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 utterly just fail to understand why the authorities do nothing about all of this? Same with the nail bars etc where the staff appear to possibly be victims of trafficking/ modern slavery. All in plain sight in the UK in 2022. Baffling to me.

My council goes to them and talk to them, offers housing and support. They don’t come back because they don’t need support. It’s a racket. Some have homes back in Albania.

I beg to differ.

I used to spend a lot of time in London in the late 60's and very early 70's. I never saw anyone begging or homeless people sleeping on the streets. I can even remember shopping trips during the 1950's with my mum and we certainly never saw beggars/homeless. So, based on that, I'd say this wasn't happening before the early 70's.

I emigrated almost 50 years ago but used to return for visits.

On a trip to UK/London in 1976 a lady approached me and pinned some lavender to my clothes and then asked for payment. This would have been around Oxford Street. In 1986 my husband and I were walking into the Museum of Natural History and a nicely dressed woman with an Irish accent ran up to my American husband, (who looked every inch the tourist as he was sporting two cameras around his neck), and gave him a story about needing money to feed her children. Other than that, things looked beggar/homeless street sleeper free.

I remember being very shocked when I walked out of Grand Central Station (50 + yrs ago - when NYC was a dangerous shit-hole) and saw a small group of men begging - one had no legs at all and was pushing himself around on a skate board thing using his poor knuckles. We never saw that sort of thing in London back then, so it was shocking and very depressing.

I don't understand why these gangs are being allowed to exploit the vulnerable. It's so very cruel.

We stopped to watch a young lad 12-14 years old playing the violin. His “Mother” was with him. I stood long enough to realise he actually wasn’t playing. His fingers and bow weren’t moving in time with the music. I think the “ Mother” heard me mention it to my DH and she had a face like thunder and started moving towards us so we shifted pretty quick.

I went to my local "town centre" in london today and actually my earlier post was wrong. Their are more of the people with physical disabilities, fewer of the females that sit down and more of the men who use sticks

@FanniesFlaps - children begging should always be reported to police, not just left, because it is a child protection issue. If you didn't report at the time, you still can do so now if it was in the last two weeks.

I know the family you mean, they had quite a Facebook following at one point, with people donating bags of stuff which I heard they accepted and sold on..I have avoided the apart of town they stand in for quite a while now

We still have Big Issue sellers. I’d never ever buy it because the Big Issue don’t seem to care who sell it - round here it’s clearly an organised gang and one of each is at each station entrance. The man nearest to us seems lovely, always the same man, but there are many, many stories locally which are not positive. He was removed by the police for a while.

And outside of London, visiting another city a few years a go we were by a the machine to pay for our parking ticket in a multi storey for a while. There was a man begging everyone who came to pay and it was obviously very contrived - people were paying by cash so they couldn’t lie and say they didn’t have any. We had problems with our ticket or couldn’t find the cash or something, anyway we were stood there for about 15 + minutes when normally we’d have been in and out quickly. I honestly couldn’t believe how many people gave this man money in the time we were there. There was no way that he was taking in any less than a few hundred a day.

Obviously you don’t know if it’s spent on drugs or if it goes back to organised crime, but he was probably raking in more of an income than the people giving to him.

It’s mostly a scam to get sympathy. There used to be a guy we saw shivering with no shoes on on my route to work. People were falling over themselves to ask him if he was on etc….his feet were spotless. I also saw a girl approach him and give him shoes after rush hour one day and then they walked off together happy as Larry.

Please be assured that genuine street homeless people are well supported in the UK. Every borough has a homelessness team who will do regular street counts, have outreach workers who get to know the local homeless population and work with them to access the services they need - whether that is mental health, substance abuse, housing, reconnection, or a combination of all the above - and will coordinate the provision of emergency housing or shelters once the temperature drops below a certain level. They work closely with the police - every borough has homeless liaison officers - and with mental health teams, hostels and so on.

Trafficking is also monitored closely and there are specific teams dealing with that. The Romanian gangs are notorious and a lot goes on behind the scenes to disband them and get their victims back home.

I know all this because one of my friends is very senior in the homelessness sector. She is always frustrated at the belief that no one is doing anything for these people. As she always tells me, most people actively begging on the streets, asking for money and being emotionally manipulative, saying they need money for hostels or are hungry and so on are chancers who often have somewhere perfectly safe to sleep and use begging as a way to get an income rather than working. Genuine entrenched street homeless with complex needs are provided with shelter and support by councils - many refuse the offer due to their complex needs, unfortunately - but the provision is there for them to take.

You do not and should not feel guilted into giving money to street homeless. As my friend always says, they will never spend it on food or shelter because they don’t need to. It will go on fuelling their addictions which leads to further entrenching their homelessness. Giving them money makes their situation worse. So please don’t do it!

Yes they’re organised criminal gangs and the people they send out to beg are probably in some form of modern slavery.
No one (the authorities) seems to care though 🤷🏻‍♀️

In our local town the beggars are bussed in from Glasgow. We had one lady that used to sit on a pedestrian bridge into town, she sat there in all weather without shoes making out she was homeless when she actually lived in a 2 bed house paid for by the council.

I work off Regent street. There are loads in Hanover Square although it’s a little better since it was re opened. I’ve seen them all be dropped off in a mini van at 8am before. They get a coffee all together at McDonalds and then go off to sit in the middle of the pavement and wail.

One thing I have noticed over the years in London is that there were quite a few homeless people always in 1998 when I moved there. Then fewer and fewer over the years, until 2010. Then loads more every year since then. Because a Tory government always increases poverty.

Sometimes I give money, sometimes I don't. More often than not now as
I have no cash on me. I've also bought someone a sandwich and a drink in Pret a few times. I don't see it as my business to judge what they spend it on to get them through their day.

Quite similar stuff in China—fake disabilities, dirty kids in rags in bad weather, begging for train fare, etc. It’s all organised and they apparently come from the same villages and just traffic people from there.

I've watched them be dropped off and picked up in a nice BMW to vauxhall station. I've never given to anyone begging since then

Same and I live in a naice village near Chester - they are bussed here because apparently we’re all rich and soft 🙄

We don't even stop to speak to the homeless or buy them food now. Would rather donate to local homeless charities. My husband was on his own in Manchester, in the day near one of the tram stations. He got talking to a homeless girl and gave her some money & offered to buy her some food. Nearby a man was watching & on his phone. As soon as my husband started to walk this man started to follow him. He had to walk down a set of steps that were enclosed with high walls. He expected a gang of youths to be at the bottom ready to mug him. Luckily there wasn't. The man following him might have intended to mug him. Luckily there was a police station at the bottom of the steps so he walked by there & the man disappeared. Might have just been a coincidence but he wondered if the girl was in cahoots with the man following him, or he has an over active imagination. It was quite upsetting thinking what could have happened to my lovely husband.

I don’t want to sound unkind because there are genuinely homeless and desperate people out there, but I have observed some of these extreme beggars being collected in side streets in expensive cars with tinted windows. It’s obviously organised.

Similarly groups of women with children with collection boxes on the end of sticks wailing loudly for help and then being spoken to by men in expensive clothing as of being given directions.

Sad, and it must make it harder to determine who is genuine and who isn’t.

Met Police have posted on local pages warning people of these organised beggars. We have them spaced out every few metres all with the same cardboard signs. They are fully aware that it's gangs operating these scams.

For those saying get a translator and speak to them, be very careful, they are usually being watched aand I've heard of people being chased off by the bosses.

Actual Big Issue sellers are regulated, but there are plenty of people who have one old tatty copy of the Big Issue from months ago and use it as a begging prop. They won’t actually sell it to you if you try to buy it. They just want your money.

They aren’t proper Big Issue sellers. No lanyard. Just scammers.

Honestly this sort of stuff makes me afraid to go anywhere! People being harassed and robbed in broad daylight. Why don’t the police do anything about it?

Probably because they’re all busy policing people’s social media posts for views that don’t fit the socially acceptable norm.

When was the last time you saw one on foot?

It’s not that police don’t care, it’s a question of budget. London has swelled in population. (6.8million in the 1980s- 9 millions in 2000) Number of police is decreasing, 250 a week leave the force. Their roles are more diverse, spreading to online crime- to larger issues such as drug busts. In to the early 90s, it was more ‘seen crimes’ ie. Robberies, drugs, violence etc. They work behind the scenes and stop things happening before they happen. But this never gets reported. Sadly, not enough resources and police have not had a wage increase for 20 years.

how many of you have had redundancies at your work and co-workers not replaced… same same.

We live in a student area and there are lots of Romanian beggars. I think the students are more likely to give to them due to naïveté. But I walk past them on my way to work at ‘fake Romanian beggar drop off time’ and see them all being delivered to their patches from a new people carrier.