AIBU to think Premier Inn should’ve let homeless in.

[Oddish]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/premier-inn-homeless-people-turned-away-customer-paying-westonsupermare-a8240171.html

A woman who couldn’t make her mass booking of 19 rooms due to the weather last week offered the rooms to the homeless in the area via a charity’s Facebook.
A couple who had a flooded home were also given a room.
Flood couple let in no problem, homeless people who attended with charity rep were turned away.
Now Premier are saying they needed the lead room booker to be there and ID to be presented which is obviously bollocks because the flooded home couple were allowed in with no problem.

AIBU to think they should’ve let them in, it was bitterly cold and I think they acted heartlessly. Then the backtracking that followed. AIBU to boycott them? Would you?

Edna - it was for one night. Premier Inn aren’t responsible. Our arsehole government are responsible for the entire 365 nights where people are sleeping on the streets.

Our council have a rule that says if 3 nights in a row it’s below freezing, they will try and house you temporarily. And the rest of the year....

Despicable.

At this point, this is my choice over a shelter. I'll never get in a house again, anyway, and at least I please myself.

I don't think you are near me, otherwise ild always offer you my spare tent. And you could have a drink and I wouldn't look down on you. Trust me you would need one.

Sorry to hear about your husband. I hope you guys get more time together.

Edna if i had my way you would get a place.

I have never voted for any of these policies that cause this and i never will.

ONE night, one shower, one uninterrupted sleep. One Paid for night makes the difference between giving up on life and being able to carry on.

The rooms are paid for. These human beings shoukd have been allowed in them.

Since when do hotels demand everyone in them are teetotal and dont use drugs! Hilarious! Only homeless people aren't allowed relief, huh.

Shelters are very unreasonable, and controlling. I wont use them either. Ad they are rarely safe
Ild rather be outside.

I don’t think private businesses should have to sort out the mess that is homelessness.

Many homeless people have complex needs including drug use.

As a woman I would not be happy about staying in a hotel in my own with this next door as it wouldn’t be geared up to accommodate those needs for one night.

I say this as someone who is appalled by the support for homeless people and I give money daily to them. You are fighting over 15 rooms for one night - but we have a nationwide crisis in this issue

A buffet restaurant I used to go to would allow the homeless in the area in after they closed and would let them have a free meal with whatever was left. They had to stop in the end becuase if the amount of threats and to staff and the general behaviour of them. I’m with the PI here, just because all homeless people are people too and not all will have severe issues, some will and it is unsafe and unfair to put staff with no training into that situation.

Im allowed a phone. Ive not enough money to dream of getting into a house. Like a lot of people I live in my car. I pay for camping, so have electric.

Sorry, im not allowed a drink, smoke or a phone, or to use a hotel?

I guess you would rather I dropped down dead?

Dont worry, one more winter will do for me, I won't offend your delicate sensibilities.

Homeless people are not monsters not to be trusted in hotels ffs. Housed people arent any safer or better.

Hotels don't assume only homeless people will trash their rooms and be a potential threat to staff. They assume that all guests will trash their rooms and be a threat. They've taken measures to protect themselves in the form of ID and guarantee.

If you think housed people dont drink or do drugs in cheap hotels, you are all living in cuckoo land!

Yes, and the rooms had been booked, paid for and guarenteed by the person booking them and paying for them.

In the end, it's as simple as naice housed rich people not wanting to be confronted by poverty and homelessness in their spaces. Denying homeless people out of groundless fear and unsubstantiated stories of misbehavior in chinese restaurants.

I usually just lurk. Mumsnet is a intelligent, fun bit of entertainment.

I guess the sheer hostility, judgement, groundless fear, meanness and cruelty shown by you lot opened my eyes.

Homeless people are human beings, even when people like you try remove the last shreds of dignity from them. But all you can do is spout mindless drivel about complex needs. Hotels dont screen for mental health, drugs or booze. Denying people this small act of charity was cruel. But no point in trying to make anyone here see that.

Edna it’s obviously a subject that is very close to home for you but the fears that people are talking about on here are not groundless, that’s why there are specific organisations set up to deal with homelessness, if it was just about a lack of a roof over peoples heads then there would be no need for homeless charities, it would all be dealt with by council housing services.
At the end of the day the PI is not a charity, they had agreed to let the rooms to specific people who could guarantee their stay with a credit card for damages and they weren’t willing to take the risk on unknown people.

Oddish the fact you work at a Christmas shelter and can't even acknowledge the risks of working with the homeless is very worrying.
The majority will have substance misuse problems, mental health issues and criminal records. They have very complex needs. Even the homeless hostel I work alongside has very strict rules, CCTV in every corridor, high levels of staff-drug workers, CPN, etc. You have no idea of the levels of intensive support that these people need to get by.
Even then the staff have panic buttons. It's serious and these people need support from the right people and the right services who have lots of specific training. Not premier inn. Their staff and customers would be at high risk.

*greggers^ No need to worry - I do get the risks and if you look at my posts I’ve said multiple times that it was an initial reaction of the heart. I’ve met lovely people at the Xmas shelter but Of course not everyone was, just like in any large group of people, I’m just not willing to look down on these people and the attitudes on here are saddening.
I get that it was too much of a risk for the PI to allow these people a bed but, as I’ve said before, I wish the world wasn’t like that.

I imagine they were concerned for their other guests and as someone pointed out the small numbers of most probably femal staff.
How would you feel if you were there with a young family and there were bunch of homeless people staying in the Rooms next to you. They are likely to have complex alcohol and drug use problems.
It seems heartless but they are a business not a charity and they could have had a lots of complaints from the paying guests.

Edna your cherry picking what to reply to now.
I have explained as clearly as I can how hotels work. Since I am a senior manager in one, I do have first hand experience in this.
No one is scared of the homeless. It will be a breach of their insurance policy to have unidentifiable guests stay in their hotel and to not have a guarantee.
Yes non homeless people do wreck the rooms on a regular basis, but that is why the hotel has these rules in place so that they can protect their business. If you cannot comply with the rules of the hotel then you don't get to stay there.
By your logic, every hotel should let every no-show room be available for the homeless. I have explained why that is not a good idea, yet you seen determined that these points are not valid.
If the hotel did let these homeless people stay and any damages was done, who would be responsible?

In one of my previous properties, a guest was able to gain access to another person's room by accident. The key card the guest was given was accidentally cut to be a staff key which gave that person full access. That person stole from several bedrooms and attached a lady who walked in on him. Becuase we knew who he was thanks to taking ID, we were able to inform the police who were then able to track him down and arrest him. Had we not of had his name, the police would have had a much harder time tracking him down. This was a paying guest. I'm using this as an example of what hotels have to deal with and why these rules are in place.

Fair play to the OP for realising her naivete. It's a mistake a lot of people fall into, assuming that the cause of homelessness is simply the lack of a roof over your head. Those of us who have worked in housing, substance misuse, prisons, social care and the like, know very different.

That's not to say that homeless people are the shit under everyone's shoes and undeserving of any help.
In areas of high homelessness levels, there are specialist doctors surgeries in place for rough sleepers/vulnerably housed who are not necessarily able to keep to an appointment system.

Hostels have trained and experienced support workers teaching the basics in life skills and how to manage a tenancy, because throwing an entrenched homeless individual into a rental without teaching these would result in chaos and eviction. These hostels are accessed through local councils and are available to apply to live in all year round .
Local council-run rough sleeper teams who engage with those who refuse help offered, making sure they are at least as safe as they can be. Most RS teams have a dedicated mental health worker who specialises in homeless mental health.

Drug and alcohol agencies will engage with anyone who does so with them, and will find people dry accomodation to try and break the cycle of their addiction.

All of this is dependant on the individual choosing to engage with the support on offer. Many choose not to. That is their choice and should be respected.

If there were individuals wishing to use these hotel rooms, then they will have already chosen to refuse the emergency severe weather protocol . Ask yourselves why that could have been. And then ask yourselves, if your daughter was working the nightshift at this hotel, would you want her managing the chaotic behaviour, substances/alcohol, possible violence, of 19 rough sleepers so entrenched in that life that they've refused even the emergency cold weather accomodation.

As an aside.. to anyone who volunteers 'at christmas'? in my shelter we had such a huge amount of people requesting to do this, we had to turn many away. They were most put out. We did remind them that the shelter is open 24 hours a day, the other 364 days of the yer, if they wanted to pop along another time.. guess what, they didn't!

I was all ready to boycott them but MojoMoon has explained really well why it's not as clear cut. Good on you Mojo for the work you do.

Edna I am sorry you’re homeless. I wish no one was as I said in my very first post. But you’re accusing people of saying things that they didn’t say and don’t mean.

At the end of the day for me it boils down to the fact that PI are not a homeless shelter and they cannot be expected to have their staff deal with risky behaviours that are much more likely in the population who sleep rough than the population at large. Their primary duties are to their staff and also their residents. They’re not a charity.

Unless I've missed it, I haven't seen any other hotel chains stepping forward to allow the homeless to use their no-show rooms? Did any of your work places offer your office space? Meeting spaces? Reception areas? All of those could have been viable accommodation on an especially cold night.

It's an awful situation to be in and as much as I'm sure the staff as individuals felt unbelievable shitty for having to turn them away, despite their own personal thoughts on the matter, it's unfair to target PI for doing nothing different than hundreds of other hotel chains.

Have you all missed the post where it's reported THIS NEVER HAPPENED? PI have said that no homeless people presented themselves (they have even checked cctv) and they tried to contact to main booker repeatedly. No response.

If you want a general discussion about the homeless fine, but don't hold the PI up as the big bad guy

I live very near WSM, and it has a huge drug problem. There are lots of homeless charities active in the area. They all need more cash but that's not news.

It was a heart based knee jerk reaction. I wish it could’ve happened, with all my heart, but it didn’t and couldn’t, I see that

Great respect to you for learning from this, and perhaps it will help you to see that knee jerk reactions aren't always the best solution to these issues? Despite the instant headlines and shrieks of outrage which the internet provides these days, a carefully considered approach often works best in the end ...