West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Published: 16 November 2007
Giving with one hands... and taking away with the other
• WITH reference to Danny Scott’s letter about Westminster City Council’s proposals to introduce a Parliamentary Bill to ban soup-runs for the homeless community (Poor idea, November 9), Danny might be interested to know that on November 8 a memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields to commemorate the homeless people that had died in the previous 12 months. I am informed that the figure amounted to 120.
It’s rather hypocritical that on the same day that officials from the council attended that memorial service, they also got the police at 2am to move homeless people from their sleeping places.
This sort of mentality from the council, and a potential soup-run ban, can only increase the number of people dying on the streets from hypothermia or other illnesses.
While I’m sure that the council will argue that they would prefer to see all homeless people accommodated, the fact remains that there will always be street people out there whose only crime is to be homeless. TB, SE1
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