|
|
 |
| |
We’re about to see a get-tough attitude to homeless people
Editor of The Pavement Richard Burdett expects to see increased legal measures to remove people from the streets
IF someone refused to diet while being morbidly obese should they receive compulsory surgery to restrict their eating habits?
If they smoked 60 a day, should we demand they join a smoking-cessation groups and prevent their access to cigarettes? If someone is injecting heroin should we force them to stop and attend treatment? And what should you do if someone sleeping rough refuses to leave the street?
In London, we’re likely to find out the answer to the last question soon. Over the next few years we’ll be seeing more evidence of a tougher line with the homeless, and more legal measures taken to remove them from the streets, using existing legislation, including the Vagrancy Act, and local bye-laws.
Unfortunately, the homeless, by the nature of their lifestyle, are very much in the public eye, and thus more likely to be the target of both political schemes and public outrage. They are the unsightly reminder of a failed society, or the mark of a maverick, or the indicator of the rise in addiction, or a benchmark for recession. Whichever way you look at those on the street, they are more likely to raise strong opinion and are harder to ignore. Whatever failures most of us might encounter in life, it’s largely unseen, behind closed doors, so ignored until it causes ripples outside the front step, whether in work or our personal life.
However, if you’re homeless your problems are, on the face of it, laid bare for all to see.
They’re also vulnerable. Not in the way they’re traditionally considered vulnerable.
But not being homeowners/voters/ enfranchised citizens, they’re easier to target, by authorities or the general public, with impunity. Writing to your MP, making a complaint to the police, or contacting the relevant ombudsman are all harder tasks from a doorway. Some manage, but it is harder. Not only harder, without a computer or pen and paper, but the thought must be there: “Will I be taken seriously without a return address?”
And herein lies a problem. They are easier to target, because of their location and lifestyle, by those who don’t want them cluttering up their borough, scaring tourists, or by those who have contracts that rely on them making targets to justify the money they receive – and with the justification that it’s for their own good.
Who could argue with that? It might seem harsh, but it helps them in the long-term.
Whereas you wouldn’t force an injecting addict to go cold turkey, some people, in government and the voluntary sector, feel that you can force the homeless off the street by continually moving them on or arresting them. They don’t always talk openly about this attitude in public, perhaps only in partnership meetings where these things are mooted, and even fewer will actually pursue it as a policy.
It’s not discussed openly, because it’s not something those charities involved would want to portray – it could tarnish their caring image.
Some will ask what do I see as the problem? Why shouldn’t they be forced into a position when they accept help? Aside from the obvious questions around basic errors in what we think is best for others, there are many problems with this attitude.
Is help accepted as part of coercion effective?
Does help that wasn’t asked for work as well as help that was requested? One of the reasons that “help” isn’t forced on those with alcohol or drug addiction is that it doesn’t work.
Someone has to want to change to achieve change. Strong-arm tactics also cause some people to hide. Whereas in the open they’re approachable and give a true indication of the numbers on the street, hidden, whether invisible in parks, squats or quiet corners of the city, they are still homeless.
This might satisfy some local authorities, who would view the disappearance of those on the street as problem solved. It isn’t, and will never be – it’ll just be hidden.
Unfortunately, it’s also marks a failure of the longer-term, human approach, welcoming people in off the streets.
These approaches tend now to belong to the parts of the voluntary sector who don’t receive government funding, as these projects, like soup runs, get blamed for encouraging and maintaining rough sleepers.
Although requiring more time, and some innovative approaches, it doesn’t fit in with targets and figures.
The bottom line is that it causes added distress to those on the streets. It removes from those tasked with approaching the homeless, particularly the police, with their clear-cut role of welfare and protection, and helps to isolate those on the street.
If the outreach workers and police are taking a tougher approach, who are people to turn to for support when needed?
And why do I think this’ll happen more? Because I think it’s already begun in some boroughs, perhaps as part of the run-up to the beautification of London for the Olympics and the government target to end rough sleeping by 2012.
And as one borough takes a tough stance, others will to prevent homeless people moving into their area.
• The Pavement is a free monthly magazine for the homeless.
info@thepavement.com
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
