13 ms·

Man built a bunker under Hampstead Heath and lived in it for two years

343 points by oska 7y ago

sorokod 7y ago
Reminds me of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere".
- oska 7y ago
  Reminded me of the second half of Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household. [1] Also, The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Male_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Male_(novel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Gunners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Gunners
  - notacoward 7y ago
    Also Mike Carey's "Felix Castor" series (urban fantasy which I highly recommend BTW). One of the characters is a giant spider who lives under Hampstead Heath. Maybe if I ever visit London I'll swing by there to see if I can figure out why it's such a common trope.
    - sorokod 7y ago
      The heath is lovely and it is a credit to Londoners that they managed to keep developers off it.
  - underthebridge1 7y ago
    Reminds me of my life. I live nowhere. At this very moment I'm acctually in a hotel room half a planet away from home and I have (extremely crappy, but still) internet and a roof. I also have money in my pocket but not enough to turn my life around. My credit is bust. I have a job though, working for people who think I'm trustworthy enough to give me lots or responsibilities but I can't tell anyone about my situation because that would most likely break the bond of trust that we have. I'm abroad to help my company land a deal and to coach a team through the implementation phase. I'm very, very good at what I do. Better than most people I've met. But. I. Just. Can't. Turn. My. Life. Around. I used to do drugs. I still do. But I used to, too. Not so much anymore, though. A joint now and then. Not looking forward to going back to my "home" country. Being on a business trip is bliss. Just blissfull. EDIT: In my mind I got here by following a dream. I followed it too far. Damn you HN. You keep inspiring me to try to do great things. We're just one-upping one another, right?
    - circlefavshape 7y ago
      > We're just one-upping one another, right? Yes. That's what "following a dream" really is about. Hope things improve for you
  - bakul 7y ago
    Yeah, I too thought of Rouge Male. There is a 1976 movie of it starring Peter O'Toole worth watching. On Amazon Prime.
  - Swannie 7y ago
    Thank you - I was thinking about The Machine Gunners when I read this, but couldn't remember the name of the book - some strong childhood memories associated with that story.
vidanay 7y ago
Am I the only one who dislikes this style of expository writing where the story line is non-linear and written with an excruciating abundance of adjectives?
- jpswade 7y ago
  I think it's a very British way of communicating something that's clearly quite amusing and frivolous. It's meant to be closer to story telling than a the brief, cascading style that's prevalent across the mass-media.
  - jcims 7y ago
    Or could it just be puffery to get the word count up?
  - Veen 7y ago
    It's not specifically British. The New Yorker made its reputation on this type of story. Writers like John McPhee made a career out of it.
- FroshKiller 7y ago
  Of course not. None of us is ever the only one. But it doesn't do much good to gripe about it, either. If you don't like it, don't finish reading it, and don't upvote the submission. That's sufficient. Complaining here, where authors almost never see it and would probably never care, is not a good use of your energy.
  - jcims 7y ago
    It would be nice if there was some author metadata in the page that you could hook an extension to in order to rate them. Keep from getting tricked in the future. Bore me once, shame on you, bore me twice, shame on me. haha
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      I'd say that usually the section of the title (newspaper, website, whatever) that produces a story is a better guide - usually, I'd water, writers write what editors ask for; when a writer can write many different forms of story filtering by writer seems less helpful.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
omarhaneef 7y ago
When I saw the title, I wondered how a survivalist story got to front page on HN. Then I read it and saw it was really a story about high rents, and then of course it made sense. My sense of where the highest rents are doesn't keep up with the times though. Tokyo became relatively inexpensive long before I figured it out. New York beat London at some point, and when Vancouver had overtaken San Francisco I was floored.
- goatherders 7y ago
  I spend about 70% of my time in Vancouver. My rented house there is half the size of my place in Austin and costs 3x as much. My wife and I joke occassionally that we could leave Van for almost any other place on earth - including Manhattan - and see our COL go down.
  - flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
    That's true but why would you? Vancouver is an awesome/beautiful place to live. They don't even have the building restrictions that san fran does. They're building like crazy in that city and the price per square foot just keeps going up because it's in high demand. The rents are high for good reason imho.
    - nathancahill 7y ago
      High demand != foreign (read, chinese) investment.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        The foreign investment is part of the high demand.
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        High demand for a place to offshore money != high demand for a place to live. The former is why the price per sqm is high. The latter would communicate that a place is actually nice to live in.
ricktdotorg 7y ago
i will admit to being more than a little disappointed that the author apparently did not directly ask Van Allen if the weapon was indeed, his.
- exhilaration 7y ago
  The article suggests that he's consistently denied it, do you think he'd change his story when talking to a reporter?
  - ricktdotorg 7y ago
    fair point!! but in such detail-laden [long!] expository articles, i expect more than _suggestion_ around the central premise of this man's ultimate imprisonment for 5 years. no?
jansan 7y ago
Photos or it never happened.
WoodenKatana 7y ago
It's sad to see where the current payments and rents push people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  If he was unable to work in his former profession, it isn't likely that it was just high rent that kept him from having a place of his own.
mattlondon 7y ago
I live near the heath and regularly walk and run through it - would have loved it if there had been some pictures of it, or even a diagram/map or where it was or what it looked like! There are a few pictures here: - This one shows the entrance hatch http://camdennewjournal.com/article/homeless-man-living-on-hampstead-heath-jailed-for-making-and-burying-gun http://camdennewjournal.com/article/homeless-man-living-on-h... - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hampstead-heath-breaking-badstyle-crystal-meth-lab-found-in-north-london-park-a3937186.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hampstead-heath-breaki... - https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7265542/real-life-breaking-bad-outdoor-meth-lab-uncovered-london-hampstead-heath/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7265542/real-life-breaking-bad... Based on those pictures, the description in the article, and some local knowledge of the layout around there, I am guessing it was approximately in this area: - https://goo.gl/maps/FNxHU6MVZ2B9phkU7 https://goo.gl/maps/FNxHU6MVZ2B9phkU7 or https://goo.gl/maps/hNwBfC1tcYGpeDzFA https://goo.gl/maps/hNwBfC1tcYGpeDzFA
- yboris 7y ago
  I came to the comments to say "pics or it didn't happen" :P I'm really disappointed when articles exclude obviously-helpful visual details where appropriate (like graphs, photos, or maps).
- arethuza 7y ago
  Not being hugely familiar with London I recognised the name but I've never been to Hampstead Heath - it does have quite an extensive Wikipedia entry that makes it sound fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_Heath Mind you, I am easily fascinated.
  - wooptoo 7y ago
    It's one of my favourite parts of London. Paid ridiculous amounts in rent years ago for a small flat just to live close and be able to enjoy it every day. It's not really a park, more like a forest inside the city, peppered with mansions on the edge, swimming ponds, and all sorts of secluded paths. I'm glad they've kept it away from new development as it's one of the few places to truly escape the city without actually going away.
pjc50 7y ago
The reference to the Great Escape seems most apt to me; this tiny underground wooden construction, ultimately doomed to discovery. But in his case he encounters the London anti-terrorism command rather than the Gestapo. And it's a form of escape, but from high property prices. Effectively tunneling into a society that doesn't want him. The mirror image of the mansion owners digging out another sub-basement for another swimming pool. There are lots of weird illegal living situations in London; "beds in sheds", hugely overcrowded slum housing, illegal sublets. Talk of providing social housing, but what's there can sometimes also get illegally sublet: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jailed-man-who-lived-in-garden-shed-while-renting-750000-council-house-on-gumtree-a2927551.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jailed-man-who-lived-...
contingencies 7y ago
A homeless man I befriended to some extent once took me to a shelter in East London. It was scary how many people there were. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and felt I drowned in a sea of eyes alternately a million miles blank or like daggers. Perhaps a similarly welcoming feeling to admission to some prisons. My friend introduced a well kempt, multilingual man with an education, an admirable history and sincerity who had simply fallen off the society's radar. The most of them seemed to be just getting by on little more than hope and memory, they were not just the aged, the mentally ill, desperados and addicts. Without an address, it is hard to get back in to society. I learned more in that visit than I cared to about how globalized first world societies treat their poor. Really humbling. It shocked me.
- simmanian 7y ago
  did you feel like you were in any danger at any point? would you recommend people volunteer at these shelters?
  - tim333 7y ago
    Crisis organize some volunteer stuff. I've done the Xmas volunteering which was quite fun. https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/ https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/
Waterluvian 7y ago
Something like this happened in Toronto years ago: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/mysterious-toronto-bunker-built-as-man-cave-1.2259779 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/mysterious-toronto-bunker-buil...
- rtikulit 7y ago
  Except we didn't prosecute and convict the builders.
  - lostgame 7y ago
    Well, they weren’t homeless; why would they? I was under the impression law enforcement mostly existed to oppress the lower class, but maybe that’s just my personal experience.
georgehaake 7y ago
Disappointed as I came for pics.
wpietri 7y ago
I really admire this guy. His energy, his resilience, his improvisation. Had my life gone a bit differently, this could easily have been me. But I can't help but think: what could have he done with his smarts and his drive if he didn't have to spend every day on securing the very basics?
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Many people choose to live like this. Not being chained to the day job to pay the mortgage to keep the roof over your head and the children's school fees paid is very liberating. I have a proper house, yet once quit my job and went on a hike with just a handful of coins and a tshirt. That hike turned into a 3 month trip round Europe. My total earnings and expenses were probably sub-$10 per day, and I rarely had a bed for the night, yet my quality of life was arguably higher than my current 9-5, 6 figure job.
  - draw_down 7y ago
    Come on
  - malcolmgreaves 7y ago
    Don't take your financially privileged position and claim that homeless people want to be homeless.
    - icanhackit 7y ago
      The parent poster said "Many people choose to live like this." which is very different to claiming "that homeless people want to be homeless". I'm friends with a homeless Australian Aboriginal lady and she chooses to remain homeless/jobless despite offers of help as it provides her with a level of control over her life (she had a violent past), but not for a second would I say all people in similar situations want the same thing. The part that's hard to grasp by well-intentioned people is that you can't always help. Two truths, neither cancel out the other: [1] We need to invest in permanent shelters (i.e. homes) for the poor/homeless who want to pull themselves out from their misfortune and live a more normal life. [2] Homelessness is something we need to embrace by providing covered/sheltered well-lit public spaces where someone can set up a 0-day camp to safely rest without someone tapping them on the shoulder to ask if they're OK. Two more truths: [1] Many homeless have mental health issues which, if treated, could help them live a better life. [2] Many homeless are mentally fine, in control, and your offers of help are somewhat patronising. They'd prefer a nice cold beer or bottle of red than your free pass to a hostel.
thesaint 7y ago
So his crime is basically nothing? Wonderfull. Let's use tax payers money to persecute a homeless person...
lostgame 7y ago
In a period of homelessness over a summer, I lived in a makeshift village created by a friend and I in the Don Valley forest here in Toronto. You’d be shocked how regularly this kind of thing happens.
lerie1982 7y ago
A little disappointed to see that it's just a story of a vagrant and where he lived.
- corndoge 7y ago
  Read the article?
  - lerie1982 7y ago
    Yes, two drunks illegally built a "dwelling" under a park, peed in bottles (which he emptied where?), ducked the police, stole construction materials, I guess I am just failing to see how this can be justified? Is it because he didn't want to spend money to room with someone (I'm assuming he would rather spend it in the bar). He could have chosen a location where he wouldn't have been bothered, off in the woods, he could have used his travel card to get back and forth, but he didn't. He could have even done this somewhere he could have eventually won squatters rights for his dwelling. But he didn't. So again, I was disappointed to read that is was just a story of a (somewhat) vagrant, "scaff monkey".
    - vidarh 7y ago
      > Yes, two drunks illegally built a "dwelling" under a park, peed in bottles (which he emptied where?), ducked the police, stole construction materials, I guess I am just failing to see how this can be justified? Is it because he didn't want to spend money to room with someone (I'm assuming he would rather spend it in the bar). Nothing in the article suggests they were drunks. The article suggests he spent time waiting in a pub for the heath to empty out and at one point mentions "his usual beer", not that he was a drunk. Nothing else in the description suggests any substance abuse problem. Given you describe the pub he used to wait in as "the bar" perhaps you're not from the UK and unfamiliar with UK pub culture, but it is not at all unusual for people to use a pub as their social meeting space and not go there to get drunk, or even drink much, if at all. Nothing in the article suggests he stole construction materials. He was not charged with any thefts either. The other person worked as a labourer at a building site, so maybe he did, but then again they might also just have known where to get the supplies; you'll note at least one mention of spending money on some of the supplies. But again you're jumping to conclusions. It's possible they stole it, but the article does not provide evidence for that. Nothing suggests he had sufficient income to make not rooming with someone in a proper flat a choice - this one is a particularly insidious "accusation" seeing as he 1) roomed with someone in his shelter, 2) invited others in when he came across someone that looked like they were in a bad place, so he clearly was not adverse to sharing. You're inferring a whole lot of things that suggests you're intent to judge him from the outset. You might want to think about why you're so quick to jump to conclusions. As to "how this can be justified", I'd ask another question: How can a society as rich as the UK justify underfunding social services so much that people like this are unable to afford housing or get social housing? Someone who does work, but is facing health issues limiting what he's been able to do. It's disgusting. Personally to me, his situation would have justified some petty theft and the by accounts very limited vandalism given the care he appears to have taken to make his dwelling largely invisible, and his lack of access to housing. You'll note this was also not what he was charged with or convicted for. He was convicted over circumstantial evidence he might have handled an improvised firearm. Now, if he did make that, and it was somehow intended for defense, then I would not have any sympathy for that, but the evidence does not appear particularly strong. > He could have chosen a location where he wouldn't have been bothered, off in the woods, he could have used his travel card to get back and forth And, where, pray tell, do you imagine would fit this description in London without doubling or tripling his monthly costs to get too and from the locations where he was able to find work? If you're about to suggest outside London, consider that the article sets out plenty of reason why so many homeless people stay in London: Access to other services. Access to work. Ability to fit in among the crowd. > He could have even done this somewhere he could have eventually won squatters rights for his dwelling. But he didn't. Did you miss the part where squats have become increasingly competitive and it became increasingly dicier for him? Did you miss the part where he had been squatting for years, but had to give it up when the law was tightened up significantly in 2011, and it became harder for him to keep up and secure his position in the dwindling number of squats? In any case after squatters rights in the UK were gutted it is exceedingly rare for people to win rights to property this way, as it takes 10-12 years of continuous occupation and the means to prevent you from getting to that point are many. > So again, I was disappointed to read that is was just a story of a (somewhat) vagrant, "scaff monkey". I'm disappointed to see someone so lacking in empathy to dismiss a story like this the way you have in this comment.
kwhitefoot 7y ago
Anyone know if his appeal succeeded? It seems that most of the comments here are just whining about the writing or lack of photographs but how about a follow up about the man and his current situation?
- vidarh 7y ago
  He was only sentenced in August. I don't think his appeal has happened yet. Advice I found from a UK barristers chamber suggests that a simple appeal against the sentencing only typically takes about 5 months, but that appeals in general should be processed in less than about 10 months. I'm guessing he's appealing against the overall conviction, not just the sentence, and that this is likely to bring him closer to the 10 month mark. He's eligible for parole early 2022 if his appeal fails.

343 points by oska 7y ago

sorokod 7y ago

Reminds me of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere".

oska 7y ago
Reminded me of the second half of Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household. [1] Also, The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Male_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Male_(novel) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Gunners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Gunners
- notacoward 7y ago
  Also Mike Carey's "Felix Castor" series (urban fantasy which I highly recommend BTW). One of the characters is a giant spider who lives under Hampstead Heath. Maybe if I ever visit London I'll swing by there to see if I can figure out why it's such a common trope.
  - sorokod 7y ago
    The heath is lovely and it is a credit to Londoners that they managed to keep developers off it.
- underthebridge1 7y ago
  Reminds me of my life. I live nowhere. At this very moment I'm acctually in a hotel room half a planet away from home and I have (extremely crappy, but still) internet and a roof. I also have money in my pocket but not enough to turn my life around. My credit is bust. I have a job though, working for people who think I'm trustworthy enough to give me lots or responsibilities but I can't tell anyone about my situation because that would most likely break the bond of trust that we have. I'm abroad to help my company land a deal and to coach a team through the implementation phase. I'm very, very good at what I do. Better than most people I've met. But. I. Just. Can't. Turn. My. Life. Around. I used to do drugs. I still do. But I used to, too. Not so much anymore, though. A joint now and then. Not looking forward to going back to my "home" country. Being on a business trip is bliss. Just blissfull. EDIT: In my mind I got here by following a dream. I followed it too far. Damn you HN. You keep inspiring me to try to do great things. We're just one-upping one another, right?
  - circlefavshape 7y ago
    > We're just one-upping one another, right? Yes. That's what "following a dream" really is about. Hope things improve for you
- bakul 7y ago
  Yeah, I too thought of Rouge Male. There is a 1976 movie of it starring Peter O'Toole worth watching. On Amazon Prime.
- Swannie 7y ago
  Thank you - I was thinking about The Machine Gunners when I read this, but couldn't remember the name of the book - some strong childhood memories associated with that story.

vidanay 7y ago

Am I the only one who dislikes this style of expository writing where the story line is non-linear and written with an excruciating abundance of adjectives?

jpswade 7y ago
I think it's a very British way of communicating something that's clearly quite amusing and frivolous. It's meant to be closer to story telling than a the brief, cascading style that's prevalent across the mass-media.
- jcims 7y ago
  Or could it just be puffery to get the word count up?
- Veen 7y ago
  It's not specifically British. The New Yorker made its reputation on this type of story. Writers like John McPhee made a career out of it.
FroshKiller 7y ago
Of course not. None of us is ever the only one. But it doesn't do much good to gripe about it, either. If you don't like it, don't finish reading it, and don't upvote the submission. That's sufficient. Complaining here, where authors almost never see it and would probably never care, is not a good use of your energy.
- jcims 7y ago
  It would be nice if there was some author metadata in the page that you could hook an extension to in order to rate them. Keep from getting tricked in the future. Bore me once, shame on you, bore me twice, shame on me. haha
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    I'd say that usually the section of the title (newspaper, website, whatever) that produces a story is a better guide - usually, I'd water, writers write what editors ask for; when a writer can write many different forms of story filtering by writer seems less helpful.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

omarhaneef 7y ago

When I saw the title, I wondered how a survivalist story got to front page on HN. Then I read it and saw it was really a story about high rents, and then of course it made sense. My sense of where the highest rents are doesn't keep up with the times though. Tokyo became relatively inexpensive long before I figured it out. New York beat London at some point, and when Vancouver had overtaken San Francisco I was floored.

goatherders 7y ago
I spend about 70% of my time in Vancouver. My rented house there is half the size of my place in Austin and costs 3x as much. My wife and I joke occassionally that we could leave Van for almost any other place on earth - including Manhattan - and see our COL go down.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
  That's true but why would you? Vancouver is an awesome/beautiful place to live. They don't even have the building restrictions that san fran does. They're building like crazy in that city and the price per square foot just keeps going up because it's in high demand. The rents are high for good reason imho.
  - nathancahill 7y ago
    High demand != foreign (read, chinese) investment.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      The foreign investment is part of the high demand.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        High demand for a place to offshore money != high demand for a place to live. The former is why the price per sqm is high. The latter would communicate that a place is actually nice to live in.

ricktdotorg 7y ago

i will admit to being more than a little disappointed that the author apparently did not directly ask Van Allen if the weapon was indeed, his.

exhilaration 7y ago
The article suggests that he's consistently denied it, do you think he'd change his story when talking to a reporter?
- ricktdotorg 7y ago
  fair point!! but in such detail-laden [long!] expository articles, i expect more than _suggestion_ around the central premise of this man's ultimate imprisonment for 5 years. no?

jansan 7y ago

Photos or it never happened.

WoodenKatana 7y ago

It's sad to see where the current payments and rents push people.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rootusrootus 7y ago
If he was unable to work in his former profession, it isn't likely that it was just high rent that kept him from having a place of his own.

mattlondon 7y ago

I live near the heath and regularly walk and run through it - would have loved it if there had been some pictures of it, or even a diagram/map or where it was or what it looked like! There are a few pictures here: - This one shows the entrance hatch http://camdennewjournal.com/article/homeless-man-living-on-hampstead-heath-jailed-for-making-and-burying-gun http://camdennewjournal.com/article/homeless-man-living-on-h... - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hampstead-heath-breaking-badstyle-crystal-meth-lab-found-in-north-london-park-a3937186.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/hampstead-heath-breaki... - https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7265542/real-life-breaking-bad-outdoor-meth-lab-uncovered-london-hampstead-heath/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7265542/real-life-breaking-bad... Based on those pictures, the description in the article, and some local knowledge of the layout around there, I am guessing it was approximately in this area: - https://goo.gl/maps/FNxHU6MVZ2B9phkU7 https://goo.gl/maps/FNxHU6MVZ2B9phkU7 or https://goo.gl/maps/hNwBfC1tcYGpeDzFA https://goo.gl/maps/hNwBfC1tcYGpeDzFA

yboris 7y ago
I came to the comments to say "pics or it didn't happen" :P I'm really disappointed when articles exclude obviously-helpful visual details where appropriate (like graphs, photos, or maps).
arethuza 7y ago
Not being hugely familiar with London I recognised the name but I've never been to Hampstead Heath - it does have quite an extensive Wikipedia entry that makes it sound fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampstead_Heath Mind you, I am easily fascinated.
- wooptoo 7y ago
  It's one of my favourite parts of London. Paid ridiculous amounts in rent years ago for a small flat just to live close and be able to enjoy it every day. It's not really a park, more like a forest inside the city, peppered with mansions on the edge, swimming ponds, and all sorts of secluded paths. I'm glad they've kept it away from new development as it's one of the few places to truly escape the city without actually going away.

pjc50 7y ago

The reference to the Great Escape seems most apt to me; this tiny underground wooden construction, ultimately doomed to discovery. But in his case he encounters the London anti-terrorism command rather than the Gestapo. And it's a form of escape, but from high property prices. Effectively tunneling into a society that doesn't want him. The mirror image of the mansion owners digging out another sub-basement for another swimming pool. There are lots of weird illegal living situations in London; "beds in sheds", hugely overcrowded slum housing, illegal sublets. Talk of providing social housing, but what's there can sometimes also get illegally sublet: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jailed-man-who-lived-in-garden-shed-while-renting-750000-council-house-on-gumtree-a2927551.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/jailed-man-who-lived-...

contingencies 7y ago

A homeless man I befriended to some extent once took me to a shelter in East London. It was scary how many people there were. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and felt I drowned in a sea of eyes alternately a million miles blank or like daggers. Perhaps a similarly welcoming feeling to admission to some prisons. My friend introduced a well kempt, multilingual man with an education, an admirable history and sincerity who had simply fallen off the society's radar. The most of them seemed to be just getting by on little more than hope and memory, they were not just the aged, the mentally ill, desperados and addicts. Without an address, it is hard to get back in to society. I learned more in that visit than I cared to about how globalized first world societies treat their poor. Really humbling. It shocked me.

simmanian 7y ago
did you feel like you were in any danger at any point? would you recommend people volunteer at these shelters?
- tim333 7y ago
  Crisis organize some volunteer stuff. I've done the Xmas volunteering which was quite fun. https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/ https://www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/

Waterluvian 7y ago

Something like this happened in Toronto years ago: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/mysterious-toronto-bunker-built-as-man-cave-1.2259779 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/mysterious-toronto-bunker-buil...

rtikulit 7y ago
Except we didn't prosecute and convict the builders.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Well, they weren’t homeless; why would they? I was under the impression law enforcement mostly existed to oppress the lower class, but maybe that’s just my personal experience.

georgehaake 7y ago

Disappointed as I came for pics.

wpietri 7y ago

I really admire this guy. His energy, his resilience, his improvisation. Had my life gone a bit differently, this could easily have been me. But I can't help but think: what could have he done with his smarts and his drive if he didn't have to spend every day on securing the very basics?

londons_explore 7y ago
Many people choose to live like this. Not being chained to the day job to pay the mortgage to keep the roof over your head and the children's school fees paid is very liberating. I have a proper house, yet once quit my job and went on a hike with just a handful of coins and a tshirt. That hike turned into a 3 month trip round Europe. My total earnings and expenses were probably sub-$10 per day, and I rarely had a bed for the night, yet my quality of life was arguably higher than my current 9-5, 6 figure job.
- draw_down 7y ago
  Come on
- malcolmgreaves 7y ago
  Don't take your financially privileged position and claim that homeless people want to be homeless.
  - icanhackit 7y ago
    The parent poster said "Many people choose to live like this." which is very different to claiming "that homeless people want to be homeless". I'm friends with a homeless Australian Aboriginal lady and she chooses to remain homeless/jobless despite offers of help as it provides her with a level of control over her life (she had a violent past), but not for a second would I say all people in similar situations want the same thing. The part that's hard to grasp by well-intentioned people is that you can't always help. Two truths, neither cancel out the other: [1] We need to invest in permanent shelters (i.e. homes) for the poor/homeless who want to pull themselves out from their misfortune and live a more normal life. [2] Homelessness is something we need to embrace by providing covered/sheltered well-lit public spaces where someone can set up a 0-day camp to safely rest without someone tapping them on the shoulder to ask if they're OK. Two more truths: [1] Many homeless have mental health issues which, if treated, could help them live a better life. [2] Many homeless are mentally fine, in control, and your offers of help are somewhat patronising. They'd prefer a nice cold beer or bottle of red than your free pass to a hostel.

thesaint 7y ago

So his crime is basically nothing? Wonderfull. Let's use tax payers money to persecute a homeless person...

lostgame 7y ago

In a period of homelessness over a summer, I lived in a makeshift village created by a friend and I in the Don Valley forest here in Toronto. You’d be shocked how regularly this kind of thing happens.

lerie1982 7y ago

A little disappointed to see that it's just a story of a vagrant and where he lived.

corndoge 7y ago
Read the article?
- lerie1982 7y ago
  Yes, two drunks illegally built a "dwelling" under a park, peed in bottles (which he emptied where?), ducked the police, stole construction materials, I guess I am just failing to see how this can be justified? Is it because he didn't want to spend money to room with someone (I'm assuming he would rather spend it in the bar). He could have chosen a location where he wouldn't have been bothered, off in the woods, he could have used his travel card to get back and forth, but he didn't. He could have even done this somewhere he could have eventually won squatters rights for his dwelling. But he didn't. So again, I was disappointed to read that is was just a story of a (somewhat) vagrant, "scaff monkey".
  - vidarh 7y ago
    > Yes, two drunks illegally built a "dwelling" under a park, peed in bottles (which he emptied where?), ducked the police, stole construction materials, I guess I am just failing to see how this can be justified? Is it because he didn't want to spend money to room with someone (I'm assuming he would rather spend it in the bar). Nothing in the article suggests they were drunks. The article suggests he spent time waiting in a pub for the heath to empty out and at one point mentions "his usual beer", not that he was a drunk. Nothing else in the description suggests any substance abuse problem. Given you describe the pub he used to wait in as "the bar" perhaps you're not from the UK and unfamiliar with UK pub culture, but it is not at all unusual for people to use a pub as their social meeting space and not go there to get drunk, or even drink much, if at all. Nothing in the article suggests he stole construction materials. He was not charged with any thefts either. The other person worked as a labourer at a building site, so maybe he did, but then again they might also just have known where to get the supplies; you'll note at least one mention of spending money on some of the supplies. But again you're jumping to conclusions. It's possible they stole it, but the article does not provide evidence for that. Nothing suggests he had sufficient income to make not rooming with someone in a proper flat a choice - this one is a particularly insidious "accusation" seeing as he 1) roomed with someone in his shelter, 2) invited others in when he came across someone that looked like they were in a bad place, so he clearly was not adverse to sharing. You're inferring a whole lot of things that suggests you're intent to judge him from the outset. You might want to think about why you're so quick to jump to conclusions. As to "how this can be justified", I'd ask another question: How can a society as rich as the UK justify underfunding social services so much that people like this are unable to afford housing or get social housing? Someone who does work, but is facing health issues limiting what he's been able to do. It's disgusting. Personally to me, his situation would have justified some petty theft and the by accounts very limited vandalism given the care he appears to have taken to make his dwelling largely invisible, and his lack of access to housing. You'll note this was also not what he was charged with or convicted for. He was convicted over circumstantial evidence he might have handled an improvised firearm. Now, if he did make that, and it was somehow intended for defense, then I would not have any sympathy for that, but the evidence does not appear particularly strong. > He could have chosen a location where he wouldn't have been bothered, off in the woods, he could have used his travel card to get back and forth And, where, pray tell, do you imagine would fit this description in London without doubling or tripling his monthly costs to get too and from the locations where he was able to find work? If you're about to suggest outside London, consider that the article sets out plenty of reason why so many homeless people stay in London: Access to other services. Access to work. Ability to fit in among the crowd. > He could have even done this somewhere he could have eventually won squatters rights for his dwelling. But he didn't. Did you miss the part where squats have become increasingly competitive and it became increasingly dicier for him? Did you miss the part where he had been squatting for years, but had to give it up when the law was tightened up significantly in 2011, and it became harder for him to keep up and secure his position in the dwindling number of squats? In any case after squatters rights in the UK were gutted it is exceedingly rare for people to win rights to property this way, as it takes 10-12 years of continuous occupation and the means to prevent you from getting to that point are many. > So again, I was disappointed to read that is was just a story of a (somewhat) vagrant, "scaff monkey". I'm disappointed to see someone so lacking in empathy to dismiss a story like this the way you have in this comment.

kwhitefoot 7y ago

Anyone know if his appeal succeeded? It seems that most of the comments here are just whining about the writing or lack of photographs but how about a follow up about the man and his current situation?

vidarh 7y ago
He was only sentenced in August. I don't think his appeal has happened yet. Advice I found from a UK barristers chamber suggests that a simple appeal against the sentencing only typically takes about 5 months, but that appeals in general should be processed in less than about 10 months. I'm guessing he's appealing against the overall conviction, not just the sentence, and that this is likely to bring him closer to the 10 month mark. He's eligible for parole early 2022 if his appeal fails.