London Begging - it’s changed

[Stupidbonfire]

So I’m the first person to admit I’m a complete country bumpkin so please forgive my naivety here.

ive just returned from a wonderful weekend in London. Haven’t been for about 5 years but used to visit regularly and my sister lived there for 10 years. So it’s not like we’re strangers to it. But where there used to be plentiful big issue sellers outside the tube stations and the usual homeless people with clear alcohol or substance misuse issues begging. They seem to have disappeared. We didn’t see one big issue seller. And whilst there were still the occasional doorway sleeper in a winter coat with a sleeping bag with a sign etc, there was also a new kind of beggars I have never seen in the uk before.
clearly very vulnerable individuals just plonked in the middle of the pavement on regent street. Dressed utterly in rags. And not worn out modern clothing. Complete rags. Like flour sacks. It’s was almost Dickensian. He was shaking and loudly begging for help and money. Similar Romanian looking women, really loudly begging for help. Like I’m extreme distress. Rather than just huddled in a doorway. And obviously everyone walks on by. I am assuming that these people are trafficked and there are minders watching them. The man on regent street was clearly severely disability and would have in no way managed to get himself there.
what can we do to help. These don’t look like clientele for shelter or big issue, which is what I would normally donate to or purchase to support. What if anything is being done?
It reminds me of the gangs in India sending the poor street children out.

I know the people you're talking about and I had to laugh recently. I was walking behind John Lewis when two large shiny Mercedes pulled over. Out popped 7 or 8 Romanian beggars ready for their shift. I know these exact people because I'm familiar with their pitches. It's all a giant scam, don't be fooled. They're milking us. If you go to the side road by Hanover sqr at the right time of day, you'll see the gang-master collecting funds & handing out drugs.

My neighbour used to beg outside my tube station. She had a crappy sign that said "homeless and hungry". She was a smack addict who was neither.

@Autumndays123 I apologise for my clumsy use of language. I am well aware that substance misuse issues are often a symptom rather than a cause of homelessness. I am in no way in contempt of homeless people and I am well aware that we are all only a hair breaths away from being homeless ourselves.

What I was trying to explain, was that I usually saw homeless people in doorways etc. huddled down trying to just get by and in the main minding their own business. Maybe with a hat out to collect change. Or big issue sellers.
I would sometimes offer to pop to buy them some food of their choice from a nearby shop, or buy the big issue and also knew I could donate to shelter. I am actually fairly educated about the kinds of homeless I used to see. And understand the multitude of complex reasons behind it.

But people being trafficked by gangs is completely different. And I was trying to educate myself on how to help in meaningful way, that I could realistically do (obviously I can’t provide them with a home, and risk having a stranger in my house or get mixed up with a gang). I was wondering what organisations are doing to help, what the police approach is etc .

We come on these forums to learn and ask questions and when people jump down your throat it makes you reluctant to ask again. Thus perpetuating ignorance.

Thank you to everyone else for your input. It’s such a sad age old problem, and it’s been informative reading this thread and has helped me to shape some conversations with my children about what they saw and why we didn’t help there and then. And also reminded me to be mindful of the language I use when writing about these sorts of subjects.

oh and to count my blessings….

www.streetlink.org.uk/

Not you OP but the person up thread. You saw a child you thought had been trafficked, dancing and begging in the street.
You should have called the police (obviously), not stopped because your own child was amused that he looked like a cartoon.
I can't be the only person who finds this shocking. What have you taught your child in this interaction?

Surely the best thing to do is to give money to either the Salvation Army or Centrepoint.

That way you know any donation will be spent to benefit real homeless people.

I live in the suburbs and travel in all the time and haven’t noticed this to be honest. I will keep an eye out next time I’m in regent street

👏👏👏

Londoner born and raised

none of this seems new, it probably just depends on your own experience

i had a chat with one bloke - not trafficked, an English boy who tells me he lefts because his dad beat him up - at Bank recently. He's moving to a more tourist spot as no one seems to carry cash in the city now. I think he sofa surfs somewhere or has a bed for the night somewhere, he's told me he won't go to the nearest shelter.

lots of Big Issue sellers near major stations.

I remember Marble Arch man with the god awful whistle but that was from 2000s? I avoid the area if I can and maybe haven't been, except through on the bus, for about 10 years. The gangs are still visible. That area is a disgrace to London.

anyway, none of it sounds different. Some real, some not. I buy food and hot drinks if I get to know any but I have worked mostly from home since 2016 so rarely chat to them now.

I was in London recently and they all had matching handmade signs. I assume they round them all up in a van and big bosses/people traffickers get the funds. I agree it was different to times gone by in London.

I live near a city in central Europe which is very popular with tourists. I go in quite often for various reasons.
The beggars there are all part of an organized crime ring. Nothing is ever done about it.
There's a meeting at around 8 am at Mcdonald's near the station - they all drink a coffee from there (which used to be 1 Euro but has gone up...) and sit around chatting. A couple of men go around with clipboards - possibly allocating people to spots to beg. They then take their empty McDs cup and wander out into the city where they can later be seen waving the cup at passers-by and all saying the same few phrases in the local language here - obviously told what to say.

No I never give money to beggars. They all get collected, get given commission and 99% goes to the gang leader. Be careful of your watches, your designer handbags because you will get surrounded instantly and knifed or punched up. In the 90s there were some saying they fled the war from Bosnia and begging in front of banks in London. My dad confronted one in Bosnian and he froze and of course he disappeared suddenly with his both legs working! I give to charities, the local food banks and even give some of my multipack food from my shopping to the homeless chap with obvious drug issues but never money. The homeless chap doesn't ask for any money or anything though.

@Darbs76 you need to go a bit further than Regent Street...that's probably one of the streets where you don't really see them. Too many burly security guards that move then on.

Some of them are disabled, because I recognise them as my patients - they are IVDUs with abscesses/ischaemic legs from injecting into their femoral veins. Or they have side effects from years of antipsychotics causing tremors/facial tics. The ones I recognise aren’t homeless though, just alcoholics or drug addicts. They all have either flats or a place in supported housing, and claim benefits. They are begging to subside their drug habit (and are more than happy to receive food, not because they can’t afford to eat, but because then they can save their money for drugs instead).

The ones in rags in central London, and the children, are trafficked. The ones with tissues on the trains are often involved in organised crime - you get the same ones working each train route every single day.

Give money to Shelter, or Centrepoint, or St Martin’s.

I live in a large village - 2 pubs, 1 primary, no post office sort of thing. 30 mins drive from a small city. Very very white population, former northern mining community.

And yet, we have a regular Romanian (?) woman selling the Big Issue and wailing a bit. She was seen following an elderly lady who’d been to the cash point, community police had a strong word. She disappeared. A week later, lo and behold there’s another Romanian (?) woman working the patch. And yes, they’ve been seen getting dropped off by expensive cars.

The very last people I’d ever assume to have any legitimacy are the “Romanian” women.

You come on here acting self righteous and then mock someone's occupation. Have a word with yourself and try to be a bit nicer

There is a man near to COS every single day. I have noticed that his toe nails are now so long that he couldn't get shoes on.

About 20 years ago I saw a van/minibus driving around the city dropping off beggars and distributing children among them. It wasn't London but another European capital. I was pretty horrified and haven't given to street beggars since. I give to a homeless charity monthly and t feel that is much more likely to do good.

The tube tissues is a distraction theft
You are so busy watching them and their accomplices who have got on several stops before then rob bags. Usually trains from Heathrow- tourist with plenty of money/goods who are a bit tired.

Oh right
I was puzzled by the tissue ones, I've seen many

but aren't those Heathrow trains too full to find empty seats for the tissues?

I used to live in York and I remember standing chatting to a mate in the city centre (it would have been about 1996/97) and I well known begger came up behind us to talk to his mate
clear as a bell,we both heard ‘it’s been shit today mate,I’ve only made £200 in the last hour’
jesus,£200 in one hour? (I was on £2.50 an hour at that point)
I dread how much he could have got on a ‘good’ day (I heard he died of drugs a few years later)
pall those £1 coins added up and where shot straight up his arm

I see someone has already offered useful
advice around providing them with numbers/ contacts etc.

mamas for what you can do immediately, buy them food.

How do you know they are romanian?

I think alot if people on this thread are referring to romani gypsies. Roma gypsies and romanians are not the same thing. The tan women sometimes with gold teeth that hang around london are romani gypsies. The word romani has nothing to do with romania. They originated from India and now live all across europe not specifically Romania.

absolutely true. I have noticed the shift in the last few years.

there was a guy with a dog always reading a book I used to pass on my way to work. I sometimes bought him a sandwich.

one day he disappeared and was replaced by a Roma woman in rags.
i saw the guy a few days later walking near the tube station. He looked badly beaten up. He told me a bunch of Romanian thugs roughed him up to “explain” he was no longer allowed to beg on that street.

They put them on the suitcases- lots of those on that line.