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

Of course they wouldn't. All these arm chair lefties do nothing but spout hatred of Tories but do nothing to go and help these people . Nothing .

My council has "homed" homeless teenagers with tents and a (temporary) pitch at a campsite...

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwall-council-left-teenage-boy-2161719.amp

I have been a fundraiser for Centrepoint for years, I took part in a Centrepoint 'sleepout' for their charity some years ago, and I successfully pushed for the charity to be the chosen charity (with commensurate donations) of the bank I worked for at the time, but most importantly I have tried to understand the problem and looked at what works.
As an 'armchair lefty' to an 'Igorant Tory bigot' (since you seem to like tedious insulting tropes), can I ask what you have done, other than vote Tory and spew bile?

I have observed something that I think is really interesting on this thread.
Last night when I went to bed most of the posters were condemning Braverman's words.
Those who have posted since then have mostly been supportive of her.
Why is the demographic of posters in the middle of the night so different from that in the evening?

Support for homelessness is wider than that as well of course. People who have a sense of belonging to some club or group are less likely to become homeless. So anyone who helps run a sports club, social club, local group of any kind may in addition to the volunteering they do also be contributing to a reduction in homelessness.
On the reverse, anyone who defunds support for young families, education, the criminal justice system, health service and so on is contributing to homelessness.

If a row of tents was pitched outside my house I’d be extremely concerned for the people inside. They’d be in a field miles from help, and in a very unsafe situation. In reality the reason people pitch up in city centres is because very few people live there. Rural homelessness is less immediately obvious, more likely to involve sofa-surfing, or pitching up in farm buildings or the woods away from houses. A farmer friend of ours had someone living inside a disused grain silo on their land for years.

What is needed at a policy level is support, not punishment. But the Tories don’t do support, as we’ve all seen for the last 13 years. Hence this.

Sure Start and Every Child Matters did make a difference to early childhood. And what did the Tories do to those initiatives?

Expecting everyone to work all hours & policies that put more people into poverty is not going to help attachment.

I can kind of see her point....like a pp said we don't want tent cities to spring up like they have in the US.

Isn’t this the problem though, the shelters need fixing and making safe so that people can find suitable accommodation.

people just accept the tents (has society got so lost that we need the horrors of this government shining a light on this) and complain if they are taken away but where is the support and outrage for the inadequate shelter.

I worked in some shelters many years ago and met a lot of vulnerable people who were decent and good but for one reason or other, their lives collapsed. Society needs to do better than accepting tents are okay.

But what's her solution? Their policies over the last 13 years have helped to cause these problems.

It's drug policies, housing crisis and mental health and care provision that need sorting. Taking tents away isn't a solution to the problems. Where she is right as we can't let our cities become like America but its due to their own bloody policies why they are going that way.

Well said.👏👏

You can't solve a homelessness problem by just taking tents away, you need to put money into supporting people to prevent them becoming homeless in the first place, and provide holistic, caring solutions to the issues that lead to homelessness.
Braverman's "solution" is nothing but cruel, I'd rather nobody was so failed by our country that they end up living in a tent, but in the current situation that is what we have.
If people are homeless (which is where this government has left this country) I'd rather they had a tent over the winter than sleep out in sub-zero temperatures and freeze to death.

Many, not all

I gave someone who ended up rough sleeping a home. So wind the snide comments in about ‘armchair lefties’ or whatever it was you said elsewhere. Giving a shit about what happens to people is just being a human being.

This is a huge issue now and I fear we will become more like the USA in an ever divided society. Ghettos/shanty towns becoming normalised.

But to tackle this means spending a huge amount of money. I work in a related area and there are huge problems, as aforementioned, with addiction, mental health and crime. Very young disengaged and vulnerable children are already on a path to homelessness when they become involved with County Lines drug dealing, running for ‘gangsters’ and disengage and disassociate with services (who are totally stretched) trying to support them.

Drug agencies, mental health support, anti ASB, preventing crime groups are trying their best to engage with huge numbers of disillusioned, often traumatised children. But the services could be tripled and still wouldn’t meet need 😢

Has anyone actually worked in a homeless hostel or had experience of one?!

I do and I have and tents are NOT the answer. Local governments have a duty of care to the homeless and that is a fact.

Whether homeless people actually want to stay in what is offered to them which is often a hotel room or b and b or homeless shelter is the issue here because the homeless are not forced to stay there and in that instance have free will where they want to go, London is the choice of many for obvious reasons.

Many homeless people ( the silent majority ) are able to use the services offered to them in terms of local authority care and get their lives back with the support of the satellite services that surround a homeless person such as mental health, AA, Turning Point, housing services etc.

However, what you may not realise that people with a bed in a homeless hostel, hotel or b and b often don't want that and choose to sleep on the streets when they have ready access to drugs and/ or alcohol and their friendship group.

Many would rather stay out and not engage with Turning Point/ AA or any of the services out there to help such as for their mental health and housing services.

So what is the choice then?

Some people who have ended up homeless have been evicted for anti social behaviour/ violence/ intimidation/ DV/ mental health/ substance misuse but do not want to engage with services.

What is suppose to happen in these cases if people do not want to engage?

If someone was evicted for DV and convictions for child abuse who had a drug and alcohol problem, anti social behaviour and this person does not want to stay in a shelter or hotel or b and b, or engage with homeless/ mental health/ etc services, then what actually do you suggest?!

Putting that person up in a flat next to you where the cycle will inevitably repeat?

lPease don't just look at the headlines without finding out the facts, it's lynching behaviour.

We have homeless people on our books who do not wish to be homed outside their preferred, usually, very highly sought after locations.

The stupid Labour idea of creating lots of new towns completely and utterly misses the point.

Most people would rather live in sought after areas for obvious reasons, that goes for the homeless and ordinary workers/ people too.

But supply and demand is skewed and there is not enough affordable housing, while densification is the obvious answer, it can cause issues with noise and anti social behaviour when people in this country have to live close to each other.

How do populations in other countries manage where living in high rise flats are the norm?!

we don't want our cities to go the way of San Fran and Los Angeles and that's the way they are going. Democrat run cities in America are shocking.

San Francisco has had a homelessness problem for decades and decades. Thsi is not a new problem. 'Skid Row' is hardly a new term and certainly is not confined to 'democrat run cities'.

The situation in San Francisco is apocalyptic and like nothing any city of that calibre has seen before. Parts of LA are catching up.

Christ Almighty

Is this what humanity has come to in the 21st century?

Yes, but houses are charged more CTax if they are empty for more than two years, so would be easy to identify. Only around 250000 are long-term empty (more than six months), which means the vast majority are short-term empty, such as when they are being sold. I absolutely agree they should be brought back in to use, and you can lobby your LA to do so via EDMO, but 250k houses (some in disrepair) will not solve the housing or homelessness crisis. Can you imagine the media outcry when some one from London is offered an empty property in Birmingham, oh, you don’t have to, it’s a regular occurrence - people often don’t want to move to where the housing is.

Homelessness and street sleeping are two different things - homeless people often aren’t sleeping on the streets (so won’t be affected by the tents) and street sleepers are often not without somewhere to stay. It’s a complicated issue but people try to make it black and white.

Isn't fentanyl a big problem in the US and that's not prevelant in the UK.

You object to people being given accommodation if it’s not in the place of their choosing? What happens when there’s genuinely no room left where everyone chooses to live (primarily London)?

I often wonder if people arguing for tent cities are romanticising homelessness in various ways.

Homelessness is a complex issue, and the rough sleeping aspect of it is often driven by a whole range of other issues that make it very difficult for some people to stay housed in any situation.

Tent cities are the worst possible outcome for society and should not be tolerated - the streets are not safer than shelters, especially not streets that have become weird homeless ghettos. Not tolerating tent cities should mean having services that move people to other locations and try to channel them into other support services to try to ensure people are safely housed. That really is not a nasty position to take [1].

But it really is not as simple as people on MN wish it is. Compassion is not incompatible with the view that tent cities and rough sleeping are the outcome we should most seek to avoid.

[1] Of course, agreeing with Braverman go some extent on the problem definition, does not mean that I agree with her on the full extent of the problem or her proposed solutions. I suspect that the upstream issues in poor mental health provision, lack of early intervention in addiction services, dysfunctional job market and wider economy, and structural problems with the housing market in the uk are the things that should be addressed for long-term improvements in this area, with acute interventions to support individuals and communities currently affected.

I think it's begging for money that is the bigger issue than tents. People who have the offer of accommodation but would rather harass people in the street for money (typically to support a substance addiction and pay their dealer).

Tents in the streets are a symbol of a broken society and that's what the Tories don't like, given it's been on their watch. It's the causes of homelessness that need addressing.

Thank you for an insightful post; that’s my limited experience too, having volunteered for several years at a local homeless shelter. But those who know better will be a long soon to tell you you’re heartless.