About homeless people?

[Catabogus]

Am I being unreasonable (or more likely, dim) not to understand why there are now so many more homeless people on the streets than there were 10 years ago?

I’m partly talking about London - I have started going semi-regularly in the early morning for work, and I am shocked to see very how many people there are now obviously sleeping on the streets. It’s far, far more than 10 years ago.

But I’m also talking about the much smaller city where I live. There are now people almost ‘camping’ in doorways: they’ve set up sleeping bags and boxes and cardboard and are obviously there night after night, in the cold and rain.

There have always been one or two well-known “tramps” in my city, and one younger man who was suspected of actually having a nice home to go to at night despite making money from begging in the day, but these are now young and old, men and women, far more than I’ve ever seen before, and they are clearly living year round, day and night, in all weathers, on the streets.

AIBU to be shocked? Are we going backwards as a society? Is it the benefits system that is failing and causing this? Or other things I’m missing? I feel really depressed about it.

What support is the Labour Party offering non-UK homeless people?

No idea about national policy, but locally the Labour councils have a supported repatriation scheme for people from Eastern Europe. They provide a ticket for them to return home, and also put them in contact with others who have returned home who support them in finding accommodation and work. It's taken a fair bit of investment but it's worthwhile for the people to get settled again. I'm not sure whether it could work nationally, and of course not all homeless migrants are able to return home safely.

I believe they do put the miles in. It would be a bit silly for a new poster to begin with a thread like this wouldn't it. They post on other threads for quite a while and it does pull the wool over posters' eyes.

Of course, homelessness is not fake news but the OP pretending she has only just noticed it and wondering, wide eyed, why that might be is almost certainly fake news.

Do you see the difference?

No.

The city I live in has built enough units to house all the homeless, even provide 2 meals a day.
Guess what, the complexes are “dry” and some don’t want that.
What you see on the streets is a drug alcohol mental health problem, problems that don’t fit the 6 weeks your cured model of health care.

Fair enough, @alsohuman. I'm sure you've done your best.

The OP has been posting since 2017. That's some commitment just to start a political thread now!

Whereas Moonbeams has been posting for all of a month...

"I’ve noticed more women sleeping rough"

There is a homeless woman in Braintree who has been homeless for three and a half years. Several times she has lost out on a place in a hostel due to it going to a homeless man on drugs. Im not saying he shouldnt get help. Absolutely he should. But she gets told that as she seems to be "coping" shes not priority. Something similar happened in Torbay. Ive posted it on this site somewhere.

Someone on page 1 says there are more homeless men.

Its not gender Its being single/ having no kids. I gurantee you that a childfree by choice poorer woman would not be priority either.

*For those who are saying, 'so what if it is a political thread' I think that threads started by what is much more than likely an activist or staffer, should be declared as such and
not weakly dressed up as mock naïve, 'does this go on?'

I enjoy political threads but not when they're pretending to be from a mumsnetter. It's insulting, it's abusing the site and it's fake news. WHATEVER divide of the political spectrum they're on.

This one was almost certainly started by a campaign team.*

I’m not a political staffer or campaign team!! I’m a mother of 2 who more normally posts about breastfeeding, parenting and feminism. I’ve been here since 2009 when I first got pregnant. Do I have to say “penguin bollards, UCM is that you?, pombears and elderly Korean lady” before I can post anything which could be seen as having a political element now?

Report me to MNHQ if you don’t believe me.

Oops I forgot to put asterisks on every paragraph. Despite being here 10 years!!

In 1991 (back in the mists of time before i met DH when i was 18 and still living with my parents) i went with a friend to the local council office who needed to find a flat. She was single. I still remember what was said to her all these years later. "Im sorry but there arent many available at the moment if you had a baby things would be different but we cant help you at the moment.

I met DH in 1992 and we moved into a small bedsit and lived there for two years and 3 months before we moved to where we are now.....

Single men WERE more likely to be housed than single women or couples (all this is without children) It was assumed that women would meet a man and move in with him. (this obvs meant a higher risk of abuse.

The final straw was when my best friends ex beat her yet again She finally gave him the boot and this violent druggie was rehoused within THREE DAYS. While women were being told Sorry we cant help unless you have a child.

We had an interview for a flat and we attended and towards the end of the interview i asked how likely it was we would get allocated a flat She said it could be a while. I brought up my friends ex and she said it was sooner for him because he was "vulnerable" Yep so vulnerable that he beat up a subsequent partner so badly she lost their baby. She had moved in with him because she had no other choice

I forgot to put asterisks on every paragraph.

I never knew that's why it wasn't working

Also - I’m not a political party member, I’m a floating voter. These are the kinds of issues I care about and will certainly influence my vote. But I agree that it is too complex to be a straightforward issue for which only one party/factor is to blame.

I do find it sad that some think only party activists would care about this issue though.

Someone mentioned right to buy Gentrification regeneration and social cleansing has played its part too. Read up about West Hendon. This is just one example. There are many more.

wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2019/11/west-hendon-they-call-this-regeneration.html

Fascinated by this. I worked with the homeless for years and it's hardly a lucrative gig to be worth faking – nor worth putting up with the violence and abuse regularly received.

Sadly where I live this is very common.
It is lucrative to some yes. I often work in the Town centre and the police came in to tell us that a few of the guys sat begging were not actually homeless! They all stayed in a flat together and came into Town with sleeping bags to beg money.
The person who's flat it was has been moved now to a different area so it doesn't happen as much now.
It's for this reason I rarely give cash to them, If they want a drink and food, or hat and gloves in this weather, I'll get them some no problem but the fake ones only wanted money and refused everything else.
It's disgusting in 2019 that this is becoming the norm on our streets. I really feel for the genuine homeless.

*HelenaDove I was told the same as your friend when I was 19 and a student, living with my parents and my brother. We’d been made homeless as a family, but didn’t qualify for help from the council. I was told that I would qualify I got pregnant. I didn’t.

I think the whole root of the problem needs addressing. If there are people coming to Britain with no hope of supporting themselves then obviously they cannot be awarded accommodation, especially if they have existing addiction problems. If I turned up in, say, Italy and wanted a flat they'd laugh me all the way back onto an Easyjet flight. You can't even move within Italy and claim assistance.

Then there is the location issue. Some places attract more homeless than others for various reasons. In London, clearly, it's a bit of a failed Dick Wittington issue for some, in other places, such as Bournemouth, some councils have been using the old unpopular hotels to send their homeless to and this then unfortunately attracts dealers and the consequent crime. Where I live there are, I wouldn't say there are no homeless, but very few. It's a bit of a crummy area - I don't think there's ever been a tourist so there's no point begging here!

YY @BillHadersNewWife

A World In Action from 1978

Yeah, Mrs Masie Muff. For a month under this name-you are aware most of us old timers regulary change names aren't you?

I am also but one person , not a group posting under one name. I'm not saying that is the OP but it's a plain fact that it happens! Shocking ain't it.

I often work in the Town centre and the police came in to tell us that a few of the guys sat begging were not actually homeless! They all stayed in a flat together and came into Town with sleeping bags to beg money

The police get about an hour's worth of training on homelessness when they qualify. I used to deliver training TO the police on homelessness after they qualified because they were so spectacularly undereducated on the ins and outs of people living under these conditions. So this doesn't surprise me at all. It does disappoint me, though.

A group of grown men who manage to collectively maintain some kind of tenancy on a flat and are still in a position where begging looks like their best option - that's known as being vulnerably housed, and they'll likely qualify for a lot of the same support offered to street sleepers.

If they've managed to keep a roof over their heads together for more than 5 minutes, good on them.

Because homelessness isn't ABOUT having a flat or not having a flat.

As PPs have said over and over again, it's about mental health issues, care leavers, armed forces veterans, substance misuse issues, childhood abuse, and the vicious cycle of unemployment, shitty benefits system and undereducation.

And unfortunately, you buying them a wooly hat isn't going to make much of a dent in that.

So if you won't help them make rent (or avoid committing crimes and mugging people for money) by giving them cash, you might as well hang on to those pennies for the gloves, too.

@HelenaDove

A World In Action from 1978

It's similar to the Work Program, stack shelfs for 40 hours a week or have your £73.00 taken away. Bastards!

The TORIES, that is the answer in a nutshell!

"The main overall cause of homelessness which has risen dramatically over the last 10 years is the ending of Assured Short-hold Tenancies and the problems in the rental market"

And some of it can be laid at the door of the attitudes prevelent in the housing sector.

www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/lifetime-tenancies-are-from-a-bygone-era--going-back-to-them-would-be-a-backwards-step-63494

And a wonderful rebuttle written by someone who i have a huge amount of respect for.

www.insidehousing.co.uk/comment/comment/housing-associations-must-stop-acting-as-if-their-tenants-need-to-be-saved-63659

If you think it’s bad in London, go to nyc. It is rife and those begging can be very aggressive- on the subway especially. It’s sad that it’s getting that bad here.

@IrmaFayLear
For a start, in the affluent city near me there are quite a few homeless on the streets. In the nearer, very non-affluent town, there are none. So one could surmise that they tend to congregate where there are more likely to be sympathetic donors.

One could also surmise that rents are lower in the non-affluent town, so it is easier for people to find a home there if on a low wage or on benefits, or after the breakdown of a relationship when money is tight.

And that it is also easier for other people to buy there, so there is less pressure on the rental sector and on social housing.