To wonder why the government thinks it's ok to have so many homeless people

[lavenderhue]

A direct consequence of sanctions, bedroom tax, zero hours contracts and a lack of care and commitment to young people is the cause of the growing number of homeless on the streets. These people are often drug and/or alcohol dependent, which in the long run can be just as costly to treat as opposed to preventing homelessness in the first place.

The latest drug now with homeless people is "spice" which makes people appear zombie like often ending with them falling flat on their face and going into a coma. Ambulances are now coming out on a regular basis for these "spice" victims. We now have town centres across the UK with a rapidly growing number of people who will end up like this.

Is this the kind of Britain the government thinks is acceptable. It's so bloody wrong. What gets me is, the cost of preventing homelessness in the first place is far cheaper than the high cost of healthcare for people who sleep rough. What an uncaring world we are in. Does anyone agree with me.

I was shocked to find that there are an estimated 4,134 people sleeping rough (in England) on any given night.

How can this figure possibly be so low? I honestly would have expected there to be more than that in London alone. I think that if the number is genuinely as low as a few thousand, then as a country England is doing outstandingly well.

It's a tragedy for the individuals concerned, nobody should be forced to sleep rough, but in all truth I expected the number to be in the tens of thousands.

If a government turns it back (which it has) on the most vulnerable in our society then of course they are to blame. Not everyone has a supportive family. This government doesn't give a shit about the poor and the disabled, (read Helenas link above) only for making the rich richer.

People aren't generally on the streets because of money and disabilities, though.

They can lead to things that lead to things but in turn, those things alone do not cause people to sleep,rough.

Lux I think that's incredibly high.

It's very low indeed when you consider how densely populated the U.K. is.

Well, you are making a big assumption with that title that a government should be responsible for everyone. How would that work?!

There are lots of reasons why people become homeless. It's not as simple as "cutting benefits has done it". One of the charities I've done work for really struggled to get some individuals to have a bed even for one night, because they don't like the conditions that comes with (i.e. don't get off your head on drugs or alcohol before coming in).

I think educating people more about the reasons would be a good place to begin, starting in schools and going on from there. People might dismiss an obvious drunk, but if they've had their eyes opened as to how he/she ended up that way, it's harder to do.

Cal no i didn't meant the homeless were on the streets through disability, i was just saying the government don't care about the poor and disabled in general.

As mentioned by others one of the big issues is the appalling state of mental health services and other support structures that used to be in place to help people keep things together. If you look at the cost of prevention in many cases you save money by investing in preventative services but instead they've been stripped away.

I think many people do not realise how far many of those on the streets have actually moved away from so called 'civilised society' and how dangerous they can be.

It's horribly sad. No one is born that way. But when someone is volatile, violent, hostile and aggressive, sitting down and having a nice chat with them is out. I honestly wonder what some of you would have the government do? When you've got a drunk Glaswegian who will say nothing but 'you fucking cunt' - 'would you like help applying for your benefits - you fucking cunt' - 'do you need somewhere safe to stay? - you fucking cunt' - or when you've got someone so dependent on drugs they will steal from the hostel that purports to help them, or when their schizophrenia is so severe they believe the guy sleeping next to them is trying to murder them and respond fighting for their lives?

As long as people have personal choice and freedom, some people are going to fuck their lives up beyond repair. I agree it's heartbreaking. I don't agree we should smile and nod as they do so.

the city I live in has an annual count of the homeless. There are 70 in a city of 90,000.

On the Universal Credit thread there is a post about a widow who lost her husband at the end of April and still hasnt recieved Bereavement Benefit.

There is also a poster on there who has been told to put her 2 year old into care due to a delay on her UC.

Still i guess if they become homeless they can have the joy of being thought of as pissheads and drug addicts.

There's really no answer. I hate the idea of anyone sleeping rough, and donate to Shelter every month. However, if we built lots of flats and put homeless people in them, then people with jobs who have to live with parents or flatmates would be unhappy that the homeless are skipping past them on the housing list when the people with jobs are paying their taxes. And they'd have a point. But I still don't want to see people on the streets. So I don't know what the solution is!

Why is the government to blame? What about family?
Family structures and dynamics have also changed.

Yes, true..but also take a family that lived in a council house as their family grow up...once the DC grow up and leave home..the pressure is then on to downsize to release the house to a family in need..bedroom tax pressures...incentives to move..then say eldest DC has family breakdown, and MH problems and finds themselves homeless...parents may be willing to help but unable to help support adult family members.

having a family member with serious mh or addiction issues would be extremely draining, not the kind of situation that couch surfing for a week or two would solve.
but family can help with paperwork and that ongoing push with police or social workers to get placements etc.
the loss of long term institutionalization hasn't really helped that demographic.

Labour had 13 years to address the problem.

The last Labour government pretty much eradicated street homelessness.

The sanctions are a huge issue.

Like I've said previously in this thread there has been no Opposition to whatever ruling Government was in power for far too long.

A properly opposed Government would never have got these sanctions through to reality. The end result has always been that vulnerable people will fall through the net.

There have been some highly publicised deaths which have illustrated that. People who have died due to sanctions and with no effective safety net in place to catch the most vulnerable. That safety net would have been effective and properly funded mental health care in many of those cases but of course that has been cut as well.

That's without homelessness on top.

And yes I agree that Labour did nothing to address housing needs (affordable housing) while in power as nuLabour and Conservatives are the same animal with only slightly different habits.

We now finally have an Opposition and I for one am cheering,

I can tell you definitively what is causing homelessness, the dramatic increase of inefficiency in the job market. It's more possible than ever in human history to.be highly able, consistently applying and be unable to get work. This is. compounded by the vast and increasing amounts of work that won't allow rent and bills to be paid, or enough food and clothes for work if you are single.

Getting work is an incredibly intensive activity, using multiple electronic sites often without any material gain, and then when work is obtained, that work pays people so badly, that they are as precarious, sometimes more so, than without it. Agencies like councils, landlords, utility companies attack the poorest hardest with the most severe sanctions. The downward psychological pressure on the poorest.. And I mean those that work for our most recognised brands, Amazon, sports direct, Costa, Nero, Starbucks, next, boots, asda, tesco, Aldi, lid, sainsbury, morissons, o2, macdonalds, wetherspoon, anyone you like.

I'm showering at work, working for a major brand, and having food bank food for lunches and eve meals, with cheap porridge for breakfast and am surviving on my warm home discount for electricity,, and I struggle to get to the end of a week with spare cash, and I'm working full time. I can only afford my mortgage because. It's. 30% of the average lowest rents in my area. If it wasn't, I'd be on a path to homeless, and I had to ask to miss a mortgage payment last month because my change in jobs was from an even lower paying employer and the gap in pay meant I was down to baked beans and food banks to survive the gap. Any small slip up in that, or an aggressively enforced bill could have put me on a path to homelessness.. And still could.. I have no hot water in my flat, and can't use the toilet until I can save for a plumber. I am as close as you can get to homeless, and I've had only two or three months without work in the last three years, and for some of that had two jobs that together didn't make up the equivalent of a full time wage.

We have a low-waged americanised economy with fewer safety nets. We'll accelerate the slide into American swathes of extreme poverty increased crime, and no go areas, as long as we have politicians who look towards America rather than Europe for their business imodels.

I agree that the loss of good paying jobs is huge, but I blame the Chinese.

Calyrical Mon 12-Jun-17 16:50:12

IME the two interlinked strands of homelessness are drugs and mental health issues.

It's rarely the case that an 'ordinary' person slips through the net to the extent that they are in the streets

I did think about name changing for this but thought fuck it, I'm not ashamed, I did nothing wrong.

In late 2009 the company I delivered stuff in North and East London for went tits up. I got almost £5k in redundancy pay and thought I'd get a job before it ran out, so I didn't sign on. You know, there was, and is, this thinking of someone on benefits is a scrounger and I bought into that. Eventually I had to sign on, and decided I wanted to go to college to learn how to use my pc. My attendance at college formed part of my job seekers ageement.

I started the course in Sept. 2010, and in Nov. 2010 was referred to one of the job hunting companies who purport to get you into work. In early Jan 2011 they asked me to apply for a placement (unpaid) that would mean I missed a day of college per week. I refused, they wrote to the DWP and I got sanctioned.

Everything was stopped. JSA, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, everything. I sold every fucking thing I had to pay my rent and eat.
Finally I had nothing left and I took my keys back to my LL and became homeless. The first couple of weeks I sofa surfed, then my friends' patience was tested. I became street homeless.

I have every synpathy with those who are street homeless. No wonder they take drugs or drink to excess, it's fucking terrifying. In the nearly 4 weeks I was street homeless I didn't sleep more than a couple of hours a night.

I was lucky. I replied to an ad requiring guardians to look after commercial properties, and this is how I've lived since.

I work, but I'm lucky if I earn £200pw due to being on zero hours. I have a roof over my head for now, but it looks like I'll lose it at the end of the month. I fucking hoep I'm not sleeping in my car after I leave this place.

Oh, I bought my car with money I earned, not with a loan. It cost me £400. It's the most expensive thing I own.

I didn't have a drink or drug problem before I was made homeless. I do now. At first it was the horror of street homelessness, now it's the tedium of being alone.

I would prefer a different life to the one I have. Who wouldn't

Doctor

So sorry about this

But do please note my use of the word 'rarely', not 'never.'

I think the reason is that politicians especially Conservative ones, are amateur economists and basic botch Darwinists. They think that the worst off are by definition the least able because they fail completely to understand the mechanics of the society they are claiming dominance over, and additionally they assume the economy needs a set of people who are unemployed to cushion the forces of supply and demand, whilst failing to understand that there is no economic need for it to be the same people all the time. They see increased unemployment as a business-friendly environment, because their understanding of business is at best, playground.

Let's not forget who politicians.largely are in the Conservative Party- people who believe that more people in agreement is the same as more truth, non-numeric arts graduates who are selected into universities and schools by money over ability, and people who train themselves to argue well without need of facts or research (see rhetoric and debating competition rules).

Doctor I truly hope you don't become homeless again. Life is so cruel and uncaring now. Best of luck for the future

I am aware of an ordinary family, who rented privately, coming to the end of their tenancy.

Due to the changes in tax landlords are selling up, there are few houses available and the rents are now so high that they would need a top up of housing benefit but no LL accepts this. This family became homeless.

Doctor i hope you find somewhere soon and it doesnt come to you having to sleep in your car

In 2017!