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So now there's some new funding against homelessness:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/11/100m-drive-to-end-rough-sleeping-in-england-by-2027
Immediate criticism:
This looks as if it would seek to address serious cases, but not the underlying issues (seeing as creating and worsening the underlying issues is very much still Government policy).
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Some more articles:
This is particularly sad:
Commentary by Zoe Williams:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/13/tories-homelessness-crisis-universal-credit
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Council plans to barcode the homeless. I wonder what Kim Wilde would think of this sort of thing?
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It's obviously inadequate and misapplied funding, but as homelessness is more concentrated the bigger the city or town, there will probably a funding allocation formula so that there are sizeable chunks where the problems are biggest.
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There's a whole raft of concerns to consider about this (most of which I was discussing in the news thread earlier). There's the potential for abuse of the data harvested (both on donors and the recipients), there's the effect it might have on those who don't opt-in, there's the possibility that it creates a market where people make money from the existence of homeless beggars (and so a financial incentive to keep the "workforce" in place).
Any time tech moves into virgin territory, you really have to think of all the possible unintended consequences. If you don't, the market will find them anyway.
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This is heartbreaking and I've worried about it a lot since I heard from a friend that someone we know may have become homeless, but we don't know what's happened.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/08/homeless-people-die-uk-2017
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People sleeping on public transport:
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Homelessness among young people:
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The latest stats from Shelter:
It's cold out.
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Here's an individual story and information on the situation in Hackney, on which the Hackney Gazette has done quite a lot of reporting:
https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/homeless-in-hospital-1-5789983
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I was in Dublin recently and the visible level of homelessness was pretty shocking. Same story as in the UK--lots of empty homes, lots of homeless people.
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Rural rough sleepers:
He came back one day to find his tent and possessions, including a picture of his late partner, burnt to ashes, apparently on purpose.
[...]
“You get spat at,” he said. “One bloke chucked a tub of salted peanuts over me and lobbed a can at me. What is that about?”
One of the most horrible things is other people attacking homeless people or doing this sort of damage.
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Labour policy proposals on homelessness:
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The London bit of the figures from the Crisis report posted further up^^^:
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Some interesting things I didn't know about homelessness in this article:
Corbyn said he would also repeal the Vagrancy Act of 1824, which criminalises rough sleeping and begging. It dates from the period of the Napoleonic wars, when destitute soldiers were returning from the battlefield – but was invoked almost 3,000 times in 2016.
“It’s an absolute relic of the kind of politics of the Duke of Wellington, being used against people now, on the streets of this country. Can’t we just move on from the Duke of Wellington, and get rid of it?” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/21/jeremy-corbyn-labour-policy-leaving-eu
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More on the 1824 Vagrancy Act:
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Street sleeping has pretty much tripled since 'austerity' started, and we've had big rises across the whole country last year:
rhb
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About
Homelessness
Posted by
@Oliver Schick
There are various threads on various topics to do with homelessness, including forum members becoming homeless, but we don't seem to have a general one.
Homelessness was briefly 'the big issue' in the late 80s and early 90s, brought on by Thatcher's deeply unjust policies. Nowadays it seems it's just one big issue among a million other big issues, but it's still the one that you notice the most when you travel around London.
It's not a difficult issue to solve, given the number of empty homes, as most homeless people want a permanent roof over their heads again, and it's not very expensive to make that happen, certainly a lot cheaper than paying for expensive hostel places and the like, but obviously the current government doesn't have the political will, quite the opposite:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/26/how-firms-make-millions-nightly-paid-temporary-flats-homeless
There are only very few people who won't engage with services and prefer to be left alone. Obviously, none of that includes people who prefer a travelling lifestyle.
I hadn't heard about this yet:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/nearly-100-people-a-night-sleeping-rough-in-stratford-centre-shopping-mall-a3858446.html