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JP - Record numbers left homeless after eviction by private landlords in England

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JP - Record numbers left homeless after eviction by private landlords in England

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The number of private renters becoming homeless is at its highest level in England since records began.

Almost 19,000 households became homeless after being evicted by a private landlord in the last year, a 200 per cent increase compared to five years ago and the highest number on record.

Across all the sectors, just under 43,000 families were accepted as homeless by their local council in the last year - a rise of 35 per cent from five years ago.

According to official statistics released by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the end of an assured shorthold tenancy - the most common form of rental agreement - has become an increasingly common reason for becoming homeless.

The spiralling costs of housing coupled with cuts to welfare spending have been blamed for the steep rise.

English councils dealt with 200,930 requests for help from people on the verge of homelessness in the last year.

The top 12 poorest cities in UK

Jon Sparkes, head of homelessness charity, Crisis, said: "We need a change in the law to prevent more people from losing their home and to make sure all homeless people can get the help they need, while councils need the funding to make this work.

"Prevention has already been shown to work in Wales, where it has dramatically reduced the need for people to be re-housed."

A bill put forward by Bill Blackman MP to address the problem will have it's second reading in late October It proposes a new duty for all local authorities to take action on behalf of anyone threatened with homelessness within the next 56 days, regardless of what their priority status is.

Responding to the figures, chief executive of homelessness organisation Shelter Campbell Robb said: "These figures are a heartbreaking reminder of the devastating impact our drastic shortag e of affordable homes is having.

"Every day we hear from families struggling to keep their heads above water when faced with the double blow of welfare cuts and expensive, unstable private renting, with far too many ultimately losing the battle to stay in their home.

"On top of this, stripped back budgets and a drought of affordable homes are making it increasingly difficult for overburdened councils to find homeless families anywhere suitable to live."

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The number of private renters in England being made homeless is at its highest level on record

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The number of private renters becoming homeless is at its highest level in England since records began. Almost 19,000 households became homeless after being evicted by a private landlord in the last year, a 200 per cent increase compared to five years ago and the highest number on record.

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AW - Nottingham City Council anti-begging posters criticised

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AW - Nottingham City Council anti-begging posters criticised

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Anti-begging posters put up by Nottingham City Council have been banned after complaints they implied that all homeless people were engaged in criminal and antisocial behaviour.

Over the summer the council ran a series of five posters to persuade the public to stop giving money to beggars.

One poster featured an image of a homeless man in sleeping bag begging with the text "Begging: watch your money go to a fraud. Beggars aren't what they seem."

A second featured a close-up of a person smoking a roll-up cigarette with the text "Begging: watch your money go up in smoke. Begging funds the misuse of drugs".

And a third featured an image of a discarded lager can and the line "Begging: watch your money go down the drain. Begging funds the misuse of alcohol."

The Advertising Standards Authority received seven complaints that the ads were offensive because they portrayed homeless people in a derogatory manner and implied they are engaged in criminal and antisocial behaviour.

Nottingham City Council denied that the campaign negatively targeted homeless people.

The council that its deliberately "hard-hitting" campaign was not anti-homeless people but designed to tackle the increasing problem of aggressive begging and to discourage members of the public from giving money to beggars, "almost none of whom were homeless".

It contended that giving money to beggars is likely to fund drug and alcohol addiction and people wanting to help "genuine" homeless people should donate to charities that support them.

The ASA said that four of the five ads portrayed all beggars as "disingenuous and undeserving individuals".

"We further considered the ads reinforced negative stereotypes of a group of individuals, most of whom were likely to be considered as vulnerable [and] who faced a multitude of issues and required specialist support," said the ASA.

"On that basis we concluded [four of the ads] were likely to cause serious or widespread offence."

The ASA therefore banned the ads.

Topics

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Anti-begging posters banned over 'negative stereotypes'

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Anti-begging posters put up by Nottingham City Council have been banned after complaints they implied that all homeless people were engaged in criminal and antisocial behaviour. Over the summer the council ran a series of five posters to persuade the public to stop giving money to beggars.

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Manchester evening news, 'Revealed: first empty council buildings to become winter homeless shelters'. - Elisa Narborough

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Manchester evening news, 'Revealed: first empty council buildings to become winter homeless shelters'. - Elisa Narborough

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Article about the introduction of empty buildings turning into homeless shelters with medical, alcohol and drug support.

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The first two council buildings to be opened up for rough sleepers have been revealed.

Hulme library - which closed following the first round of town hall cuts in 2011 - and the former Beech Mount children's home in Harpurhey will provide overnight shelter from next month.

In total at least 165 extra beds are being are being created city-wide as the council pushes homelessness up its list of priorities.

We revealed how council officials were investigating potential empty buildings amid rising public and political concern over homelessness.

The former library and children's home may only be the first of several sites turned into homeless shelters this winte r.

It comes after United stars Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs allowed a group of rough sleepers to remain in their new Stock Exchange hotel until work begins.

Charities and council officials will point rough sleepers towards the centres - among others - from December. The council is also looking at transport arrangements to get people from the city centre, which sees the greatest numbers, out to the shelters.

They will be run by a professional homelessness organisation and will include medical, drug, and alcohol and support for those who need it.

Coun Paul Andrews, executive member for adult health and well-being, said: "We've spent months working on plans to open up empty buildings across the city to make sure nobody has to sleep rough on the streets this winter.

"This is a lengthy process, but we have now identified the first pair which we can open and we're now continuing to carry out inspections so we can open more empty buildings in other parts of the city."

He added: "While providing shelter and a roof over their heads is obviously a good start, what's really important is working with charities, faith groups and our own homelessness services to make sure the right help and support is available to rough sleepers so we can help them make the first steps towards getting off the streets for good."

Some of the 165 new beds will be provided by reopening old hostels, while others are due to be set up by the Dioceses of Salford and Manchester.

So far it is unclear how much the new drive is expected to cost the council, or whether other services will need to be cut to fund it.

Talks are also underway with the private sector about opening up other empty buildings but no agreements have yet been reached.

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Revealed: First empty council buildings to become winter homeless shelters

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The first two council buildings to be opened up for rough sleepers have been revealed. Hulme library - which closed following the first round of town hall cuts in 2011 - and the former Beech Mount children's home in Harpurhey will provide overnight shelter from next month.

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Gill Mooney - "Begging is a lifestyle choice"

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Gill Mooney - "Begging is a lifestyle choice"

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Blog post in response to the leeds crackdown on street begging, and the rhetoric that has accompanies it.

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Begging Is A Lifestyle Choice Says Leeds Councillor As Homelessness Charities Launch The Nastiest Campaign Yet

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Leeds City Council have teamed up with the police and so-called charities, to come up with the nastiest campaign yet aimed at discouraging the public from giving a bit of spare change to homeless people. The above poster has been ... Continue reading →

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Article attempting to address discussions around whether to give to beggars in Leeds.

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Gill Mooney - Blacklash against 'beggars can be choosers' posters in Hull.

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Gill Mooney - Blacklash against 'beggars can be choosers' posters in Hull.

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A city council has taken down posters which read "Beggars can be choosers" after a storm of complaints.

The Labour-controlled Hull council had the posters put up in areas of the city that had large numbers of homeless people.

Matt Downie, director of policy at charity Crisis, told Buzzfeed News that the posters would not help the homeless situation in Hull.

"Whether or not people give money to beggars is a personal decision, but people in desperate circumstances deserve better than to be treated as a nuisance," he said.

"Instead of posters like this, we need politicians to review the help that single homeless people get under the law."

A spokesperson for the council said a decision had been taken to remove the posters following a number of complaints, and that they were "not intended to cause offence or harm".

"Having listened to the feedback we've received from some members of the public, we have taken the decision to remove them," said the spokesperson. "The posters were developed three years ago as a response to a specific issue that had been raised by communities themselves."

He added: "During the past three years no issues or comments have been raised by any members of the public."

Norway's government recently provoked controversy after it proposed a law that would make it illegal to help beggars on the streets.

Those offering money, food or shelter to beggars could face between six months to a year in prison if the rules came into practise, and it would criminalise organised begging.

The government sent the bill out for consultation with a deadline of 15 February.

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Someone actually thought these posters about homeless people were a good idea

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A city council has taken down posters which read "Beggars can be choosers" after a storm of complaints. The Labour-controlled Hull council had the posters put up in areas of the city that had large numbers of homeless people. Matt Downie, director of policy at charity Crisis, told Buzzfeed News that the posters would not help the homeless situation in Hull.

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Ruth P - Daily Mail reports on bagpipes playing to deter homelessness

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Ruth P - Daily Mail reports on bagpipes playing to deter homelessness

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Bournemouth bus station plays bagpipe music through the night to stop homeless people using it as a shelter

Bournemouth Travel Interchange now plays loud bagpipe music at night

It wants to deter homeless people from sleeping rough inside the station

Council bosses and police say it is intended to tackle antisocial behaviour

But residents say idea is 'daft' as the homeless people need practical help

A bus station has been criticised after it was revealed it plays loud bagpipe music throughout the night in order to deter homeless people from using it as a shelter.

As part of an ongoing bid to tackle antisocial behaviour in the area council bosses and police decided to play bagpipe music throughout the night at Bournemouth's Travel Interchange.

They aim to deter the town's homeless from sleeping there, and according to local traders the bid appears to be working.

The Bournemouth Echo reports the bagpipe music is played through the coach station's loudspeaker system from midnight to 6.30am.

The paper previously reported that commuters claimed to feel 'intimidated' by some of the people sleeping rough in the station, who they claimed used the area near the public toilets to drink alcohol.

Meanwhile local businesses situated near the station said some passers-by had suffered drunken abuse and even threats of violence towards their staff.

But now, the paper reports, since the introduction of the bagpipe music antisocial behaviour in the area appears to be on the wane.

One coach station worker, who asked not to be named, told the newspaper: 'Basically, the council has been playing bagpipe music through the night and it seems to be doing the job.

'They just cannot stand it, you try getting any sleep with that going on.

'We've had hardly any problems with people sleeping next to the toilets since the council started playing it.'

But not everyone is impressed with the scheme. One resident told the Huffington Post: 'What a daft idea - all that will do is send them elsewhere.

'These people need practical help.'

A Bournemouth Borough Council spokesman said: 'The council and the police have been undertaking coordinated action around the travel interchange site to help address the street anti-social behaviour issues.

'This has included regular police patrols, proactive input from our rough sleeper team and we have been trialling the playing of music in the evenings and night time to deter rough sleeping.

'All of these activities appear to be helping but we will continue to monitor the situation and will target further resources as needed.'

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Bournemouth station plays bagpipe music to deter homeless people

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Bournemouth Travel Interchange now plays loud bagpipe music at night It wants to deter homeless people from sleeping rough inside the station Council bosses and police say it is intended to tackle antisocial behaviour But residents say idea is 'daft' as the homeless people need practical help A bus station has been criticised after it was revealed it plays loud bagpipe music throughout the night in order to deter homeless people from using it as a shelter.

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Ruth P - Ed Miliband looks awkward giving money to beggar

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Ruth P - Ed Miliband looks awkward giving money to beggar

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Ed Miliband has been accused of looking "awkward" and "terrified" while giving money to woman begging on the street.

Labour were forced to deny that Mr Miliband had given the woman who, was sitting on a pile on newspapers on a Manchester street, just 2 pence. A spokesman for the party said he had given the woman a "handful" of coins although critics on Twitter were unconvinced.

In July Mr Miliband made a high profile speech in which he said he will turn his back on photo opportunities and focus on the issues.

However during a Friday walkabout in Manchester, flanked by photographers, the Labour leader paused briefly to donate to the woman.

The speed he completed the transaction and the uncomfortable look on his face drew immediate criticism.

There was speculation over the amount that Mr Miliband had donated with some Twitter users claiming that he appeared to be holding a 2 pence piece.

"He has a handful of change you can't see. About a quid, maybe a two quid," a Labour spokesman said.

Ed Miliband tries not to look awkward as he gives money to a begging woman in Manchester pic.twitter.com/snBV9R4sja
- Asa Bennett (@asabenn) October 31, 2014

Ed Miliband trying to put a coin in a beggar's cup without looking. One for @OddMiliband pic.twitter.com/p4ela4TD5m
- Peter Thompson (@TheRedRag) October 31, 2014

He looks terrified stiff that she might touch him MT: @asabenn: Ed Miliband tries not to look awkward pic.twitter.com/KJ3iX9Q1Fh
- Rory Meakin (@rorymeakin) October 31, 2014

Ed Miliband thinks beggars are worth this much... pic.twitter.com/7AXXXbvbYm
- Ben (@Jamin2g) October 31, 2014

Some offered the Labour leader some advice

If you meet a rough sleeper, stop and talk to them and ask if you can buy them a sandwich and a coffee. And let them choose the filling.
- Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) October 31, 2014

@IsabelHardman or tell someone about them so they can get help >> http://t.co/DANMRu6o9T
- Alison McGovern (@Alison_McGovern) October 31, 2014

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Ed Miliband accused of looking 'awkward' while giving money to beggar

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Ed Miliband has been accused of looking "awkward" and "terrified" while giving money to woman begging on the street. Labour were forced to deny that Mr Miliband had given the woman who, was sitting on a pile on newspapers on a Manchester street, just 2 pence.

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Ruth Patrick - Homeless spikes outside top department store Selfridges

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A homeless man who beds down every night just yards from Selfridges has hit out at the high-end department store for installing "anti- homeless" spikes.

John Jones has now invited bosses of the department store to come and spend a night with him on the streets.

More than 3,000 people have now signed a petition urging the department store to remove the studs from outside the Manchester store.

Bosses claim they have been installed to stop people smoking and littering, the Manchester Evening News reports.

But the 29-year-old believes they want to deter the homeless from begging or sleeping there as they are "bad for their image".

He said: "They're just disgusting.

"It's so hard at this time of year when it's freezing cold and raining.

"You just want somewhere with a bit of shelter over you like a doorway or railway arch.

"But you always feel like you're not wanted."

John, who formerly lived in Hulme, began sleeping rough five years ago after splitting with his wife.

He said: "This is the first time I've seen the spikes but I am always getting moved on.

"Lots of places call the police and get them to move you.

"Or occasionally they'll come out and ask you themselves.

"One guy told me I was 'attracting the wrong kind of people'.

"I think things like these spikes just show ignorance and a disdain for the lower classes.

"And the people that want them put there are millionaires.

"They've no idea what it's like to sleep on the streets.

"They should come and spend a night with me then maybe they'd understand.

"I'd welcome them if they wanted to."

A Selfridges spokeswoman previously told the MEN: "Selfridges installed the studs on December 1 last year as part of a number of measures to reduce litter and smoking outside the store's team entrance, following customer complaints."

Do you think the anti-homeless spikes should be removed?

2000+ VOTES SO FAR

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Homeless man slams Selfridges after department store installs spikes

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A homeless man who beds down every night just yards from Selfridges has hit out at the high-end department store for installing "anti- homeless" spikes. John Jones has now invited bosses of the department store to come and spend a night with him on the streets.

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Anti- begging campaigns: Discussion on Open Democracy

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Anti- begging campaigns: Discussion on Open Democracy

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A poster in a Sainsburys in Ipswich, Suffolk, reads "could you spare 20p for a cup of tea? How about £10 for a bag of heroin? £12 for a rock of crack?"

The poster asks people to donate to a local homeless fund and gives a contact for Streetlink, who offer services to homeless people.

Demonising people who are begging under the guise of helping homeless people is not a new tactic for the police, but for homeless charities the emphasis of this campaign is part of a new, worrying trend.

Flyers designed to accompany the poster campaign read "in a recent radio programme one person claimed he could earn up to £150 per day." No further evidence is offered.
Getting the facts straight
The campaign seems to rely on two core assertions: that "most people sleeping rough do not beg" and secondly that "most people begging do not sleep rough."

We are invited to infer from these statements that homeless people are the deserving poor, people begging are drug addicts, and these are two different groups of people. Or to put it another way, people begging on the street are drug addicts pretending to be homeless.

Is it true that "most people sleeping rough do not beg"?

On the face of it, the 2011 Complex Lives study, coordinated by the UK Government Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), appears to agree with this statement. Its comprehensive study in seven UK cities found that 32% of homeless people reported having begged.

However, the study also found that begging was typically something that people engaged in "in the middle-late phase of homelessness." This is vital because it suggest that people are only likely to resort to begging if they have been homeless for some time. The study also suggests that people in such situations are more likely to be cut off from society in other ways, more in need of help.

What about the second claim, that "most people begging do not sleep rough"?

Homeless charity Thames Reach takes this claim further saying that "the link is between begging and drug and alcohol misuse, not homelessness and begging, nor even homelessness and drugs."

Again the ESRC study suggests this is misleading. It found that over time there was a close relationship between homelessness and begging: "there is a strong overlap between experiences of more extreme forms of homelessness and other support needs, with nearly half of service users reporting experience of institutional care, substance misuse, and street activities (such as begging), as well as homelessness."

To be clear, it is not that there is no relationship between substance abuse and begging, or substance abuse and homelessness. It would not be fair to say that people begging on the street aren't going to spend any of their money on drugs. It probably is safer to offer food, blankets or a hot drink, instead of money.

What is important here is that these posters imply that people begging are "frauds" and "not real homeless people" without offering clear evidence for this idea and with little apparent concern about the impact of pasting these false claims all over the streets.

Those involved appear to have thought little of the demonising effect of their campaign. For the sake of raising a few pennies these charities are selling the dignity of the very people they exist to help.

Surely we can help those suffering on the streets without erecting media campaigns further stereotyping an already extremely vulnerable group and stopping one of their few options for generating their own income.

We've all heard the stereotyping, that friend you have that tells you the supposed "Romanians" you see on the street "aren't actually homeless". These posters purposefully support the image of people on the streets as criminals and liars. Surely this is what we must collectively fight against?
A poster copied across England
How did it come to this? How did homeless charities hit on the idea of asking for people to donate by text, and turn away from people begging.

The poster seems to have originated from London-based Thames Reach. Their "your kindness can kill" campaign has been running since 2003, and they have extensive web-pages explaining it.

Thames Reach's original design has since been remodelled and reworked by many councils in England, including Manchester, York, Liverpool, Cheshire, Kent, Bournemouth, and Exeter. Although Suffolk is a notable exception, most councils seem to have used less aggressive language than Thames Reach's original design.

Why are these campaigns supported?

One can't escape the feeling that these campaigns continue to be successful primarily because they make "the rest of us" feel more comfortable doing what most people are already doing: ignoring people on the street.

One Oxford University student told a student paper: "I feel ashamed when I see tourists who come to Oxford having to walk past beggars and homeless people on the streets. What sort of impression does this give of our city and our society as a whole?"

Jeremy Swain, Chief Executive of the London charity who invented the posters, Thames Reach, told The Guardian in 2013 that he wants to stop begging because "because of the incontrovertible evidence that the vast majority of people begging on the streets are doing so in order to purchase hard drugs." But he goes on "I have stopped giving to beggars for another reason too. It is, I'm afraid, because I'm sick of them. One of the regulars round my way, a bit clever, fag in hand, became so persistent, so intrusive, that I got quite hostile, dismissing him with the same curt tone I find myself using with cold callers who plague my phone."

Concern that the posters exacerbate negative images of people on the street made the campaign controversial when it launched in the City of Oxford. City Councillor Sam Hollick told us: "These posters seem more focussed on preventing people asking for money in the street than addressing the problems that cause people to do it. The message of the posters reinforces the idea in people's minds that any interaction with someone in the street asking for money is with an addict, and is somehow dangerous. This only increases the gulf between people who are homeless and those who aren't, which can cause a hardening of attitudes against people worst hit by societies problems."

A City Council run review of the Oxford campaign highlighted other problems. The evaluation found concern, from people begging themselves and service providers, that the campaign would "affect trust-based relationships with the beggars", have an unfair impact on the minority of people begging who did so for necessities, and encourage people to turn to crime for income. There is also some evidence that these campaigns don't have a significant effect on giving to homeless charities.
Kindness doesn't kill
There is compounding evidence that homelessness is linked to volatile life circumstances which would often already cause high levels of social stigmatisation. These can lead to a variation of homeless experience where form of income has to be navigated outside safety of permanent or even regular residence.

Homogenising homeless experiences into one stereotypical understanding is not only patronising but ignorant.

Further categorising those self identifying as homeless into 'deserving' and 'undeserving' only propels the stigmatisation of those in the most vulnerable positions, often without the connections to such caring organisations, and indeed pushes them further away from any kind of inclusion into society.

There is not enough social housing in Britain; cutbacks to public sector spending is closing some of the most critical care and rehabilitation centres; we are becoming the imprisonment capital of Europe; and the welfare state is being violently eroded whilst at the same time wages have never been so low and insecure.

This is a way of constructing society that WILL make people homeless, and yet charities on the front line of care provision for those within this traumatic experience are concerning themselves with making money by demonising those they seek to represent.

If this is the true face of austerity then God help us.

Or better yet, let's help each other. Suspicious and dividing narratives like these only serve to enforce a more individualistic society where governments can further enforce draconian policies in the knowledge that our communities are fractured and in judgement of each other.

Giving your pound to those begging on the street will not solve anything. In fact the best that money will do is absolve your guilt for the next ten minutes until you see that someone else that has been forced into the street within this system which you remain economically privileged within.

However, as a man begging outside Haymarket Station, Edinburgh, so rightly put it, "it's no about wanting all your money, but at least see me as a person." Stopping to give someone the time of day on the street is a radical act of change in a society that demands we see each other as competition for the recourses those in authority refuse to give us. When we acknowledge that specific people on the street will often have experienced violent circumstances and stigmatisation within their daily life, it's not just a radical act, but a way of resisting their further subjugation.

They are not just 'beggars', they are our brothers, our uncles, our aunties and our mothers, and their lives did not begin when they sat down and asked you for a spare bit of change.

I do not believe our kindness could kill, but rather that it could be transformative. Let our daily conversations become the building blocks for community organising where those affected by such issues are brought to the front line of grass-roots resistance against discrimination, and we work together to create an alternative society that puts the resources available in the public hands.

Oh, and what happened to that poster in the Sainsbury's in Ipswich?

After the picture was shared widely on Facebook, Wesley Hall, a volunteer for Help the Homeless called up the shop asking for it to be removed. Although only put up that morning, the manager agreed to take the poster down.
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A poster in a Sainsburys in Ipswich, Suffolk, reads "could you spare 20p for a cup of tea? How about £10 for a bag of heroin? £12 for a rock of crack?" The poster asks people to donate to a local homeless fund and gives a contact for Streetlink, who offer services to homeless people.

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FEANTSA report: comparative state approaches to homelessness strategies

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FEANTSA report: comparative state approaches to homelessness strategies

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Guardian article- We shouldn't treat the homeless like criminals

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Guardian article- We shouldn't treat the homeless like criminals

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Leeds City Council take tough action on beggars

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Leeds City Council take tough action on beggars

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Leeds City Council has been awarded an injunction order to combat persistent begging in the city.

Under the order, individuals served with the injunction will be unable to beg in any part of the city, including the train station area. A breach of the order will result in a fast-tracked hearing to the county court and sentences ranging from a fine to prison.

The injunction order comes after a programme of work undertaken by Leeds City Council's Safer Leeds team and West Yorkshire Police to specifically target those who are not homeless, but continue to ask the public for money despite the support services available to them.

Cllr Mick Coulson, Leeds City Council's lead member for community safety, said: 'Working with partners and a wide range of groups and organisations across the city, we are determined to do everything possible to help anyone living on our streets that desperately need our help. This remains one of our continued aims, and we would urge anyone who is homeless to contact us as soon as possible to find out the support that is available.

'What we will not tolerate however are those people who have absolutely no reason to beg, refuse any offers of help, and instead decide to continue begging in the city. This is completely unacceptable and the reason why we have gone to court to secure this injunction order which will give us tougher powers to stop these individuals begging in the city centre or train station.'

A campaign to remind the public that giving money to street beggars is illegal and urging them to donate to vital homeless charities was launched in January 2013.

Cllr Bill Urry, Leeds City Council's lead member with responsibility for homelessness, said: 'If you are thinking of giving money to beggars, we would instead urge you to donate to those services in Leeds doing a tremendous job providing free food, shelter, advice and support. This will ensure that your money is reaching those people that really need your help.'

Superintendent Sam Millar, West Yorkshire Police added: 'Leeds City Council and key partners have commissioned a range of services to support the individuals in Leeds who feel the need to beg on the city's streets and our aim is to break the cycle of begging, with all the threats that poses, and help individuals make decisions to enhance their quality of life.'

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Leeds City Council takes tough action on persistent beggars

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Under the order, individuals served with the injunction will be unable to beg in any part of the city, including the train station area. A breach of the order will result in a fast-tracked hearing to the county court and sentences ranging from a fine to prison.

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Guardian article: PSPOs: the new control orders threatening our public spaces

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Guardian article: PSPOs: the new control orders threatening our public spaces

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The Impact of Enforcement on Street Users. Fitzpatrick and Johnsen 2007

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The Impact of Enforcement on Street Users. Fitzpatrick and Johnsen 2007

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Comparative report outlining different approaches taken by Local Authorities in England.

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Homelessness documentary: Where am I sleeping tonight. 

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Homelessness documentary: Where am I sleeping tonight. 

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At 16, Martin Read found himself living on the streets. Since then, he's spent time in prison and suffered from mental health issues. But he has picked himself up and is now a film director. This, his first film, is made in and around Bristol and tells the stories of the young people he meets who are not registered

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"You're looking especially lovely today, sweetheart," shouts James Corden's importunate costermonger from his market stall during The Lady in the Van. "Don't sweetheart me," snaps back Maggie Smith with the chilly eyed hauteur she has brought to a thousand scenes in Downton Abbey. "I'm dying - possibly."

It's part of Dame Maggie's genius that she can take a role in which she falls so low and yet play substantially the same character as when she was performing someone lah-di-dah. Indeed, one of the film's pleasures is to imagine it as tracking Downton's dowager countess fallen on hard times. One minute, you're Lady Violet in silks, yucking it up with Penelope Wilton and Hugh Bonneville over feudal healthcare provisions in 1920s Yorkshire. Next minute, you're living in a van in Alan Bennett 's north London front garden, wearing a lamentable mac, smelling of wee, with only your sub-Lady Bracknell put downs and self-pitying imperiousness to remind you of your former dignity.

In this unacceptably inverted new social order, it's Camden Town proles who get the best lines. "Chin up love - we've all got to go sometime," retorts Corden, pausing for a beat before adding maliciously: "Smells like you already have."

One thing that's significant about the new spate of films about homelessness and social exclusion is that they come at a moment when, thanks to several factors including George Osborne and the heartless functioning of late capitalism, any one of us could be on the fuzzy end of life's lollipop. One false move and any one of us could be dependent on Alan Bennett's largesse. In Paul Bettany's directorial debut Shelter, for instance, heroin-addicted Hannah (played by Bettany's wife, Jennifer Connelly) sets up to beg on a New York street, with a coffee cup for change and a worn cardboard sign that reads: "I used to be someone." At the outset of the new film Time Out of Mind, we see Richard Gere squatting in an apartment when the building manager played by Steve Buscemi tells him he can't stay there any more. Gere replies that he is waiting on "her" - meaning, we come to realise, his daughter, who threw him out, possibly because he has become an alcoholic and has mental health problems.

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Hannah, played by Jennifer Connolly, in Shelter. Photograph: Clay Enos/Arrow Films

Each film upsettingly dramatises the crossing of a thin line. Once, in The Simpsons, a drunk threw away a bottle only for it to be caught by a passing businessman. The latter chucked away his briefcase and lies in the gutter drinking from it. Each of us is that close to the abyss.

If they hand out goodie bags at screenings of Maggie Smith's latest film (and they really shouldn't), they should include badges that say: "Lady in the Van, c'est moi." Her fate speaks to our current austerity-generated terrors: when cinema deals with homelessness, it invites us to enter empathetically into the shoes of the other in their misfortune, but it annuls that invitation in one and the same gesture by making the other a projection of our fears.

Homelessness films are additionally topical because they invite us fortunate ones to ask how compassionate we would be confronted with those who have fallen on hard times, be they refugees or dotty ladies clinging deludedly to vestiges of self-importance ("Shut the door!" she shouts incontrovertibly after some nice locals present her with Christmas presents at her van. "I'm a busy woman."). In this respect, Bennett's real-life charitable gesture in allowing an unfortunate lady off-street-parking privileges in her camper van on his drive (which, given Camden council's residents parking charges, is probably worth several grand a year), makes us wonder what we would do in similar circumstances. One might suspect that the driveways of the streets near Bennett's home are so chock full with Range Rovers bankrolled from venal bankers' undeserved bonuses that they couldn't accommodate a picaresque mad bat in her stationary rust bucket.

That kind of person is evoked in the film by the eyes of the most heartless north London denizens whose swivel eyes, decoded, read: "That'll take a million plus off our resale values, damn your dogoodery Mr Bennett." If you live in Gloucester Avenue, NW1, and you're reading this, let me add the following: I don't mean to suggest you're a swivel-eyed monster. Why, you've probably got oodles of Syrian refugees sleeping in your 4x4 in the drive right now. Mind you, have you thought of how long they're going to stay? "She came for three weeks," says the film's tagline. "She stayed for 15 years." Are you ready to accommodate them until 2030? The problematic nature of the charitable gesture has long been a staple of cinema. In Jean Renoir's 1932 film Boudu Saved from Drowning, Michel Simon's eponymous tramp is saved from a plunge into the Seine by the bookseller Edouard Lestingois, who takes the bearded roughneck home. There, Boudu shows his gratitude by seducing the housemaid and Madame Lestingois. This, indeed, is where films about rescued unfortunates are most subversive: their protagonists are like grenades rolled into hidebound middle-class households, threatening to detonate all that they hold dear - money, sexual propriety, the ruthless hypocrisy masked as civilisation.

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Jean Renoir's 1932 film Boudu Saved From Drowning, a subversive film about a rescued unfortunate. Photograph: Moviestore/REX Shutterstock

What's more, such films dramatise the impossibility of gratuitous, no-strings-attached giving that so concerned philosophers such as Theodor Adorno (in Minima Moralia) and Jacques Derrida (in Given Time): both thinkers concluded that to give, to be charitable, can only reflect the giver's dreary tastes and impose unwonted obligations of gratitude on the recipient. That's to say, the gift giver, unless they are a saint, always wants something back. And so it is in cinema. How very dare Boudu put the moves on the staff of that nice Monsieur Lestingois! When is the Lady in the Van going to show proper appreciation to that kind Mr Bennett!

Strikingly, at the end of Boudu Saved from Drowning, our hero wins the lottery and so has riches enough to marry the seduced maid. But instead of joining the straight and narrow, during the wedding party he capsizes a rowing boat and floats off. He thereby returns, as my late Guardian colleague Richard Boston put it in his BFI book about the film, "to his old vagrancy, a free spirit once more."

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For Charlie Chaplin in The Tramp (1915), the open road is the path to freedom. Photograph: Everett/Rex

Does something similar happen at the end of Lady in the Van? I won't spoil the ending, but let me say this: it seems unlikely that the van is fit for the open road.The battery is probably flat, apart from anything else.What Boudu (and its Hollywood remake, Down and Out in Beverly Hills) tell us, then, is not that us fortunates risk falling into hell, but rather that we are there already, mired among possessions and responsibilities. Boudu's existential choice to float off is a rejection of the social and economic constraints that curtail the free spirit. It's a romantically picaresque theme that has repeatedly seduced French film-makers. For instance, in Agnes Varda's 1985 film Vagabond (released with the much more politically freighted French title - Sans Toit ni Loi, "Without Roof or Law"), Sandrine Bonnaire plays Mona, a former Parisian office worker who chooses to wander France's wine regions free from responsibility. In this she was following the philosophy of Charlie Chaplin: at the end of the 1915 film The Tramp, he duffs up some hobos who were molesting a farmer's daughter. The grateful farmer's daughter promptly falls for him and puts him to work as a farm hand. But he not only fails at that job but realises he has to biff off when her fiancé shows up. Chaplin thus resumes his old life, unencumbered by all life's usual entanglements. The open road for Chaplin, as later for Kerouac, is the path, not to oblivion, but to freedom.

Varda's film, though, turns any such eulogy to vagabondage on its head. The film begins with the discovery of Mona frozen to death in a ditch and how she got there is told in flashback.

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Got any change? Why cinema struggles with homelessness

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"You're looking especially lovely today, sweetheart," shouts James Corden's importunate costermonger from his market stall during The Lady in the Van. "Don't sweetheart me," snaps back Maggie Smith with the chilly eyed hauteur she has brought to a thousand scenes in Downton Abbey. "I'm dying - possibly."

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Interesting article focusing on Liverpool's homeless

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"London homeless removals stretching neighbouring towns"

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A legal battle is brewing between London boroughs and neighbouring towns over the rehousing of homeless people.

At least 20 London boroughs have moved families to places such as Luton, Basildon, Thurrock and Milton Keynes.

Luton housing chiefs say it is putting a huge additional strain on the town's resources.

But Waltham Forest Borough Council, which has placed 57 families in Luton, says budget cuts and an affordable housing shortage forces its hand.

Tom Shaw, Labour-run Luton Borough Council's housing portfolio holder, said the council had made a complaint to Waltham Forest about its placements in Luton.

"Look, we're not happy with this," he said. "That negotiation is going on at the moment at top director level and if that doesn't work we will contemplate legal action."

He said Luton has had to spend "thousands of pounds" on providing transport for the children of families arriving from the capital who then find the nearest school is already oversubscribed.

Who is going where?

London Borough

Families housed in Thurrock

Families housed in Basildon

Families housed in Luton

Families housed in Milton Keynes

Waltham Forest said the shortage of suitable accommodation and increasing numbers of people coming to them in crisis meant it had few options other than out of borough placements.

Its cabinet member for housing, Khevyn Limbajee, said: "Rocketing prices in the private rented sector, government cuts to benefit caps and other changes to welfare and a lack of housing availability has resulted in our residents being priced out of the market and the number of homeless households in our borough rising rapidly.

"The number of households in temporary accommodation currently stands at over 2,000.

"We spoke to Luton Borough Council ahead of families being offered temporary accommodation there and subsequently notified the council of each individual placement, once confirmed".

Luton already has more than 10,000 on its housing waiting list and has had to put more than a 100 families into bed and breakfast accommodation.

A significant number of homeless families from Waltham Forest have been housed in a refurbished former office block called Cardiff House, which is about to be sold to a hedge fund as an "income generating asset".

Among those living there is Nicola Chapman and her four children, who arrived in Luton in June.

She said: "I got evicted from my home in Leyton and the council decided it would be best for me to come here for some unknown reason.

"I'm not happy at the moment, it is giving me really bad anxiety. Also, I am having to take one of my children to school every morning and it is a 40 minute walk away.

"I have no friends or family around here. I hope I get moved very quickly. The flat is tiny, it is more like a studio flat. It is very distressing for all of us."

At Cardiff House, the BBC spoke to one nine year old boy and his parents. He is yet to be found a place at school.

"I really miss my friends. I used to be able to walk to school. They are saying the nearest one, if it can take me, is five miles away. Or I will have to go to school in London."

Meanwhile Thurrock Council has taken more homeless families than any other area outside London.

At least 266 families are currently in the area, up from just 29 three years ago.

London boroughs are buying properties locally or paying Thurrock landlords to house their residents as tenants.

John Kent, leader of the council, said: "There is nothing we can do about either of these. But the first has the effect of reducing the number of homes available for local people to buy or rent and the second forces the cost of all local private rents through the roof."

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A legal battle is brewing between London boroughs and neighbouring towns over the rehousing of homeless people. At least 20 London boroughs have moved families to places such as Luton, Basildon, Thurrock and Milton Keynes. Luton housing chiefs say it is putting a huge additional strain on the town's resources.

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This section gives headline figures on the operation of the homelessness provisions of the 1985 and 1996 Housing Acts. These are the most frequently used figures on homelessness, showing decisions made by local authorities on homelessness applications.

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Everyone deserves a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home. But every 13 minutes, another family in England becomes homeless. That's why, with your help, we campaign relentlessly to tackle the root causes of the housing crisis. Changes to the law can make a huge difference, and your voices are at the heart of that.

Together, we can end homelessness for good.

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Everyone deserves a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home. But every 13 minutes, another family in England becomes homeless. That's why, with your help, we campaign relentlessly to tackle the root causes of the housing crisis. Changes to the law can make a huge difference, and your voices are at the heart of that.