Homeless to have tents banned

[dubsie]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/04/suella-braverman-says-rough-sleeping-is-lifestyle-choice

No one wants to see people sleeping in tents in cities but what are homeless people meant to do. Given the choice I think I'd choose a tent over a shop door way or a park bench...and I don't think many people choose being homeless ....not a lifestyle choice for most people.

I think this is more the fact that people like this minister can't stand the sight of homeless people, it reminds them that their decisions have consequences

Not seen tent 'cities' in Birmingham either. Not sure where their money will be to fix it.

Suella's crested vision, let's face it is of sprawling intimidating 'cities' of tents in front of Claire's Accessories and White Stuff. Thsi vision she creates is frightening to people (people upthread have alluded to it) and almost entirely non existent.

Don't forget decrease the surplus population...

I await Suella's phot op visit to one of these tent cities (which none of us living in any of the named places has ever seen).

You can't say there are tent cities taking over town centres , then find a googled definition, and then accede they aren't actually tent cities, in anything near the imagined sense of the word Braverman has conjured up.

I’m surprised people are blaming the government that there are people living on the streets.

People actively chose to do this. For example a drug addict who cannot maintain a housing tenancy because they don’t even bother to fill in their forms or pay their few pounds a week top up rent eventually get evicted. They can go to certain hostels but there are rules, eg, be in by a certain time, no drugs or alcohol to be consumed in the building blah blah these people cannot stick to the rules not because they’re unable to but because they’re unwilling to!

what do people on here suggest the govt does with people like this?

Councils fund all sorts of addiction help centres etc so there is access to support various street charities etc

and people survived in the past without tents so I’m sure they could now

Also interesting - I posted upthread about MK solving , almost entirely, this issue. And yet, it is now being cited as an example.

I was in the very area yesterday and encountered the 16 or so rough sleepers who resist help. No tents. Sleeping bags. Perhaps they will be banned next.

and people survived in the past

Did they??

Have you any idea of the life expectancy of a homeless person?

I expect that’s what Braverman’s advisers have told her. Meanwhile, back in the real world …

Hello Suella, thanks for dropping in. A cold winter should tidy up these lazy, frequently mentally ill and psychologically damaged, feckless drug taking social remnants off the streets for you. Most of us gather that's your intention. Hypothermia will help you out.

I have a friend who is running all the streets in Birmingham, I sometimes join them. Can't say I have seen any tent cities.

There used to be a tent city in Milton Keynes didn't there?

The city council did the opposite of the pointless cruelty the Tories are proposing.

I would be willing to bet that this is actually what she does want.

She's becoming an almost pantomime villain.

The lack of compassion from the Home Secretary, and indeed from some posters, is very saddening indeed.

I think there's an awful lot of compassion. But also an acceptance that two things can be true at once, that there can be a housing and healthcare crisis at the same time as there being some people who decline offered help or are intentionally homeless through their anti-social behaviour.

And are now inflicting that antisocial behaviour on town centres or parks, which effects wider society.

And I have personal experience of this and also wouldn't vote Tory if my life depended on it.

They are complex issues.

Force then to engage with statuary services?

What statuary services? What housing?

Sunak declines to back Braverman in calling rough sleeping 'lifestyle choice' - but he does not acccept term was offensive.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing No 10 was unable to defend Suella Braverman’s claim that rough sleeping is a “lifestyle choice”.

Force people?

How democratic.

So much freedom.

Then what are you suggesting?

If you accept that people shouldn't be 'forced' to accept the help that is available which may include adjusting their behaviour to do so then that's fine.

But you also shouldn't think that wider society should be 'forced' to accept the antisocial behaviour implicit in people who do choose that lifestyle.

Despite the assertions of many on MN, there are people who choose not to be housed or are intentionally homeless through their behaviour. Same as some alcoholics choose to continue drinking and some addicts continue to choose to be addicts, and some sex workers choose to be sex workers, and some drug dealers choose to be drug dealerw despite help being available.

And some people are of course in need and would want help but that's not on the whole, what this proposed policy is about.

A lot of MNetters choose (when it suits them) to believe a lot of people are victims with no personal agency or personality or character of their own who could do just better with the right help, when it's not always the case.

@Pigsinblanketstoastie the help you seem to believe is available is woefully inadequate and in places non-existent.

No one chooses to be an addict - it's pretty much the definition of addiction that it isn't a choice.

People can wait years for mental health care.

Even if high risk.

Aren't there currently about 2 million people waiting for mental health care?

And I don't think they are included in the 8 million on the waiting lists for some reason either.

The sanctimony and ignorance in thinking addiction is a choice is mind blowing.

By force I mean that they realise that they are now at rock bottom and no where else to go but to accept the help that is available.

Read up on what Milton Keynes did @Pigsinblanketstoastie. That approach is what works. And it doesn't include force.

I'm hearing anecdotal info about children and babies rough sleeping. And the party that presided over the highest levels of rough sleeping I've ever known wouldn't even let them have a tent. It's just cruelty and evil.

What's effective is help.

The help isn't available, otherwise they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Other countries solve this problem by providing homes for the homeless. It works.

Our country does not do that.

We have millions on the waiting list for affordable housing.

Housing benefit does not cover rent in many areas. In my area it is set at about £800 a month which would rent you and your kids a room in the kind of house of multiple occupancy where you'd be sharing bathrooms with johns, pimps and drug dealers, and the landlord still wouldn't let you bring your dog.

It's a vanishingly small minority of homeless people who resist help and they're not really choosing that. They've been battered by the system and can't face going through it again. It's often an "It's the hope that kills you" kind of thing. They can't face the disappointment and rejection of being let down by society again when what they need, a home, privacy, dignity, mental health help, someone they can trust, is simply not on offer.