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Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:02 pm
by Doorstop
Now, now .. play nice. :D

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:30 pm
by Dexter St. Clair
Romani from Slovakia and Romania live in Govanhill.

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:33 pm
by Doorstop
It's more of a rehousing exercise than a camp though Dex, no?

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:48 pm
by The Egg Man
Dexter St. Clair wrote:Romani from Slovakia and Romania live in Govanhill.



I wouldn't eactly call it living. Even PeterRachman would be ashamed of the condition of some of the 'homes' :evil:

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:41 pm
by Dexter St. Clair
It's like the good old days before they built the schemes, big families sharing a bed, and paying a rogue landlord with a fixer getting you casual work. Like the old docs. None of you remember that?

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:46 pm
by Doorstop
I don't even remember pre Dicky Davies Saturday sport on the telly Dex .. I'm considerably more youthful than you mind. :wink:

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 9:05 pm
by The Egg Man
Dexter St. Clair wrote:It's like the good old days before they built the schemes, big families sharing a bed, and paying a rogue landlord with a fixer getting you casual work. Like the old docs. None of you remember that?



I remember it well but not all the landlords were rogues. Many were simply trying to provide a half-decent service whilst remitting much of the often modest rent to the faceless 'trustees of the estate of the late so and so, held in trust for the benefit of such and such'.

Little was left for minor everyday repairs and nothing at all for major stuff like new roofs and windows.

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:39 pm
by edward carolan
The Roma in Govanhill are only the latest incomers. However you must have some sympathy with their treatment in their previous country, marginalised is to put it mildly.
In Croatia, they were rounded up before the Nazis even thought about invading. They have never had good press, margialised perfect scapegoat.
I'm sure all of the previous waves of Neo-Govanhill-ites were equally demonised by the Heterophobes that make up the Daily Mail hard of thinking.
What would any of us do if we pitched up in any Balkan state with no support except gangmasters or mafiosi ?
Tolerance and understanding?

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:14 am
by The Egg Man
Hopefully the discussion ought not to be about whether Roma are better off in Govanhill than in Croatia or in the 2010s or the 1930s. It ought to be whether the conditions they live in are acceptable in 21st century Scotland and the answer, I believe, is obvious.

We have a Scottish Housing Regulator Chair who seems more concerned about whether housing association committee members should be allowed to serve more than 6 years and her belief that some of them ought to be paid for their volunteering than the actual conditions in which many families live yet the 2015 Scottish Social Housing Charter seems to get further and further away.

Remember Brian McNeill's "Any Mick'll do"

''Cause any Mick'll do, any black, any Jew
Any poor wee soul (bugger) who's not like you
They're down from the trees and they're up from the bogs
They come round here and they steal your job
They're all the bloody same - just no' the same as you
And when a scapegoat's what you need - any Mick'll do "

http://mysongbook.de/msb/songs/a/anymicki.html

Your namesake, Turlough, was blind but not deaf.

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:55 am
by edward carolan
I totally agree about the looney chair, but the culture shock of coming to somewhere that discrimination against you is not national policy must be disorientating. Here (Govanhill)apart from some casual racism nobody gives a stuff.
Blind but good tunes.

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:27 pm
by shuffle
Should we not be more ashamed about the lack of housing for Glaswegians and the like as opposed to bemoaning the lack of it for a minority who turned up out the blue and pretty much had no legal right to be here in the first place?

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:00 pm
by Dexter St. Clair
shuffle wrote:Should we not be more ashamed about the lack of housing for Glaswegians and the like as opposed to bemoaning the lack of it for a minority who turned up out the blue and pretty much had no legal right to be here in the first place?



What lack of housing for Glaswegians? The accommodation referred to in Govanhill is privately owned as is obvious from the above references to landlords. The housing association is increasing its factoring presence and trying to improve conditions. There is a mix of rogue and amateur landlords. The amateurs previously lived in Govanhill and could not persuade another Glaswegian to buy therefore they have handed it to an agency to collect rent and have forgetten about their obligations as a landlord.


And what lack of legal right to be here in the first place? You're not on Glasgow Guide or Glesga Pals where they're too polite to suggest you're talking out your arse. You're not a newbie. You've been here long enough. The Roma whom we're discussing in this topic have been coming to Scotland for years. The latest waves are from Slovakia and Romania which of course are members of the European Union.

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:29 pm
by The Egg Man
There's still the issue that many of these 'rogue and amateur landlords' are being funded at well over the social housing rent or even mid-market rent levels out of the public purse, leaving ever less money available for regeneration or new build.

I wonder how many of these substandard dwellings, I hesitate to call them homes, were funded via fraudulent self-certified mortgages, ostensibly for occupation by the owner but which morphed into the makings of the sort of property empire where no account is taken of the maintenance or repairs needed to keep them wind and water tight.

Perhaps taking some of these houses off their ******* owners under Proceeds of Crime legislation would send out a suitable signal.

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:24 pm
by Mori
I put up a thread a few years ago discussing the topic of Govanhill with this ET feature leading the topic.

I cant seem to find that thread in the search .... maybe its been deleted! because it was probably felt biast against the imigrant or asylum seeking people that lived in GH, i'm sensing the same here and the way this thread is biastly heading. :|

Re: Romani People in Glasgow/Scotland

PostPosted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:01 am
by The Egg Man
I hope I've not written anything to suggest bias against legal immigrants or asylum seekers.

What's I'm unashamedly biased against is the exploitation of them by anyone, including members of their own ethnic community, in housing, employment and the like.