Homeless Blogger Challenges Election Candidates

antrim | politics / elections | news report Thursday April 14, 2005 19:49 by Jon Glackin - Street Seen streetseen at hotmail dot co dot uk 0774 327 5533

www.jamiesbigvoice.com

Former homeless person and former drug addict, Jamie McCoy, has launched his own
platform for homeless people to make their views known. Jamie’s Big Voice weblog
will give a commentary on the General Election campaign, challenging candidates
to participate and giving homeless people the chance to express their opinions.

Explaining his motivations, Jamie said: “I am angry that homeless people have
the right to register to vote, but their views are not being heard and
homelessness does not look like being a major issue in this election. I want to
create a place where the issues can be debated from the point of view of
homeless people and I’m inviting all election candidates to visit my blog and
discuss these with me.”

Jamie, who is now a poet and author, plans to take the views of homeless people
and present them to politicians through his weblog, but anyone, whether election
candidate or member of the public, can participate.

Jamie is being supported in his effort by the homelessness charity Crisis, anti-Poverty Paper Street Seen and
the Hansard Society, an independent non-party organisation, although the content
of Jamie’s blog will be his own. Jamie hopes that people will visit the site at
www.jamiesbigvoice.com and comment on the issues of the day in the run up to the
election.