CNJ home page leads with closure of Kingsgate Community Centre

I have just been alerted to this by way of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group e-list:

http://camdennewjournal.com/article/kingsgate-community-centre-to-close-down-due-to-covid-losses

Camden New Journal home page leads with Kingsgate Community Centre closure
while rolling home page headline reads:
'Experts warn of a catastrophic economic event that may hurt economies financially'

CNJ: Kingsgate Community Centre to close down due to Covid losses:
Sad day for Camden as association's board of directors file for liquidation

Richard Osman of the CNJ writes:

USERS and supporters of a community centre in West Hampstead have been left shocked this evening (Thursday) after its board of directors announced it will not re-open after the coronavirus crisis.

The Kingsgate Community Association had largely relied on hiring out its building – the Kingsgate Community Centre in Kingsgate Road – but saw its revenue wiped out by the pandemic and is now filing for liquidation.

The nursery on the site will also remain closed.

Camden Council owns the building and said this evening that it was determined that it would be used for community use in the future....

[More at http://camdennewjournal.com/article/kingsgate-community-centre-to-close-down-due-to-covid-losses ]

As I see it, it's in line with 'The Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

and how the Central Government diktat that community centres should act "more like businesses and less like charities [code for less like the 'charity cases' Disaster Capitalists attack as they set about the Corporate Demolition of the Welfare State

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-researchers-book-exposes-corporate-demolition-of-welfare-state/

)

In early 2017 before I left London, the CEO of Kingsgate Community Association gave a talk to Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG, aka 'Kwug') about Government demands that local community centres should "act more like businesses" while expecting less subsidisation from local government. When I moved to Tory-controlled Herefordshire later that year, I got a taste of the prospective consequences for places like Kingsgate Community Centre, and why it was unlikely that community facilities in a Tory-borough would be hosting meetings of 'the underprivileged of working age'. The frontage of my new local community in one of Hereford's lower income areas cried out for volunteers.

Kingsgate CC as a hub for personal transformation for the least privileged

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's regular meetings on a weekly basis at Kingsgate Community Centre while I was with them from early 2012 to the time I left London gave my life a renewed sense of purpose after my years of jobsearch as a disabled jobseeker proved fruitless in terms of 'getting me a job', and my disappointments as an activist within political parties.

Before lockdown, Kingsgate Community Centre was fully accessible to people of limited mobility at least, and quite a few attended the weekly term-time meetings of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG). KUWG activists had demonstrated volubly outside Kilburn and other local jobcentres and the phony 'disability assessment centres', talking with people at risk of benefit cuts who then attended our meetings at Kingsgate CC, got support with their claims and returned to us at Kingsgate CC as satisfied customers while too many going though what they would have otherwise gone through were at much greater risk of corporate homicide dressed up as suicide.

My last official role  other than Web Log editor within Kwug was as attendance monitor, in line with the Equality & Diversity criteria of LB Camden as principal funder of our meeting facility and the responsibilities imposed upon Kingsgate Community Centre as a beneficiary of public funds.

https://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/search?q=attendance+figures

The then newly appointed CEO of Kingsgate Community Centre told us he was delighted by the diversity he saw before him at that meeting.

Thursday, 19 October 2017

Toghether we are stronger. Join us!

Together we are stronger. Join us!

Some equality & diversity attendance statistics from when this blog editor was Kwug's attendance monitor

KUWG meeting attendance figures, 6 Jan-to-28 Apr 2014

KUWG meeting attendance figures, 14 Apr-to-14 Jul 2014

KUWG meeting attendance figures,24 Jul-to18 Sep 2014

Closure of accessible public facilities highlights the government lie that they will protect the most vulnerable

That was before the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) closed Kilburn and other local jobcentres, isolating disadvantaged claimants more and more while making them travel further as a Kwug-led demonstration outside DWP HQ highlighted.

Save Our Job Centres — a 1 minute 45 seconds video by Shootroot

Video of demo outside DWP HQ, Caxton House, Monday 6 November 2017


This video was originally posted at https://youtu.be/p8jnYVjqtfQ ...

Further, people incapable of using a computer unaided were compelled to claim benefits online by default, while cuts in council funding led to loss of Social Services for the most vulnerable, as KUWG's friend Kate Belgrave has highlighted.

Learning/literacy difficulties & can’t use online Universal Credit? “Find a friend to help,” says DWP. This is dire

Posted on October 12, 2017

21

Yesterday, I rang the Universal Credit helpline number (0345 600 4272) to ask about DWP support for Universal Credit claimants who have learning and literacy difficulties, and who struggle to use computers. (I’ve posted a transcript of a recording I … Continue reading →

What now?

I would advise those with reading speed and stamina and sufficient Internet Literacy to download a free Portable Document Format (pdf) copy of Kate's book that results from her talking with people facing benefit cuts.

'Abusing Power: How an aggressive austerity state shaped people's politics and lives'e-book by Kate Belgrave available to download until early October 2020from https://nx10568.your-storageshare.de/s/LJ2ajSRXYYt7z8e#pdfviewer

Kate is a responsible journalist following the diktats of the National Union of Journalists Code of Ethics more than any corporate mass media diktats.

National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct

 
One of the most dreadful things about closure of public facilities for the most vulnerable is that isolating vulnerable people is in tandem with the capacity of the 'austerity state' and its lies to go unchallenged as the lies about 'strivers and shirkers' continue to be financed by public funds. As someone has said, democracy presupposes information.

And yes, it is very much a time to get more active in supporting the future of Kingsgate as a community resource, and people giving personal testimony regarding how Kwug's ability to meet regularly at a local community facility was a life-saver and life-transformer for them that should be extended to others. But I also believe that the campaign should be wider than just the London Borough of Camden, and be a national one.

Alan Wheatley

Herefordshire City of Sanctuary and asylum seeker and refugee prospects elsewhere

Herefordshire City of Sanctuary home page

Hereford is Herefordshire's City of Sanctuary. The Herefordshire City of Sanctuary home page says:

We are creating a culture of welcome and belonging in Hereford

What do we do?

We run a weekly Drop-In on Friday Mornings between 10-12 a.m. at the Friends Meeting house, King street, Hereford for such things as help with English, local information, and craft activities.

Some volunteers are matched with refugees who have asked for specific help.

Not every place in Europe is truly welcoming of asylum seekers and refugees though, as a new film '21 Miles' illustrates. More at Camden New Journal website.

Dan Carrier of Camden New Journal reviews the fact-based film '21 Miles'

Frank Dobson MP, RIP

An advantage for me of staying in touch with my old home freebie the Camden New Journal is of course updating me about my old locale and the people there and getting more information about them.

Along those lines, I discover with some sadness the death of my 2010/15 MP Frank Dobson has died, but celebrate his previous existence. He became my MP by way of boundary changes in 2010. My 1992-2010 MP in Hampstead & Highgate constituency had been Glenda Jackson until boundary changes led her to contest and win the 2010 General Election by just 24 votes in the Hampstead & Kilburn seat, while my home constituency became the Holborn & St Pancras seat with Frank Dobson as MP.

(I also recall from my being in Camden Town Hall for the count on polling day at General Election 2010, that he said he loved being voted for by people he lived among. At that same count was Glenda Jackson, who had not moved from London SE3 to live in the Hampstead & Highgate constituency.)

As my MP he was much more approachable than Glenda Jackson ever had been, and I remember conversing with him sometime during the 2010/15 period as we walked through Westminster near Houses of Parliament. I can't recall what had brought us to walking together that day, and though I was a firm Green Party member at that stage and even a Spokesperson on Social Security, we spoke affably.

Later, with the help of disability activists from Women with Visible & Invisible Disabilities and Payday Men's network, I got his intervention when I had been summonsed too frequently to disability benefit assessments for Employment & Support Allowance. I was no longer bothered after that.

Frank was very much demonised by the right wing press for his insistence on not moving out of council housing in the nearly 40 years that he was an MP. While I shall let former Peace News editor Albert Beale tell more about his conversations with Frank Dobson, I shall just quote this from his tribute letter re Frank Dobson:

I remember, when he was elevated to Secretary of State for Health in the Blair government, bumping into him setting off on foot for Westminster (with his overnight red boxes of ministerial papers having been driven off in his official car without him), and him explaining that since he was in charge of health, he needed to set an example and shape up a bit…

Albert Beale pays tribute to the late Frank Dobson MP

Camden New Journal: HS2 report 'whitewash'

Tom Foot reports: Lord Berkeley, who worked on the report into escalating costs of HS2, distances himself from the leaked findings. Follow link to CNJ website

LB Camden to hold its own rally vs UK Parliament shut down

Originally published at Camden New Journal

Camden to hold its own rally against parliament shutdown

Demo to be staged in Russell Square on Saturday

29 August, 2019 — By Richard Osley





A RALLY against Boris Johnson’s decision to shut down parliament – a move widely seen as a measure to make it harder for MPs to oppose a no deal Brexit – is to be held in Camden this weekend.

Labour council leader Georgia Gould said this evening (Thursday) that opponents to a crashing divorce from Europe and the Prime Minister’s prorogation tactics were uniting for the event in set up for  Russell Square.

Cross-party speakers will take over the park on Saturday for the ‘Camden Defends Democracy Rally’ from 10,30 am with organisers urging residents to show the strength of feeling by joining them there.
Cllr Gould will be joined by Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq, Holborn and St Pancras MP Sir Keir Starmer, Camden Unison branch secretary Liz Wheatley, Sian Berry, a councillor in Camden and also the Green Party’s national co-leader, and representatives from the Liberal Democrats.


After the rally, campaigners will head to a national protest outside Downing Street.

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SEE ALSO ‘OUTRAGE’ AS BORIS JOHNSON SHUTS DOWN PARLIAMENT IN BREXIT BATTLE

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“Camden will not stand by and watch an unelected Prime Minister trample on our democracy to force through a ‘no deal’ Brexit,” said Cllr Gould. “Camden is proud of our diverse community, our connections to Europe, our EU citizens, our openness and we stand in solidarity with our allies across the UK and EU making their voices heard..”

Around three quarters of Camden residents who took part in the 2016 EU referendum voted to remain in the union.

Camden New Journal: Citizens Advice office is closed in cash squeeze - article not yet published at Camden New Journal website

Blow after long queues outside centre 

Citizens Advice office is closed in cash squeeze 

By Tom Foot 

Camden's Citizens Advice service is to shut down its service in Kentish Town and stop providing walk-in sessions. Chief executive Margie Butler told the New Journal yesterday (Wednesday) the CAB will leave the building it has shared with Camden Community Law Centre in Prince of Wales Road on September 9. It will continue to operate out of its second base in Robert Street at the Regent's Park estate, but there will be no more walk-in sessions.

Clients needing support on matters ranging from benefits to immigration will be able to book face-to-face appointments with advisers. But there is a push towards more advice being given over the phone while there will be more "outreach" projects in foodbanks, health centres and libraries, said Ms Butler.

"We've been working on this for some time," she said. "We are not funded by central government and we rely on funds from the council, charitable trusts and foundations.

"We have to look at the resources and how best to use them. We know we are going to have to change to continue to deliver our service. We can't just open our doors for everybody."

With devastating cuts to legal aid and council budges over the past 10 years, large numbers of people queue daily outside the CAB's offices to speak to advisers or one of more than 100 volunteers. Clients in an "emergency" will be able to drop in for help, Ms Butler said.

Funding to provide advice in GP surgeries has recently been taken away by Camden's Clinical Commissioning Group.

Companies House documents show that in the past few weeks four members of the charitable trust running the CAB have quit. Ms Butler said this was not connected to the decision to close the Kentish Town operation, adding: "It can be a challenge to find people with skills, and have time to undertake the work as a trustee."

Cllr Jonathan Simpson, cabinet member for promoting culture and community services, said: "The have explained to us that they are continuing face-to-face support on an appointment basis for residents who have complex problems that cannot be dealt with by phone. We will continue to monitor the quality and outcomes achieved for our residents."

He added that £7 million was being invested over the next seven years to "support independent organisations to provide a range of advice services for residents needing support."

(The print article that has yet to appear at Camden New Journal website adds:
See Comment, page 11
Letters, page 14

Tell Camden New Journal what you think. Email your comments to Letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk or write to Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, NW1 9DR)