I just have no words

[Soloparenthelp]

What has this country become.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67321319

I've actually taken the time to speak to them. A good number of times.

It doesn't sound like taking tents away would have done one iota to stop these two people. Again, they needed help before they became addicts.

WRT people from abroad - in my LA area and the neighbouring ones, there are a number of encampments occupied by Eastern Europeans (mostly). Often they have fallen out of eligibility for housing and benefits . They can be offered a flight "home" but prefer to be homeless in England than their home country. Which is entirely understandable.

Obviously, this only applies to the handful of LA areas that I'm familiar with.

I think you should sell your services to the Border Force if you can tell what passport someone has by talking to them. It would save all the looking at photos business.

When two stories collide

Vile Tory scum.

"Some people with issues aren't on the streets therefore nobody needs to be on the streets" is, with every respect, a ludicrous argument. It's reminiscent of people who turn up on MN threads saying that because their mildly autistic child doesn't struggle in school, the fact that another poster's autistic child does struggle must be solely down to their poor parenting.

No one person's circumstances and problems are the same as any other person's. Can you claim that your situation is identical to that of any of the hypothetical people quoted in @PaperDolls' post, down to being constantly let down, physically attacked, abused all your life, mentally scarred, having untreated medical conditions, etc etc? Even if you can tick all those boxes, I guarantee that your situation will still not be directly comparable to that of any homeless person out on the streets right now.

People have told me where they're from. And by the way, it's usually not war-torn countries.

The best solution for this and so much of the misery and poverty in the country is to build council housing. And unfortunately we know how the Tories feel about council housing .

Any fucking housing for the love of God.

A short term/immediate solution would be to build pod hotels with immediate, no questions asked, no conditions accommodation. Seperate floors/rooms for men/women/non drinkers or drug takers/people with dogs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel

Just looked up our homeless rate compared to our neighbours. Massively worse here of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_homeless_population

From Newsthump:

Suella Braverman is to propose new laws aimed at restricting the use of wheelchairs by disabled people, arguing that many people see using one as a lifestyle choice.

"Only last week I was being carried through town on my litter, when it became apparent that I was being delayed by a person, presumably a foreign person, in a wheelchair,” explained the Home Secretary, as she bathed in the blood of a sacrificial virgin. “Naturally, I had the person beaten and their chair thrown in the canal, but I think we can do more. Nobody wants to see our great cities polluted by the site of these ghastly wheelchairs, so my new law will give the police powers to confiscate the wheelchair, kick the person using it in the balls and then run off laughing.”

She went on to argue that, for many people, the use of a wheelchair was a lifestyle choice. “It’s clear to me that many of these so-called ‘disabled’ people are just using these wheelchairs to get from one place to another. It’s a lifestyle choice. If they simply stayed in one place, then they wouldn’t need to use a wheelchair at all.”

The Home Secretary then stamped on a puppy, stole a child’s ice cream and pushed over a pensioner before returning to Parliament to introduce her bill.

Probably. But until all of those are in place, it makes no sense to take away tents, does it? And there's zero sign of Braverman and her colleagues putting adequate number of either in place.

Until some comes up with an answer, surely it makes no sense to take away basic shelter from the elements? How would that solve anything?

It just won't. If they can't put up tents, they will go back to makeshift cardboard shelters, sleeping in doorways etc. And some will die.

Careful, Newsthump writers; you don't want to give Braverman any of the few ideas that she hasn't had already!

Aren’t humans odd?

For people who find it hard to find a home some people think taking away their tent is the right answer.

For people who find it hard to earn enough money through working some people think taking away the benefits that would enable them to survive with dignity is the right answer.

For people who arrive here having come from a place where their human rights are violated, some people think removing their rights here is the right answer.

For children who find it hard to cope in school some people think exclusion and not allowing them to go to school is the right answer.

The list goes on…

It’s hard for some people to tolerate the pain that comes from allowing yourself to feel the suffering that fellow humans are experiencing. So a big defence mechanism is triggered whereby the sufferer is seen as ‘other’, as having ‘chosen’ this path, as ‘at fault’, and therefore needing to be dealt with and punished. Only when it is sufficiently distanced from themselves can some people cope with them world and with the suffering and sadness of others that unfortunately is part of human existence.