(this is something I wrote just to introduce what kind of scenario I'm trying to portray here. I'll use parts of what I have below in the story itself, just to make it read better)
2nd April 2034.
I've been selected to go and help set a school up in what you could only describe as a city of Portakabins. This is all part of the Government's drive to re-establish education for the poor.
So out of the schools which we finally got to work, teachers (including me) were randomly selected to go spend some time out, accommodation sorted and everything, to go and teach poor kids who otherwise wouldn't have any formal education at all.
This is England, if you can believe it, that is. I'm fifty-five and I've been teaching Biology for thirty years. They thought I'd be perfect for this sort of thing, with my experience. I've tought endless amounts of bottom set classes and managed to get a few of them to shine over the years, some of them actually managing to get decent jobs. The rest of them, though, may have ended up in places like this. For the record, I'll tell you what happened.
All over the country, on the outskirts of many towns and cities, and on some inner city brownfield sites too, areas were designated as 'Overspill Estates'. They put down concrete footings, connected pipes up for water, sewage and electricity, then piled up stacks of what could only be described as modified Portakabins, as a modular solution to a housing crisis.
They claimed that two of these bolted together and linked by a staircase inside them would serve as a two-bed house for a small family, say two adults and two children. They had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. It was pretty pokey for four, and even more cramped for families of six or more, who weren't able to get a bigger house.
These 'Overspill Estates' were where families and couples would go who couldn't afford to buy or rent a house, the typical low-income category of people.
I remember, years ago, families like these used to get 'social housing' and rent from what were called 'housing associations' where you still had to pay rent (you could get help from the Government if you didn't earn enough) but it wouldn't be so expensive. That stopped when all the housing stock was all sold off to private investors, who rented them out for profit. And all the Government help dried up along with that as well, just to make things a little bit easier for people.
At the same time, there was a general housing shortage, not enough houses were being built to house an ever-growing population, therefore a crisis began to brew where either more than one family were sharing houses to save on extortionate rent payments, or they were out on the street instead (whole families), begging for money or resorting to crime.
There was a change of Government, and it sought to solve this problem. That was kind of prompted by a story covered by most of the national newspapers which referred to one and a half million homeless in total around the UK. When faced with this quandary, they knew they couldn't afford to buy old housing stock back or build new houses in the way we used to build them. Any new houses that were being built were just far too expensive for a lot of people to buy or rent. The option chosen was to quickly put up pre-fabricated housing, and move those families in there.
They became the new 'sink estates' and hardly anyone had a job, instead surviving on handouts. Disease, crime, the usual problems you could imagine, they flourished in these places, and the official line was to not care too much about that. They didn't vote, they didn't talk a lot to people who lived anywhere else, they were put there to be forgotten about. It worked - apart from the stream of supplies in, regular visits by Police, fire crews and medical staff, not many other people went there. The overburdened education system, which I was a proud member of, virtually cut them off. The kids tended to be unruly, harbouring disease and responded poorly to attempts to educate them, so it was seen as logical to push them out and let them receive education from their family and peers.
Each area had a high, reinforced security fence around it, usually concrete. Not to stop anyone getting in, obviously, but to keep what was in there from getting out too easily. And now, with this change in Government, they wanted to open these places up and connect them with the outside world.
These walled cities of doomed prospects had been in existence for ten years now. Ten years is a long time and that can really change people. And the kids in there? At best, they spent most of their known life in these places, at worst, where they lived was all they had ever known.
Well, it's 6.30 am now. It's time to go and do this.
2nd April 2034.
I've been selected to go and help set a school up in what you could only describe as a city of Portakabins. This is all part of the Government's drive to re-establish education for the poor.
So out of the schools which we finally got to work, teachers (including me) were randomly selected to go spend some time out, accommodation sorted and everything, to go and teach poor kids who otherwise wouldn't have any formal education at all.
This is England, if you can believe it, that is. I'm fifty-five and I've been teaching Biology for thirty years. They thought I'd be perfect for this sort of thing, with my experience. I've tought endless amounts of bottom set classes and managed to get a few of them to shine over the years, some of them actually managing to get decent jobs. The rest of them, though, may have ended up in places like this. For the record, I'll tell you what happened.
All over the country, on the outskirts of many towns and cities, and on some inner city brownfield sites too, areas were designated as 'Overspill Estates'. They put down concrete footings, connected pipes up for water, sewage and electricity, then piled up stacks of what could only be described as modified Portakabins, as a modular solution to a housing crisis.
They claimed that two of these bolted together and linked by a staircase inside them would serve as a two-bed house for a small family, say two adults and two children. They had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. It was pretty pokey for four, and even more cramped for families of six or more, who weren't able to get a bigger house.
These 'Overspill Estates' were where families and couples would go who couldn't afford to buy or rent a house, the typical low-income category of people.
I remember, years ago, families like these used to get 'social housing' and rent from what were called 'housing associations' where you still had to pay rent (you could get help from the Government if you didn't earn enough) but it wouldn't be so expensive. That stopped when all the housing stock was all sold off to private investors, who rented them out for profit. And all the Government help dried up along with that as well, just to make things a little bit easier for people.
At the same time, there was a general housing shortage, not enough houses were being built to house an ever-growing population, therefore a crisis began to brew where either more than one family were sharing houses to save on extortionate rent payments, or they were out on the street instead (whole families), begging for money or resorting to crime.
There was a change of Government, and it sought to solve this problem. That was kind of prompted by a story covered by most of the national newspapers which referred to one and a half million homeless in total around the UK. When faced with this quandary, they knew they couldn't afford to buy old housing stock back or build new houses in the way we used to build them. Any new houses that were being built were just far too expensive for a lot of people to buy or rent. The option chosen was to quickly put up pre-fabricated housing, and move those families in there.
They became the new 'sink estates' and hardly anyone had a job, instead surviving on handouts. Disease, crime, the usual problems you could imagine, they flourished in these places, and the official line was to not care too much about that. They didn't vote, they didn't talk a lot to people who lived anywhere else, they were put there to be forgotten about. It worked - apart from the stream of supplies in, regular visits by Police, fire crews and medical staff, not many other people went there. The overburdened education system, which I was a proud member of, virtually cut them off. The kids tended to be unruly, harbouring disease and responded poorly to attempts to educate them, so it was seen as logical to push them out and let them receive education from their family and peers.
Each area had a high, reinforced security fence around it, usually concrete. Not to stop anyone getting in, obviously, but to keep what was in there from getting out too easily. And now, with this change in Government, they wanted to open these places up and connect them with the outside world.
These walled cities of doomed prospects had been in existence for ten years now. Ten years is a long time and that can really change people. And the kids in there? At best, they spent most of their known life in these places, at worst, where they lived was all they had ever known.
Well, it's 6.30 am now. It's time to go and do this.
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