Living independently is hard, especially if you live alone.
Budgeting, paying the rent or filling in benefit claim forms is difficult for some people to manage, especially those who have been brought up in care, as they have not picked up these skills from living in a family home.
Ex service people who have had their accommodation and meals provided for them, have to start again from scratch, and find it difficult.
Even deciding what and when to eat, how to shop etc. can be too much for some people to manage on their own.
As we have seen, some people find it less stressful and less lonely to revert to living on the streets.
This doesn't help the towns and cities that they live in or migrate to, so somehow we have to help to get them off the streets.
Just providing a room or a flat and leaving them to get on with life does not always work.
I don't have the answers but below is a quote from Manchester City Councils website, showing one thing that they are trying out, and it sounds like a good idea.
"The proposed new centre will be for single men and women over 18 and couples without children who have low to medium support needs. This means we'll help people get back to living a place of their own and get into work, training, or education.
We’ll help with things like mediation, debt or health problems and training. We’ll get other organisations to come to the centre and provide activities like gardening, arts or cooking.
We’ll provide hot meals, but there will also be kitchens for people to cook their own food.
All the people who live there will have a licence agreement – like a tenancy agreement – setting out the rules for living at the centre.
We will allow well behaved dogs, but only under guidance from The Dogs Trust.
People will only stay at the centre if our homelessness team refer them. The staff at the centre will also give everyone an assessment, so only we only house appropriate people.
People with high needs like drug or alcohol problems will not be housed at the Longford Centre. We’ll offer them different accommodation that is better suited to them. If someone develops problems later we’ll get support for them and move them to accommodation with the help they need.
Generally people will stay for up to eight weeks, but we decide on a case by case basis. For instance if someone has nowhere to go or are waiting for a new tenancy to start we’ll let them stay longer."
Sounds positive to me.
Deciding who is deserving and who is not, who are the saints and who are the sinners, does not solve the problem for the homeless or the traders and residents.