Income and travel emergency

Hi, my fundraiser is for a personal situation, an emergency and longer term matter. I am working self-employed and have been staying in hotel and hostel accommodation for a few months or so, not out of my choice.

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

In the new year, I moved from Edinburgh to Brighton, Sussex, and I have been needing to move often, without housing security, so I am homeless at this time and since before I started this fundraiser (January 2025). The housing crisis has cost me alot 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. 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 jobcentres 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 jobcentres in Scotland, also involving DWP office in Newcastle, whilst I've been homeless and experiencing financial hardship. Financial abuse of me, whilst other people have lied to and about me. This is not everyone working in jobcentres, but has involved at least one centre manager, in Leven in Fife and a number of decision-makers in Dundee, Renfrew and probably Edinburgh who believe they can act in a financially abusive 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. With good reason I have moved, and needed to move from Edinburgh and Scotland.

Last summer, I needed to move often because of accommodation availability and this has cost me money and time, exhausting income I've had. 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). I've moved into a private room in a hostel temporarily and I've needed to move from Edinburgh, in the circumstances (November 2024).

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 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 about Universal Credit and jobcentres, 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 UoT in 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 has actually disadvantaged me and has been intrusive in some cases, 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