures. Often employ their own professional housing staff who get to know residents on a more personal level and are often seen as an asset rather than a hurdle.

    As cuts come in these communities often provide a better service cheaper and use the surplus to continue to improve the community and help cover some of the lost services many moan about.

    But then at the end of the day it depends on the type of community people want to live in and how far they are prepared to go to create that type of community.

    As an individual I stood alone.
    As a member of a group I did things.
    As part of a community I helped to create change!

  • GeoffBosworth195661
    GeoffBosworth195661 Community member Posts: 161 Pioneering
    Hello Geopark, My remarks have come from a survey of which was taken from North to South of understanding the culture from 1950 - 2018 The findings are from universities to get an insight of are we prepared. My answers were taken from the research by students going on taking masters. House of Lords has the acceptance which politicians of all sides responsibility to getting the balance right of which the balance cannot be 100% perfect with the mix of ya nay. 

    No matter where you live we have a complete change in the way we think with a radius of families with areas of views knowing the percentage is a tilt to negative society the UK are living in. 

    We have a fabrication of what people say and do this is never going to be all in agreement. Life is far better in the fifties of safeness and work but over time with the life style of the past. No one would now leave empty unlocked doors it is very a door is open for ladies. We have huge changes in the merit of women's rights which most still don't agree at the top of management. This goes by top ten jobs high pay positions are men. 

    We now have record levels of suicides up by 47% from January 2017 until January 2018. The forecast a further 17% increase by the end of this month.
    We were alarmed with a failure of the number of closures that even the top need our understanding of main towns. The only benefits for shops are seaside resorts and main cities.

    The future of those who have and have-nots lead to further changes and again tilt the balance. What happens with a lifetime of debts for homeowners will affect spending and this will be apart of buying changes with future forecasts 61 %. This will have to be addressed for future politicians. Again community will hurt hard when cities and resorts are affected by the forecast this is moving at a very slow pace at present.
      
    We are living in different a challenging world that time waits for no one the gap gets further apart but how many are wearing blinkers of what is going on with the vulnerable blind deaf-mute people have moved into damp conditions as no homes are available. These people in the country have nowhere to go due to close after that disability as now become a regrettably neglected by all parts people not visited and have weeks moths that died. This is in not the poor but also by the middle class. This is lost community with a room full of files that state we will have no shops the future only one, Amazone will be it. This again our future it all effects a lost community. 

    Until we understand the truth of society we will hit the wall because this will effect all. What becomes of rich and poor when this happens with ones of power as EU / Global What will become to all? Homes are for other people coming in UK family are living and will with parents.  It will not be the public what life we want with how the system will work is far from that with the community which will be directed to a complete lifestyle.     
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    These are important  points. Loneliness is as bad for the health as a pack of cigarettes  a day.  
    The untapped resources of young and old are best seen in mixed communities.  An older person who stays home a lot can take in parcels, a younger person can offer to bring shopping in bad weather.   East end close knit communities were boosted by the council habit of normally letting the flats near the staircase to seniors, so the rest of the neighbours knew they could count on a proxy auntie or granny

    A recent announcement was that orphanages must be banned, as institutions are not acceptable places for humans.  True enough.   Why, then, permit segregated ghetto institutions for disabled or old people?
  • Misscleo
    Misscleo Community member Posts: 647 Pioneering
    Well said newborn and with cuts its going to get worse.
    I have relations who are in homes. I had a lot of problems in getting parts of the family to visit them.
    Visiting is left to 4 of us
  • cracker
    cracker Community member Posts: 324 Pioneering
    It's not only in the disability community, I think it is a total change in our society's values. Email has replaced letters, phone calls and in-person relationships. People (here, US), communicate constantly on their phones but never see each other.

    And being alone, a woman without money or family and with disability makes i isolation more severe. No one is interested in the older people, the ill people.

    But I believe that applies to the "abled", too. Family life is almost nonexistent, people seldom eat together.

    Yes, we have lost community. And I have read, too, the statistics on isolation being as detrimental to health as cigarettes.


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