There occasionally comes a time when it is important to state an aspiration. To rise above the detail and say what a particular situation should be, then work out a roadmap to get there. To do so risks criticism for being simplistic and naïve – but so be it.
That is where I find myself with people who are sleeping rough, including in tents.
In a civilized society it is morally wrong that anyone sleeps rough, and we should all be ashamed until that travesty is completely eliminated in the UK.
So, my proposal for the forthcoming Queen’s Speech is that a legal obligation is placed on all local authorities to ensure that there is utilised provision of night shelter for all street sleepers in their area, regardless of where those people are from.
That night shelter should be of a “no questions asked” nature – and may be of a basic type and may be provided by a Non-Governmental Organisation, but at least it should be a “roof over the head”.
It really is questionable to insist on signing up everyone to a “three point recovery (abstinence) plan” when the alternative is them being turned out onto the street. Some people are square pegs who do not fit round holes. We need to stretch out the hand of human kindness to such people, at least in providing basic shelter.
It is inhumane to turn people away if they cannot “prove” a link to the area in which they find themselves. Such bureaucratic hurdles should not be a barrier to basic care of the individual.
In addition, I propose that all local authorities are required to keep a register of all rough sleepers who occur in their area together with a note of regular counselling and advice which those people are given as to the availability of night shelters, and a note if they have refused night shelter and the reason(s) for that refusal. That register should be regularly reviewed by an independent body. The counselling and advice could be provided, again, by a Non-Governmental Organization registered with the council.
Very often, those sleeping rough need counselling, support and encouragement to at least allow themselves to be given basic shelter. It is often a case of seeking out these individuals in the local environment.
I accept that there will always be an extremely small number of rough sleepers who cannot be persuaded to use night shelters. I am not proposing a target of zero rough sleepers. (That would imply a sort of night shelter frog march). But it seems immoral to aim for anything more than virtually zero rough sleepers.
There should also be a managed route to day care centres, so that those without somewhere to go (except for the streets) in the daytime can have a place where they are treated as humans, enjoy some social contact, have access to any appropriate treatment and have some opportunity for a modicum of training and/or education.
I don’t believe that rough sleeping is an insurmountable problem in our lavishly well-off society. The problem is that we, as a society accept it. Well, that needs to stop. We should be impatient to end this scourge and give the most basic care to the most vulnerable in our society.
Photo by Blodeuwedd
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Away day
The Keir Starmer we never got
Indecision costing the taxpayers millions
1963: London's summer of the Hoverbus
Jana
Abrial Jerram
Tanya Park
Peter Martin
18 Comments
That night shelter should be of a “no questions asked” nature
Does that mean you would not allow night shelters to operate a ‘no drink / drugs’ policy?
That seems unwise.
Totally agree Paul. It breaks my heart to see and hear of people sleeping in the freezing cold, in the most developed countries too.
We need more funding for shelters and better rules, but I also think part of the housing problem is due to immigration. I am not getting into a debate about this, but I think we need to deal with all the causes of housing problems and not just think the solution is to build millions of homes.
Fab
No. Drink and drugs should not be consumed in night shelters. But by “no questions asked” I was meaning that there should be no requirement to sign up to abstinence programmes as a prerequisite to entry.
Eddie
Those on the streets of Brighton have alcohol, drug and mental health issues. They are not there because of immigrants
Drink and drugs should not be consumed in night shelters
Right.
However, from what I understand, a large proportion of those turned away from homeless shelters are turned away because on a given night they turn up either already drunk or under the influence of drugs, or with drink or drugs that they are unwilling to surrender (or they are discovered during the night to have smuggled alcohol or drugs in, and are ejected).
So even if there were enough night shelter beds for all those in the area, a fair number of them would still, on any given night (different ones each night, obviously, but a fair proportion) end up sleeping rough because they were unwilling to abide by the rules on entry to the shelters.
To be clear: these are not people who would need to be ‘frog-marched’ to the shelters, they are not people who have ‘refused night shelter’ they are people who turn up to the shelters asking for a bed but not willing to abide by the rules. They are not people who want to be on the street but they are people who would rather be on the street drinking than in a shelter sober, and that is the choice they are offered.
So while it’s all very well to have the good intention to ‘end the scourge of rough sleeping’ it simply cannot be done by building more shelters, unless you are willing to allow the shelters to become safe havens for drinking and drug use (which you agree they oughtn’t to be).
“That night shelter should be of a “no questions asked” nature – and may be of a basic type and may be provided by a Non-Governmental Organisation, but at least it should be a “roof over the head”.”
Dangerous thinking- I read this to mean there would be no requirement for the individual to refrain from drink/drugs. Even if this isn’t what the author intended, the idea of those running hostels/other provision not seeking background information on those presenting themselves is also rather dangerous- from a safety perspective for staff/other service users, from an understanding the nature of the local problem perspective and from the perspective of policing against abuse of the service.
Fluctuations in rough sleeper numbers are also an issue for such a policy. Those familiar with Oxford and the homelessness/beggar problems there (I split them out as they are distinct issues locally) will be aware that homeless people from other cities travel down to Oxford for the busy weekend period, with numbers mostly being lowest on mondays/tuesdays. This presents a difficult challenge for any council attempting to implement such a policy- the numbers are very unpredictable and fluctuate frequently.
Manfarang, I am not blaming individual migrants on anything, it is the rules that I think need toughening. As I said: we can’t just solve the problem with building millions of homes. It is too simplistic and won’t be accepted on a local level. Yes drug and mental health treatment is part of it too, so let’s have a holistic approach.
@Eddie Sammon
You make a good point re: house building. It’s all well and good building stacks of houses, but if they are in the wrong places they ultimately achieve little. London has several examples of this- look at Woolwich Arsenal for instance. Thousands of new flats flooded into the market, prices still much lower and demand weak (just look at how many flats are for rent on rightmove and how low the prices are vs London…). People simply do not want to live there.
I don’t profess to be an expert on this issue. But from what little I have found out from being a regular volunter at a local drop-in cent for a few years, and from my conversations with the extremely savvy supervisors, I can say this:
I live in one this country’s most prosperous towns.
There are 10-30 rough sleepers in the town permanently. The drop-in supervisors know their names, know where they are sleeping and know their histories and weaknesses.
There is a charity homeless accomodation service (charity a) which is superb. However, if you don’t sign up to an abstinence plan, you don’t get in.
So there is a band (band x) of people caught underneath the charity a provision, sleeping rough. Some are in tents. An example is two cousins – young lads aged about nineteen – who slept under the steps at Tesco for a year. They were both coming off drugs and, indeed, had jobs for part of that year. They didn’t want to go to charity a because one of theirs sister died there.
So there isn’t a permanent night shelter to catch band x.
Now. During two months of the winter there is a night shelter. Excellent. Although it isn’t so excellent because they keep messing about with the rules for admission. It’s called the “wayfarer” service and is in charity a’s premises. Sometimes they don’t admit people unless they can prove a connection to the area. So you could have someone standing there freezing who is turned out into the cold night because they couldn’t prove a connection to the area. Also, there have been meterological specifications which have to be met before they open the shelter. Like temperatures below zero for three nights running. I should not beat them up too much. They do a reasonable job.
But here’s the rub, dav.
That wayfarer shelter is chock full when it is open. About twenty people crowd into it, most nights.
So what I can’t understand is this. If all these people are normally drunk out of their skulls and drugged up to the eyeballs, how come they only sober up and dry out sufficiently to satisfy the wayfarer shelter keepers to admit them when the temperature is below zero degrees for three nights and when they can prove a connection to the local area?
If there is a such an uptake of reasonably sober and dry people in two winter months surely there is a demand for a night shelter for the rest of the year which could take many people in an acceptable state?
David Cameron was right to drop the slightly dotty Eric Pickles from the
cabinet.
For instance the former minister said that it was all right to stop on a
yellow line “for a pint of milk” but not, presumably, for a newspaper or a
packet of cigarettes.
Persistent questioning by polite journalists failed to elucidate the
administrative effects of this policy.
His successor should start with matters of life and death.
One company found 93 people homeless people sleeping in industrial-sized
wheelie-bins last year.
Cameras are now being fitted to some of the vehicles.
Four people died when tipped into the crushers on waste lorries.
Every such death is one too many.
I worked with a night shelter for a couple of weeks, mainly reorganising their filing system. A lot of people were referred by the police. The thing is you have to be realistic about drug and drink related issues rather than puritanical, base it more on behaviour than overly strict rules .
To me the level of homelessness creeping back into British life is scandalous., but it’s the consequence of cutting levels of support for often very vulnerable and in some cases challenging people.
Glenn 27th May ’15 – 11:30pm …………….I worked with a night shelter for a couple of weeks, mainly reorganising their filing system. A lot of people were referred by the police. The thing is you have to be realistic about drug and drink related issues rather than puritanical, base it more on behaviour than overly strict rules .
To me the level of homelessness creeping back into British life is scandalous., but it’s the consequence of cutting levels of support for often very vulnerable and in some cases challenging people…………………………….
IMO the next few years will see a steep rise in the numbers of the homeless young with drugs and alcohol problems… These substances act as an anaesthetics when things get really bad (and they will)… Getting HM to mouth soundbites like…”requiring young people to earn or learn” are worthless without actions and we all know that such actions, and the money need to pursue these aims, are not this government’s priority…
The level of homelessness in this G8 country is a disgrace. We cannot start passing judgement on homeless people for drink and drug problems. They more than any have good cause for drink and drug use . People of all income groups get involved with drink and drugs but the homeless have more reason than most.
It is more than time to get to grips with this problem and stop passing judgement on those who have nothing.
Paul Walter
So, my proposal for the forthcoming Queen’s Speech is that a legal obligation is placed on all local authorities to ensure that there is utilised provision of night shelter for all street sleepers in their area,
You might as well place an obligation on Paul Walter to provide night shelter for street sleepers.
Local authorities simply cannot do it. The last government slashed their funding by huge amounts. Placing an obligation on them to do things while denying them what it needs to do it is nuts.
We’ve sold off council housing, and now the Tory government wants to sell off other social housing. We’ve let house prices go rip, and the merest hint at what might be needed to stop that is denounced as “the politics of envy”, an “attack on aspiration” and so on, because as we all know the first thing a person with a good idea has when they consider putting that good idea into practice is “Oh, if it works and I make a lot of money out of it, and I buy a big house from it, then I’ll have to pay a mansion tax, so I won’t bother, I’ll just watch telly instead”. Well, that’s what the Tories tell us, and it seems the contenders for the New Labour leadership are saying the same, so it must be true, innit?
So, there are huge housing problems, and at the bottom end people forced into rough sleeping because that’s the inevitable consequences of the sort of policies that have almost universal approval in this country and the shouting down of anyone who dares question them.
Glad to see this issue raised on LDV. I think though that the ambition is set rather low. In my experience the two most important things in preventing homelessness, and helping people recover from it, are positive relationships and opportunities. We need a new generation of services that focus on these factors, rather than just a bed for a night.
The Government’s current ‘No Second Night Out’ approach mirrors that set out here, albeit in a limited way. But without support services that help people get off the streets and live to their full potential it only deals with an immediate crisis. Local government cuts to support services over the last few years average out at 45% according to the NAO, and in many areas are much higher than that. Obviously restricting housing benefit for 18-21s could have a massive impact, on top of the already significant impact of sanctions (people experiencing homelessness are far more likely to be sanctioned).
Also there are plenty of people who experience homelessness who don’t have a drug or alcohol problem, and some of those who do develop the problem as a response to the misery of a life on the streets. A bit too much stereotyping going on here for a liberal site!
I have volunteered with an excellent organisation that operates a night shelter and largely agree with you Paul. 1) There is a definite (year round) need and 2) eligibility should be based on need (not adherence to programmes etc.).
My experience has been that Local Authorities do not a) have money or b) want to attract people in this situation into their area – hence the residence questions etc. Matthew Huntbach explains the funding side far better than I can but my worry remains that no Local Authority will willingly build/operate/fund a ‘super shelter’ without a co-ordinated plan (and the money to implement this).
D McKay
My experience has been that Local Authorities do not a) have money or b) want to attract people in this situation into their area – hence the residence questions etc
It is irrational to impose an obligation on an organisation when it has no means to meet that obligation.
There is no way I would want to stand as a councillor now, not after the 40% cuts in local government funding made by the coalition. It was bad enough when I was a councillor, I can’t think how bad it must be now. You are supposed to meet all sorts of obligation and people think you have the power to do it, but you don’t, there’s no money to do it.
The rough sleepers thing is just the fringe of the hugely bigger housing problem which stems from the destruction of the council housing system initiated by the Conservatives in the 1980s. Now in the Queen’s Speech they want to destroy what little bit left of a social housing system there is. You won’t really solve the problem until you reverse that, so making it an obligation is just political illiteracy.
Anyway, worse will come. I suppose parents will still be obliged to look after their kids when the Tories take away payments which enable them to do so if they have more than two of them. If the Tories are rational, they will have to meet those cuts in welfare payment with something which takes away that obligation. Maybe a mechanism for selling off surplus kids, or hygienically disposing of them. I do not mean this as a joke, because that WILL be what is necessary if the Tories do what they say they want to do on this.
I agree with Paul’s ideas regarding shelters. On the whole though, homelessness here in Cornwall is, I think, different to elsewhere. There are only 40 people registered as homeless in the county, I know about 5 of them and see them regularly. They’re all quite happy, they enjoy the lifestyle and if you buy them a can of beer once a month they’re over the moon. I think some people genuinely prefer to be free of social confines and don’t really need our help, except in extreme circumstances. I expect this is very different to urban homelessness, where I’m sure you find people in far more desperate situations that are genuinely beyond their control, but I think we must be slow to generalise about homelessness, it’s not always clear-cut.