London Begging - it’s changed

There is an organisation called Streetlink which have an app and a website where you can inform them of someone who is sleeping rough. Just let them know where you saw them and they will send their navigators out to try and find them.
Homelessness is a very complex issue, very rarely a simple case of not having a home.
There are loads of organisations in London that can support people so they don't have to sleep on the streets, however, that can often feel less safe for people, so for them the streets are a better option.
Organised begging gangs are definitely on the rise with vulnerable people being trafficked and being used to make money for the corrupt.
Please do report anyone you see begging, as this enables organisations to target the support where needed and at least help some people onto a better future.

I was approached by a man asking for money to buy a train ticket. I offered to walk with him to the station and I would buy him a ticket. He suddenly disappeared and didn't need a ticket anymore......

People used to say the same about the few homeless people in my town, too.

They were talking bollocks though, as 3 of the 4 were clients of the homeless project I worked for and they were genuinely homeless.

@barndancebilly I work in central London and walk or get the best near Hanover Square and know exactly who you mean. A couple of weeks ago the police were there moving them on because of a massive fight and this was before 8am. I see them regularly on Regent Street but refuse to give money to them.

I haven't been to Marble Arch recently but there was a pretty large camp of them living in tents on the traffic island a couple of years ago. I was appalled but I imagine they make a lot of money from tourists.

I live close to Dublin and sometimes when I get the bus in, I see a family of about eight kids and adults, all Romani Gypsies, get on to head into town to beg. They are housed but they treat begging like their day job and diligently go in to do it. Obviously they're getting all the benefits they're entitled to as well. It's the same everywhere. I very rarely give money to beggars because it's nearly always a scam or else it will go straight into their arm.

I was at a bus stop in Croydon a while ago and there was a possibly Roumanian woman begging, holding a baby. The woman next to me in the queue announced that she was a social worker and if the beggar was caught begging with a baby by the Police then the baby would be taken off her - and the beggar slunk off.

We live in a student area and there are lots of Romanian beggars. I think the students are more likely to give to them due to naïveté. But I walk past them on my way to work at ‘fake Romanian beggar drop off time’ and see them all being delivered to their patches from a new people carrier.

It’s not that police don’t care, it’s a question of budget. London has swelled in population. (6.8million in the 1980s- 9 millions in 2000) Number of police is decreasing, 250 a week leave the force. Their roles are more diverse, spreading to online crime- to larger issues such as drug busts. In to the early 90s, it was more ‘seen crimes’ ie. Robberies, drugs, violence etc. They work behind the scenes and stop things happening before they happen. But this never gets reported. Sadly, not enough resources and police have not had a wage increase for 20 years.

how many of you have had redundancies at your work and co-workers not replaced… same same.

Probably because they’re all busy policing people’s social media posts for views that don’t fit the socially acceptable norm.

When was the last time you saw one on foot?

Honestly this sort of stuff makes me afraid to go anywhere! People being harassed and robbed in broad daylight. Why don’t the police do anything about it?

Actual Big Issue sellers are regulated, but there are plenty of people who have one old tatty copy of the Big Issue from months ago and use it as a begging prop. They won’t actually sell it to you if you try to buy it. They just want your money.

They aren’t proper Big Issue sellers. No lanyard. Just scammers.

Met Police have posted on local pages warning people of these organised beggars. We have them spaced out every few metres all with the same cardboard signs. They are fully aware that it's gangs operating these scams.

For those saying get a translator and speak to them, be very careful, they are usually being watched aand I've heard of people being chased off by the bosses.

I don’t want to sound unkind because there are genuinely homeless and desperate people out there, but I have observed some of these extreme beggars being collected in side streets in expensive cars with tinted windows. It’s obviously organised.

Similarly groups of women with children with collection boxes on the end of sticks wailing loudly for help and then being spoken to by men in expensive clothing as of being given directions.

Sad, and it must make it harder to determine who is genuine and who isn’t.

We don't even stop to speak to the homeless or buy them food now. Would rather donate to local homeless charities. My husband was on his own in Manchester, in the day near one of the tram stations. He got talking to a homeless girl and gave her some money & offered to buy her some food. Nearby a man was watching & on his phone. As soon as my husband started to walk this man started to follow him. He had to walk down a set of steps that were enclosed with high walls. He expected a gang of youths to be at the bottom ready to mug him. Luckily there wasn't. The man following him might have intended to mug him. Luckily there was a police station at the bottom of the steps so he walked by there & the man disappeared. Might have just been a coincidence but he wondered if the girl was in cahoots with the man following him, or he has an over active imagination. It was quite upsetting thinking what could have happened to my lovely husband.

I've watched them be dropped off and picked up in a nice BMW to vauxhall station. I've never given to anyone begging since then

Same and I live in a naice village near Chester - they are bussed here because apparently we’re all rich and soft 🙄

Quite similar stuff in China—fake disabilities, dirty kids in rags in bad weather, begging for train fare, etc. It’s all organised and they apparently come from the same villages and just traffic people from there.

One thing I have noticed over the years in London is that there were quite a few homeless people always in 1998 when I moved there. Then fewer and fewer over the years, until 2010. Then loads more every year since then. Because a Tory government always increases poverty.

Sometimes I give money, sometimes I don't. More often than not now as
I have no cash on me. I've also bought someone a sandwich and a drink in Pret a few times. I don't see it as my business to judge what they spend it on to get them through their day.

I work off Regent street. There are loads in Hanover Square although it’s a little better since it was re opened. I’ve seen them all be dropped off in a mini van at 8am before. They get a coffee all together at McDonalds and then go off to sit in the middle of the pavement and wail.

In our local town the beggars are bussed in from Glasgow. We had one lady that used to sit on a pedestrian bridge into town, she sat there in all weather without shoes making out she was homeless when she actually lived in a 2 bed house paid for by the council.

Yes they’re organised criminal gangs and the people they send out to beg are probably in some form of modern slavery.
No one (the authorities) seems to care though 🤷🏻‍♀️

Please be assured that genuine street homeless people are well supported in the UK. Every borough has a homelessness team who will do regular street counts, have outreach workers who get to know the local homeless population and work with them to access the services they need - whether that is mental health, substance abuse, housing, reconnection, or a combination of all the above - and will coordinate the provision of emergency housing or shelters once the temperature drops below a certain level. They work closely with the police - every borough has homeless liaison officers - and with mental health teams, hostels and so on.

Trafficking is also monitored closely and there are specific teams dealing with that. The Romanian gangs are notorious and a lot goes on behind the scenes to disband them and get their victims back home.

I know all this because one of my friends is very senior in the homelessness sector. She is always frustrated at the belief that no one is doing anything for these people. As she always tells me, most people actively begging on the streets, asking for money and being emotionally manipulative, saying they need money for hostels or are hungry and so on are chancers who often have somewhere perfectly safe to sleep and use begging as a way to get an income rather than working. Genuine entrenched street homeless with complex needs are provided with shelter and support by councils - many refuse the offer due to their complex needs, unfortunately - but the provision is there for them to take.

You do not and should not feel guilted into giving money to street homeless. As my friend always says, they will never spend it on food or shelter because they don’t need to. It will go on fuelling their addictions which leads to further entrenching their homelessness. Giving them money makes their situation worse. So please don’t do it!

It’s mostly a scam to get sympathy. There used to be a guy we saw shivering with no shoes on on my route to work. People were falling over themselves to ask him if he was on etc….his feet were spotless. I also saw a girl approach him and give him shoes after rush hour one day and then they walked off together happy as Larry.

And outside of London, visiting another city a few years a go we were by a the machine to pay for our parking ticket in a multi storey for a while. There was a man begging everyone who came to pay and it was obviously very contrived - people were paying by cash so they couldn’t lie and say they didn’t have any. We had problems with our ticket or couldn’t find the cash or something, anyway we were stood there for about 15 + minutes when normally we’d have been in and out quickly. I honestly couldn’t believe how many people gave this man money in the time we were there. There was no way that he was taking in any less than a few hundred a day.

Obviously you don’t know if it’s spent on drugs or if it goes back to organised crime, but he was probably raking in more of an income than the people giving to him.

We still have Big Issue sellers. I’d never ever buy it because the Big Issue don’t seem to care who sell it - round here it’s clearly an organised gang and one of each is at each station entrance. The man nearest to us seems lovely, always the same man, but there are many, many stories locally which are not positive. He was removed by the police for a while.

I know the family you mean, they had quite a Facebook following at one point, with people donating bags of stuff which I heard they accepted and sold on..I have avoided the apart of town they stand in for quite a while now