The fact that there's a charity drive for them annoys me. There seem to be more and more of these stories just looking for funding from people.
I hate the fact that I'm skeptical of their story, but I am.
That aside, let's look at the actual financials:
Last year, Alan earned around £7,000 and received £527-per-month old-age pension along with a meagre occupational pension of £292 a month.
So he got 819/mo = 9828 annual + the 7k he earned, which gives 16828 gbp, which is $25,890.72 USD.
Sorry, but that's enough to live on. You don't need to live in the airport. It may not be a ton, and they may be in an expensive place (London), but it's doable, especially if they move.
Although they have a modest income of approximately £1,400 a month, £300 is spent on paying for storage for their furniture and £485 goes towards a £20,000 bank loan they took out in 2011 to try to keep afloat. This leaves them just over £600 a month to live on.
What the fuck? 300 GBP to STORE FURNITURE? Sell that shit, immediately bank the money to help pay off that bank loan, and save yourself the 785 GBP/mo.
although they would be eligible for housing benefit if they already had a home, they cannot hope to get one without funds for a deposit and a month’s advance rent.
Hell, use the furniture money for that down payment, get the housing allowance, then pay off the bank loan on an accelerated schedule plowing the extra money that was going into paying the storage unit into the bank loan.
One might question why they didn’t just sell their possessions in storage to make some spare cash and save on the £300 monthly fee, but, they point out, their belongings, though precious to them, had little monetary value.
Okay, then throw them out or give them away and save on the fee. Sell what you can, but don't keep paying that stupid monthly fee.
This is not rocket science.
25k USD/year is more than enough to live on. Most of us here do.
From the article:
They strive to remain anonymous, unremembered
They try to be inconspicuous.
We don’t want to stick out.
I don’t know if the airport staff suspect we’re staying here.
Well they bloody do now, don't they?
Yeah. That's part of why this seems a scam to get free money.