Jail the homeless

Disturbing tidings from Manchester.

The city council are seeking to create a city-wide injunction that means it will be illegal to sleep rough within the city limits. This could result in homeless people being sent to jail for effectively being homeless.

Little bit of local context; much of what outsiders would call Manchester isn’t really Manchester. Old Trafford sits in the city of Salford, for example. I reckon there’s a good chance that Manchester’s council is simply looking to move its homeless problem to the other side of the ship canal, but even so, we’re at the point where we could be jailing people for poverty.

This has also been mooted for Oxford and here in my town. It’s quite comforting that there’s a huge wave of opposition to this in what is a Tory middle class area.

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Of course, the depressing thing is that government policy elsewhere is driving homelessness. Getting evicted from private landlord accommodation is now the number one cause of homelessness, which has been in part driven by arbitrary caps on benefit payments, and an onus on making sure that it is the landlord’s price, not the tenant’s security, that is prioritised.

Set this against a letting market in whichbenefit claimants are made to look like interminable sources of trouble, and we’re getting on for something approaching a perfect storm.

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Won’t some fancy getting nicked so that they get a room for the night?

Jail them? Nah just shoot the feckless feckers, problem sorted.

I just don’t understand why they just don’t all go buy houses.

This seems to be aimed at a particular protest group rather than homeless people on the streets generally. However, the real storm will kick off when, as expected, housing benefit is severely cut back so that rents are unaffordable. Already the city council has a problem with rising numbers of people/families depending on emergency housing, at a time of staggering cuts in council funding.

In a year’s time, with the welfare cuts digging in, expect it to be far, far worse. That’s when city injunctions to stop homeless people camping out may cause real conflict.

It also needs to be seen in context. This Guardian article from the weekend is rather good in showing how, at a local level, wealth of is being redistributed to the rich and away from tradtional social housing dwellers, who are being forced out to god knows where.

Brighton not being very right on.

UNDERCOVER police are being sent out to catch homeless people begging with more than one arrested every week.

Rough sleepers are being criminalised by Sussex Police operations to arrest and prosecute those living on the streets and desperate for small change.

The tactics have come under fire by critics who have questioned the “pointless system” that costs the taxpayer thousands of pounds and sees beggars fined hundreds of pounds only to have to go back on the streets.

In a recent case magistrates questioned the public interest in taking to court a rough sleeper who asked for ten pence in the street.

He is just one of more than 16 defendants called before Brighton Magistrates’ Court in the past two months. A total of 62 were arrested last year.

Its awful, the whole system is overburdened, higher taxes are needed.

Could possibly be construed that by placing a roof over the heads of homeless people, they are better off…

I can’t speak for other areas, but I know that in Southampton for example there are enough beds for everyone who wants one. Sleeping rough still occurs though because in order to have one of these beds you have to adhere to a no drink and drugs policy. In that case people are choosing to sleep rough (whether put of a conscious choice or because they are wrapped in addiction) so they can continue to abuse drink and drugs. I’m not sure if this is the case here but it could be.

I’d like to see the evidence showing we treat prisoners better than pensioners - that smacks of a Daily Mail Social Media special.

But on a more serious note, I believe It’s an offence to swear in Salford Quays.

You can do whatever the fuck you like around it, but the posh bit is being patrolled to keep the riff-raff out.

Which as an idea is right up there with fining beggars.

What a caring society we have created.

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This has happened in a city in Canada

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A load of shite in practice, then. How many homeless people do you reckon spend all their time pondering their circumstances in the throes of sobriety?

How many people with homes, for that matter?

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I know of an alcoholic who in this perpetual cycle of hostel and then out on the street as he can’t stay sober, his addiction is so strong, there is nothing we can do nor the state, everybody has tried but this will be a lost cause, not him but his fight. Just have to wait for the inevtiable which I am sure will sadly come, he is a great guy who had it all, lost someone drank and this spiralled into a mental illness/addiction cycle.

There but for the grace of God.

I don’t often venture into town, but i had to go in first thing last Saturday morning and I was saddended to see the sheer numbers of homeless people who’d obviously spent the night sleeping in the shop doorways. There have always been some, but it seems to me that the numbers have increased quite substantially over the last few years. As we have ridden out the recession from 2008, the only assumption I can make is that this has been caused by Government policy. I must confess to having been a bit sceptical about the effects of austerity, but there is no doubting the caustic effect the hacking of the social budget has had.

On the issue of drink and drug addiction, it seems perverse that those in need of help most are the ones worst hit. How bloody Dickensian must we be to say that in order for this supposedly civilised society to provide the basic needs for people who need it most, they must conform to a physical state decreed to be “acceptable”.

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