Income and travel emergency

Hi, my fundraiser is for a personal situation, an emergency and longer term matter (Fundraiser started in October 2024). I am working self-employed and since last year I have been staying in hotel accommodation, broadly-speaking, and more recently also stays in a room in a house, moving so frequently not out of my choice but because of housing costs/prices and availability in the UK and what has happened.

Shorter and longer-term matters, for good reason I can say, I need to travel overseas, my goal in my fundraiser. What has happened, my income and costs so far, has prevented me from doing this yet, from travel overseas. I hope this happens soon.

If you'd like to share this, thank you, please only share this Gofundme link for this fundraiser.

Thank you for your donations so far, this helps.

I recently moved to Bristol (May-June 2025) working self-employed and after arriving I received an inappropriate letter from Bristol Service Centre for Universal Credit incorrectly stating I was overpaid for my housing in the past year before I arrived in Bristol, actually since I started my fundraiser and I owe money because of this, when I was not, I do not and I have evidence to support this from prior to when I arrived in Bristol. I am disputing this incorrect claim I was over-paid and owe money, however an amount was taken from my Universal Credit benefit last month by Bristol service centre leaving me with insufficient income into this month. One impact has been I needed to stay overnight in a 24 hour McDonalds, this also happened because of an excessive increase in price of available accommodation one night in the Bristol area the other weekend, during the school holidays. This has happened in Bristol and there has been a dearth of transparency to me about decision-makers involved in Universal Credit, other than the first name of a case-worker seeming to be in Bristol working from Bristol Service Centre.

This incorrect claim by Bristol Service Centre administrating my Universal Credit benefit, this inaccurate claim I was overpaid and owe money when I do not, I am using my imagination and questioning plausible actual intent behind me being singled out in this way. Could be in retalition to this fundraiser, could be inappropriate personal resentment against me, perhaps business or government connections between Bristol and the Channel Islands, where I am from or connections between Bristol, London, Brighton, Blackpool and Edinburgh where I have been since I started my fundraiser with my aim to move overseas when I have the means to do this. Could be personal, business or political links between Bristol and Birmingham, where I was earlier last year and I have a number of unresolved complaints about customer services, public services and business. Whether this is a misunderstanding or deliberate saboutaging of my benefit intending to disadvantage me in a difficult or vulnerable situation, intent to cause me harm, I can't ignore this. I am not comfortable going into this and other personal details on my fundraiser, really but I think I need to.

I am continuing but it can be stressful, not yet having a substantial filling replaced on my tooth from inadequate work at a dentist in Birmingham can cause me discomfort, that is inadequate treatment from my Universal Credit benefit acknowledged by the Dental Council in England. I am not certain yet of their intent at that dental practice in Birmingham. There are inaccurate, false and negative statements they have written about me I discovered on my dental notes from that dental practice after I left Birmingham and no acknowledgement of their mistake, they just want to incorrectly blame the customer. Another one of my tooth filllings broke this week.

When I picked up my bag from London (June 2025) there was a complication caused by delayed payments to me from my fundraiser and the bank in Jersey processing incoming and outgoing payments to and from my bank account in a way that in actuality caused me, when I was in transit, to be stuck overnight in a transport hub in central London.

Earlier this month (April 2025) I needed to move from London because of housing costs in London and my income all in all. I cannot stay for a long time in a hostel dorm and so on. My larger bag is with someone in London, this helps too.

I am working self-employed and in receipt of Universal Credit, however in London there was unhelpfulness from more than one DWP jobcentre and payments, who appeared to be in Northern Ireland, causing an apparent miscalculation, not resolved and an underpayment to me. I have moved temporarily to another region of the UK. I wanted my move from London to be a move overseas and travel, my fundraiser.

To reiterate, thank you to those of you who have been supportive. However, a number of weeks ago (now April 2025) when I was in London, I received a threatening, foolish and insulting message in reply to my GoFundMe fundraiser from someone called Bjoern in Bali, who appeared to be involved in an animal charity that is fundraising. He is from Zug canton in Switzerland and I do not know how, but I discovered we had become connected on Linkedin when I visited Zug from Zurich before the pandemic, only a few days before my bag was stolen in Paris. I am not jumping to conclusions, nonetheless his message was not on, understatement: directly threatening (a picture of someone holding a weapon) and very insulting to me, seemed he thought I was another person.

In the new year (2025), I had moved from Edinburgh to Brighton, Sussex. Then because of temporary accommodation cost and availability I needed to move from Brighton, and moved to London. It now appears I have been lied about and lied to by who I spoke to at housing in Brighton council, where I was told in January as a British citizen who does not have local connection to Brighton, who is not priority need they did not have accommodation for me, this may link to an issue from housing in Edinburgh council last year where I was also told I do not have local connection. I was told this is because of housing laws in England and Scotland. This might be discrimination against me being from Guernsey.

I also have correspondence from Brighton suggesting housing in Brighton has lied about me and my family, claiming I was evicted by my parents when I was in Guersey during the lockdown and pandemic, this is not true. I did not say this to housing in Brighton and neither did my parents say this to housing in Brighton. I was not evicted from my home in Guernsey, with good reason personally I chose to move from Guernsey to London a few years ago, after being stuck in Guernsey during the lockdowns, pandemic. A year after this, I was evicted in Birmingam because of my landlord at the time wanting more money, to increase my rent. I have been homeless for around 2 years, staying in temporary accommodation since this happened in Birmingham. Referring to last year, Edinburgh council has inaccurately stated I am / was at that time voluntarily homeless and this is also inaccurate, what happened in Birmingham.

I have also discovered this year I have been lied to prior to this year before I arrived in Brighton and London this year (2025), I was lied to by DWP employees in jobcentres, offices about my housing payments in Universal Credit and what has happened could have been prevented at an earlier time, as long ago as when I was in Cheltenham a few years ago after I was in London that year, before I was in Bristol and Bath for a shorter time and then Birmingham, and also lied to there about my housing. (Updated March 2025). I can see me being lied to about my housing payments by DWP employees and misled by housing in Cheltenham, how that resulted in me being outside for two nights in Cheltenham a few years ago and from later that year me being stuck in Birmingham for more than a year and a half, and what happened to me personally in Birmingham that was unneccessary, a victim of crime, income deprivation, unsuitable accommodation and everything else that happened to me there, such as an apparent mistaken identity involving a member of the public in Birmingham lying about me to the police in Birmingham causing an incident I am not happy about last year, that I've reported. I can also see how that lying about my housing payments by DWP employees has caused me other costs, such as homelessness in actuality, since I was in Cheltenham a few years ago and a situation since where I have not had sufficient money to do what I need to do, travel overseas. To reiterate, this is why I started my fundraiser last year.

In the past 10 months and actually the past 2 years, I have been needing to move often in the UK, without housing security, so I am homeless at this time and since before I started this fundraiser (updated March 2025). This can cause me unwanted stress and sleep deprivation and there are other costs. I have travelled widely in the world and found work and satisfaction from this, I do not see my housing situation in the UK as comparable to this wider travel, however I do want to travel overseas, aware of what has happened.

Since last year in response to my efforts, my self-employed work, I have also received some problematic messages on social media against how I apply computer software in my work. This isn't helpful, frustrating, understatement. My Linkedin account for my work and work search was hacked into at the weekend in central London and the same day my Whatsapp was accidentally blocked by the provider, perhaps because a message I sent about my work was reported or because of inaccurate AI management, today I am still blocked from accessing my Whatsapp account by a block from receiving a text message for this. (Updated March 2025)

The housing crisis has cost me a lot in money and time. Recently, I strained my back from moving around with my bags and needed to give away personal items, such as my books I gave to a charity bookseller in Edinburgh (January 2025). I cannot access emergency or temporary accommodation from local public services here, nor in Edinburgh last month, because of local connection laws in England and Scotland and priority need in Brighton I was told. I am paying for my accommodation, effected by price fluctuations and accommodation availability in Brighton. Since last summer, possibly in retaliation to my personal complaint about public services in the UK and Guernsey I am speculating, and this cannot happen again, since last summer I have been victim to targeted sanctions of my benefit from DWP offices in Scotland since I've been homeless and self-employed, impacting me and my income into this month, new year and more than £1200 has been taken from my benefit seemingly via those DWP offices in Scotland, also involving a DWP office in Newcastle, whilst I've been homeless and experiencing financial hardship. Wrong, surely, whilst other people have lied to and about me. This is not everyone working in the DWP and jobcentres, but has involved previous case managers for my Universal Credit before 2025, at least one centre manager and a number of decision-makers who believed they can act in that way against another person when they are being paid by the state to provide support. That may be motivated by xenophobia. I have also been lied to on a Universal Credit phone line in recent weeks and misled when I am homeless and experiencing financial hardship, I was lied to that there would not be a reduction in my benefit payment and there was (January 2025). With good reason I have moved.

Last summer, I needed to move often because of accommodation availability and this has cost me money and time, exhausting income I've had (October 2024). For a number of months this year, and not for the first time in recent years and longer, I also needed to pay for storage for my bags when I moved, this year for storage for my bags in London. I have now collected my bags from storage in London (Updated 01/11/24).

There are other costs I've needed to manage during the housing crisis and inflation in recent years. I know I will need to move on in not too long now this has happened, travel for work and income reasons. If you’d like to, please help me with this personal financial crisis that effects my housing and freedom to increase my income and do what I need to do.

Earlier this year a tooth filling and tooth veneer have fallen out and I have not yet found a new dentist and this is another cost of needing to move earlier this year.

I can explain in some more detail and not only about what has happened in more recent months. I am not comfortable going into these personal details, but discretely I think this is necessary now. Again, If you'd like to share this, please only share this Gofundme link for this fundraiser. Thank you.

Savings I’ve had have been exhausted by the housing crisis and inflation in the UK and Guernsey in the past more than 5 years and I’ve needed to move in Britain quite a lot in this time to find accommodation. I needed to move from where I was earlier in the year, Birmingham, because of unsuitable accommodation, and crime in areas I would not have moved to if it hadn’t been for the housing crisis, inflation and blocks to job applications to employers I made in Birmingham, needing to be self-employed now for a number of years and continuing to be self-employed. I worked overseas for some years before the pandemic. I have PhD, Master and first class Bachelor degrees from colleges and universities in England and Scotland and I was born and went to school in Guernsey, secondary school at Elizabeth College.

Going back further than the past 5 or 10 years and up until the present, I have had no new offer of employment from a UK employer since I graduated with my PhD from Glasgow School of Art, working at this time for an employer in Guernsey. Initially I think this was because I moved overseas from Guernsey to job offers and was then working overseas, although I applied for employment in the UK from overseas. When I have returned to the UK from working in other countries in the world, I saw jobs I applied for going to other people and some employers misled me about jobs wasting my time. I have considerable lost income and I had to continue to working overseas for employers and have had to work self-employed.

Prior to the pandemic I was travelling a lot for work overseas and this has been how I worked for a number of years. I have worked for employers in the UK and Guernsey, in Europe, China, the Middle East, India and travelled for my studies and self-employed in the world since the late 1990s.

The pandemic and cost of returning from overseas to the UK for work has been tough to me. I have not travelled outside of Britain in more than 5 years and before the pandemic travel was an integral part of my work and life. In the UK, I have more recently registered for benefit, working self-employed. After I moved to Edinburgh in the summer, last month my benefit was reduced to zero, as a consequence of needing to move often in the central region of Scotland because of accommodation availability. I am also in contact with Edinburgh council and appealing a recent decision made, my appeal was rejected (November 2024), this was a few weeks after my benefit was reduced to zero whilst staying in a hotel, moving for accommodation availability in Scotland. That reduction of my benefit to zero in the summer (2024) and actual reduction for a few months is unreasonable, significant lost income to me because of circumstances at the time and that happened whilst I have been in temporary accommodation in Scotland, needing to change address and jobcentre regularly and was actioned by a jobcentre in Glasgow area when I was temporarily staying in a hotel there, as that jobcentre knows. I suspect the reduction of my benefit is targeted and could be in retaliation to a complaint I have made to the DWP about Universal Credit, for me self-employed, my complaint since last year or perhaps there are matters about my Universal Credit that have been hidden from me, this is plausible in the sense of being an explanation that could be accurate and is reasonable for me to consider. I have also needed to make other complaints about public services and customer services, to my bank in the Channel Islands. I was born in Guernsey and lived in Guernsey for many years but have effectively been priced out by blocks to my right to work in Guernsey and inflation, since I worked for some years away and chose to move for employment to Beijing, China, after working in the public sector in Guernsey.

Before the pandemic, when I travelled to London via Paris after flying to Zurich from the Far East, in Paris my bag with my work materials in was stolen and my bag, belongings were not recovered. My phone was stolen, pickpocketed somehow around Nathan's Road in Hong Kong the year before. My bag and belongings being stolen, what happened in Paris has never happened to me before or at any other time although my bag was stolen and recovered in Cheltenham two years ago during a weekend when I had a problem from fluctuating prices from a temporary accommodation booking company in London. Around 10 years and a bit more ago a device of mine was stolen discretely from me in an internet cafe in Barcelona and I do not know with absolute certainty whether or not this is directly connected to anything else that has happened.

It's also plausible these costs, and misunderstandings could have or have had something to do with when I was in Canada searching for work and studying a TEFL teaching course at University of Toronto, after I'd graduated with my PhD from Glasgow and before I moved to Beijing, China for employment working again for an employer and was then working in Asia for a number of years. My English language teaching certificate from Toronto, Canada is not a British Council CELTA certificate and this has cost me when I've searched and applied for new work in the past 15 years in the UK and the EU, I mean up until this time. A factor in the exclusion I have had from UK employers, mostly in England since I graduated with my PhD from Glasgow. That is exclusion from UK employers I never had before around the time I moved from Glasgow to Guernsey, where I worked and completed my PhD.

A few years after graduating with my PhD from Glasgow, when I was working for an employer in Asia in higher education, for degree programs affiliated with an American university, I joined and contributed to an American art and design education association. It is possible this was misunderstood when I later applied for a number of jobs in American universities. I have had some interest from employers in universities and colleges in the US, but in actuality no offer of employment, costing me my time and personal resources in addition to the personal cost to me of studying my PhD at Glasgow School of Art. To reiterate, this has cost me money and time, researching and applying for jobs in higher education around the world and no jobs offer from employers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand as well as in the USA and Canada, with no income to me personally from this employment, those jobs I interpret were either not filled or those jobs and income from those jobs went to other people.

I had a similar experience from my job applications to employers when I was in Europe after my employment in India, other than in Spain, this was more than 5 years ago and before the pandemic, when I had a zero hour contract from an employer, and a number of similar job offers from employers where I was at the time, but this was not sufficient income/hours for me to live there, housing costs and so on.

It is also plausible the costs I have had since 2019 have something to do with an accommodation booking I made through a booking agent in London, a booking agent I never met in person and who published inaccurate and offensive remarks about me on the Airbnb website. I have a good review from an Airbnb host in Oxford this year 2024 and other Airbnb stays but in 2022 there were online issues from Airbnb booking agents in south Wales after a few short stays in 2022 when I was looking for accommodation to rent and misinformation about me when Airbnb administrators took the side of booking agents who lied about me the customer, Airbnb administrators did not remove this misinformation from my Airbnb profile when I asked this, my Airbnb account linked to Facebook. I think this matter from 2019 in London and south Wales in 2022, linked to my Facebook account has worsened my housing situation, led to my lost income from blocks to and negating of my job applications in the UK and Guernsey to employers since 2019 and 2022, not the only factor but a significant one to me during the cost of living and housing crisis, an already difficult time. Because of raising this matter I have been singled out in a way that may have actually disadvantaged me, in some instances and has been intrusive in some cases and I am not comfortable with that, I think there has been misrepresentation of me that is not well-intended and obviously I do not want this.

Earlier this year, [2024] in the UK, I put my bags in paid storage in London and I have collected my bags from storage in London now (updated 30/10/2024). I needed to put my bags in paid storage in London because when I was in London after Birmingham, earlier this year I could not find anywhere for me to rent, timing and money.

If you wish to do this, please help me with this personal financial crisis that effects my housing situation and freedom to increase my income to do what I need to do. This is both an immediate and a longer term matter.

Thank you

Glen