Lawless towns

[worlybear]

WTF is happening in our towns?
I live in a small seaside town in the S.E. of England.
Over the last 2 years the police presence has diminished to practically nil.
From 6 pm in the evening it is unwise and unsafe to walk through the town centre or along the harbour due to a burgeoning and aggressive underclass of "homeless " people/drunks.
They pester for money and are very intimidating.
One person I know when approached said "sorry I've no money on me"-so the guy offered to walk him to a cash point!
Unbelievable!
Every night and I mean EVERY night the drunken brawls screaming and fighting carries on through drinking time until the early hours of the morning.
It's not safe to be out.
People are bedded down in shop fronts, both vacant and in business .
The police seem to shrug their shoulders and turn away ,probably because they have no resources or stomach to keep addressing these issues.
I understand that there is a local,homeless shelter but some people prefer to beg.
I'm sick to death of it and want to see some action to prevent this significant minority of morons from terrorising the town.
Personally I think that an active police presence with permission to use tasers would improve the quality of life for many law-abiding people.
AIBU?

*NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

The reality is, people who end up rough sleeping, substance abuse is usually the cause, not give versa.

To end up rough sleeping in the UK you have to have exhausted a lot of channels of help - council, friends, family, churches & other charitable organisations.*

That is not true and that is not the reality.

Lots of homeless had never tried drugs before they became homeless. Yes some drug users do end up homeless but a larger proportion of people end up with drug or alcohol issues after becoming homeless. Spice is one drug which has spiked among homeless users after they became homeless as it is widespread on the streets.

Also the services you mention have been cut or none existent in a lot of areas. Not everyone has friends and family. Not everywhere has a community spirit of any kind.

The councils and housing associations cannot help those without a local connection, even fleeing domestic violence it's very easy to become homeless with children. Rough sleepers tend to be single as those with children do eventually get help in most cases. However we do have children sleeping in cars and tents with their families in 2020.

Sorry, my first 2 paragraphs did not bold.

That's was always going to happen when people voted the tories in for another term 🤷‍♀️
Lack of housing, no mental health services, cuts in pretty much everything needed. Welcome to Tory Britain in 2020.

OP
aggressive underclass of "homeless "

Not read the full thread as not sure my blood pressure can take this sort of small mindedness, but why is ''homeless'' in speech marks? If they weren't actually homeless, why would they be on the freezing cold streets most of the night? The biggest concern here is your apparent lack of ANY critical thinking skills.

As for tasering them - wow to anyone who thinks that could be acceptable here. Do some fucking research!

We all need to pay more tax to fund people who need help but sadly people will not vote for political parties who say they are going to increase taxes. So we reap what we sow and it's really sad for our society.

Can you stop the taser references. OP has withdrawn them and admitted it was OTT.

No. The OP may have realised she was 'OTT' now she has thought to actually google it, but there are a whole lot of other wilfully blind fuckers out there who will probably have a quick glance through this and this what a great idea it is given some of the horrifically right wing views I've heard over the last few years.

Isn't this just most seaside towns though?

To end up rough sleeping in the UK you have to have exhausted a lot of channels of help - council, friends, family, churches & other charitable organisations.

That is bollocks and incredibly unhelpful, I really do despair.

Abuse, mental health issues, learning disabilities, unrecognised autism are hugely co-morbid with substance and alcohol abuse, the 'church' are not your friend here, and don't even get me started on the 'council'. A lot of people have no family or abusive families. How is so hard for some to look outside their own privileged lives?

Flirtygirl

Yes, I mentioned that services have been cut, I agree that this is a big cause of rough sleeping.

Note that that i am deliberately referring only to rough sleeping as imho this is quite a separate issue to wider homelessness which includes people living in abysmal hostel accommodation/sofa surfing etc. This is clearly related to undersupply of housing making housing far too expensive. The govt need to allow/encourage councils to build - the private sector will never build enough as short supply enables them to profit from higher prices.

Alll those people calling op vile and moaning thats its her fault if she voted tory, how about you accomodate a few aggressive drug taking beggars in your Road/neighbourhood. .....

Also don't believe they re all ex forces. Ever thought some might lie about that.

Todayisnottuesday

Making vague statements like "a lot of people have no family" is unhelpful. Do you know how many rough sleepers there are on a given night in the UK?

The latest stats I can find suggest it's less than 5,000. Yes, it's a terrible number but it's actually not high considering the number of people with all the issues you mention. I think many people do get help from family etc. A proportion of those 5,000 will be people who have exhausted other channels of help. This will leave really a relatively small number of people who genuinely have no help available to them before ending up rough sleeping.

I do wish more help could be targeted to this subset.

The more I think about it, the more I see the views frequently levelled at the ''homeless'' on here and elsewhere as just another form of victim blaming.

Plenty of other topics on here attract a MNHQ statement about how victim blaming - why is this sort of stuff, and some of the benefit threads tolerated? Genuine question. In the context of homelessness in particular - MH issues are disabilities. They are vulnerable. When is it OK to spout some of this shit, seriously?

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Do you know how many rough sleepers there are on a given night in the UK?

Nope - and I work in the area. No one knows. And that includes you.

Pointing out 'some people have no family' to those who haven't even considered that point - unhelpful? Ok...

Lots of people are not victim blaming. I an simply saying the police are not the right agency to help with the issues actually causing rough sleeping.

And btw, 5000, UK wide is an absolute joke of a figure. Go and have a read on how those stats are collected, speak to anyone who works in the area/ actually collects them. Then tell me it's that and that the figure is 'not that bad' ffs.

Lots of people are not victim blaming. I an simply saying the police are not the right agency to help with the issues actually causing rough sleeping

And I agree with both those sentiments.

@paulinespeaksmanylanguages, I do agree with you that it seems preposterous that people need policing in order to behave with consideration to others.
However, is that attitude not endemic across the entire board in society at present? From the top down, you have government cuts to social and health care, which will not affect those doing the cutting. Does that not send a clear message that they do not care or have any consideration to those it does affect? That those in power are happy to protect themselves and their wealth but don’t give two hoots about the homeless population, those suffering with disabilities, anti social behaviour, social mobility and educational/ occupational opportunities? Because they are all linked.
Might it suggest that perhaps, having been shown that society and those in power have no consideration for them, that attitude is then replicated in the individual’s behaviour? why should they show consideration to others if they feel it’s not shown to them?

YouNeedIce has summed the situation up really well.

I dont know what you expect people to say then .

Some people just love a soapbox thread to be shouty about everything being shit. Most people agree more money needs to be spent but the government can't magic money out of nowhere. And before you say "corporate tax abuse needs to be tackled" nothing is ever that simple.

The Fair Funding Review has just looked at removing deprivation as a factor in deciding how much money is allocated to local government. £320 million has been mooted to be removed from our most deprived areas to shire councils. Hampshire and Surrey would be the big winners. Workington and Sedgefield the biggest losers.

I dont know what you expect people to say then

I just wish people would actually look into the things they sometimes spout about before saying things that feed the prejudism and perpetuate the harmful narratives that surround real issues such as these, especially when those affected are often too marginalised and vulnerable to have their own voice. In a decent society, should that really be too much to ask? Do we not have a moral duty to check that the things we are saying, things that can fuel victimisation, racism, abuse - all sorts of things- are at least based on fact or solid evidence, and are not just repeated anecdotal nonsense?

I don't need to be policed to know how to behave. Why is there an upsurge in people who need to be threatened with police in order to behave reasonably? These are the people who are making parts of the UK lawless and it is spreading.

They behave as they want because they have been able to for years, since the age of 12-13 and up. There have been no consequences for them during that time. From parents who either aren’t bothered what they get up to, or are too busy working all hours to be there to support, discipline and be a good role model. No consequences from schools, whose funding cuts mean that counselling services have gone, TAs who would have supported the teacher to help stamp out low level disruption and support vulnerable kids have gone, schools don’t have the power or money to send the most badly behaved to behavioural units so they get away with awful behaviour in school and other kids witness this and follow suit. No consequences from police, as they have disappeared from our streets so are no longer a threat to groups of anti-social teenagers who grow to feel like they can do what they like.

and these teenagers grow up watching people have sex with virtual strangers on crap TV such as Love Island, or accepting challenges to drink someone else’s vomit on party boats on Ibiza Weekender. They see exhibitionists go on Naked Attraction and choose a date based on the shape of their penis. And they grow up thinking this is all normal behaviour and just what adults do.

Honestly, what do people THINK our young people will turn out like if they don’t have one single role model in their lives who can show them a decent standard of behaviour.

Workington and Sedgefield the biggest losers.

And this is how the Tories reward the lifelong Labour voters who changed their allegiance in 2019.

Actually Tuesday in our town the church has set up an excellent project to help the homeless. Thebrick.org.uk. Trying to fill the gap left by lack of government funding but also breaking down barriers where homeless people are outside the community and “othered”.

And this is how the Tories reward the lifelong Labour voters who changed their allegiance in 2019.

Well, you reap what you sow. People were warned, and didn’t listen.

It’s a shame we can’t move all the anti-social behaviour groups (and there ARE different groups, it’s not just ALL homeless or ALL drunks or ALL Roma or ALL stags & hens) to the roads where every single Tory MP lives.