Homelessness

There's been a few people sleeping rough under the railway bridge (Harringay Green Lanes) on Green Lanes. They'd been there a while and had gradually spread out, had a stove under there, etc.

For whatever reason the council seemed to have decided to move them on and have a "deep clean". This is their comments to one of the Councillors:

Dear Councillor Brabazon
Thank you for your enquiry regarding Green Lanes bridge (our reference LBH/ 8268719), where we have been working hard to address rough sleeping and street activity.
Our Outreach Team including our Street Population Outreach Worker are working to support the individuals that are sleeping under the bridge, and those who are present during the day, away from the area and into accommodation and support.
The people that are sleeping there have had their housing and support needs assessed and plans are in place to support them. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I can’t share specific or identifiable personal information about individual circumstances due to data protection legislation.
However, I can assure you that our street outreach teams and BUBIC are in contact with all of them on a regular basis. I know you are currently looking at a proposal by BUBIC for additional resources to work with the people there who are using drugs and alcohol and this is something we welcome and support. Whilst we have been fortunate to obtain a range of additional resources to tackle rough sleeping in the last 12 months, we have limited resource to provide substance use support on the streets and this is an issue that can trap people in a cycle of street homelessness, exploitation and vulnerability.
We do recognise the impact this has on the community around Green Lanes and as such have worked with our colleagues in the police and community safety to deliver both supportive and enforcement based interventions to tackle the issues there. This has included regular multi-agency meetings, street cleansing operations (three such street cleanses have taken place since November), daily street outreach walkabouts and targeted support and housing offers for those who are willing and eligible to accept. We have stepped up this work in the last few weeks and will continue to do so until we have made some more progress with those involved. We would encourage businesses to ensure that areas such as bin stores and alleyways are kept securely locked wherever possible so that when people move from one area they are not easily able to move into another.
The resolution to rough sleeping is usually much more than an offer of accommodation, as this example demonstrates, but where possible we seek to ensure that people are offered a route away from the streets at the very first opportunity. Sometimes this feels slow, but outreach work with vulnerable people involves building relationships and trust, ensuring that people are able to access the right support to address the concerns preventing them from entering accommodation which can include histories of trauma, abuse and exploitation as well as mistrust of professionals and chaotic drug dependency. To help us deliver our aims of ending rough sleeping in Haringey, we have commissioned a number of services, including the Haringey Crashpad and our single homeless Supported Housing Pathway. Unfortunately, our work can be obstructed by a number of issues out of our control, for example legislation preventing the use of public funds to accommodate people who have not exercised their treaty rights as EEA/EU migrants. This affects 65% of people rough sleeping in Haringey and all of those who are rough sleeping at Green Lanes. Nonetheless, we are able to offer employment support, rapid access to drug and alcohol services and a range of cold weather provision which is open to everyone regardless of immigration status.
In terms of prevention work, Haringey Council and Homes for Haringey are guided by the Homelessness Reduction Act (2018). The prevention of homelessness is our priority and we encourage any individual that is homeless or threatened with homelessness to attend a housing needs appointment in order for their situation to be assessed and for a personalised housing plan to be created and actioned. We ask all residents, businesses and services to let us know as soon as they have concerns that an individual may be rough sleeping, by using the Streetlink service. Streetlink helps us track and monitor hotspot areas and understand how people move within boroughs and are drawn to particular locations so we do encourage residents and businesses to use this service.
Yours sincerely,
Charlotte Pomery
Assistant Director Commissioning, Haringey Council

Obviously the interesting point there is the EEA/EU migrants section. I can see the reasoning behind it but it isn't a comfortable point.

EDIT: Some more detail from the police involved.

There was an multi agency operation that took place on 31st January. This involved Council workers, Outreach teams and your six local police officers for both Harringay and St Anns ward. There was not a police raid and the rough sleepers were not searched by police. The operation was to help our most vulnerable not to bring enforcement.
The council put up posters telling some of our most vulnerable in the borough, if they would like help from the outreach teams and the council, they will be there from 0800 on the 31st. The council managed to find somewhere to store their belongings while they sought help from the outreach teams.
At no point during the operation, were they forced to move on by the council or the police. A dispersal zone was not discussed at any point.
Two of the rough sleepers remained at the location to receive help and are engaging with the outreach teams.
The items put into the bin lorry were checked thoroughly by the rough sleepers to make sure only unwanted items were binned.
The cleaning was an essential part of the operation, it was not to move them on but to make sure that the area was clean if they decide to return.
After the operation to help the vulnerable, there was a meeting involving all the partners about the rough sleepers in the Borough, the main focus was on getting them help, not moving them on. It is an ongoing process but everyone is working extremely hard to help the people involved.
The operation was covered on Twitter, please follow @MPSHarringay for frequent updates on what your local policing team is doing.
Alternatively, you can always email us at Harringay.SNT@met.police.uk if you want to ask us questions or have concerns. Please note, this is not a crime reporting email address. If you want to report a crime, please go to http://www.met.police.uk (ASB can be reported on here and goes through the same grading as a phone call) or call 999 (in an emergency) or call 101.

(I don't know why using italics removes all the paragraphs.)