Homelessness is a lifestyle choice according to Suella!

It’s been a real problem for many years but is a growing one which I hope a future government will develop strategies for.
So many reasons that people become homeless, not all drug related tho there are a lot.
Can you imagine being a teenager and having no home to go to? What does it say about our society?
I don’t like the streets of tents either but warmer for them than
Any alternative.
It’s true that some will always turn down help but many would love a small place to call their own.
There but for the grace of God as the saying goes.

Yes, there but for the grace of God. Most of the homeless beggars in our town have obvious drug problems. It’s not difficult to imagine what came first - homelessness or addiction. How do people get through our cold wet winters without something to ease the pain. I donate to local charities that help our homeless but confess I gave £5 to a desperate looking young man recently. I don’t know how he spent it and that didn’t matter at that point.

There is a lot of political point scoring on this thread. In my area of London there was a group with posters stationed outside the Royal Free, near banks and outside supermarkets. It took me some time to find out that all their handwritten posters were the same and one local journalist found out they were organised and arrived by van every morning and departed late afternoon. Having read all your posts the truth lies in the middle.If the council letss flats to,drug addicts and other mentally challenged tenants, it very soon descends into misery for other tenants because they scream and shout, pee in the common parts and become a general nuisance. I guess none of you live in tower blocks or large Council extates. Now Ms Braverman says some tent dwellers choose to live informally and that is the case in London.

I do feel sympathy for the homeless and we can all help at Christmas. Crisis at Christmas does an amazing job so I give them money to give 2 people a great Christmas. I also supprt the Salvation Army to do the same. So all of you who are appalled with this situation please put your money where your mouth is. Help the homeless with practical support

I was helping a young couple trying to get social housing a couple of years ago and we were told they were not priority. I asked who was priority and was told it was homeless people and people fleeing domestic violence.

A very nice lady in the next village was thrilled to get a brand new flat in a small block of just 4. Unfortunately the other 3 were given to people with alcohol and/or drug problems and mental health issues who had been homeless.

She is very sympathetic to people with problems but she said it is very difficult when they knock on her door asking to borrow money, milk, tea etc at all times of day and night. One of them smokes weed in the entrance hall which stinks the place out and another has the police and paramedics out multiple times every week.

I also recall that back in the late 90s Tony Blair’s govt told Councils to house large numbers of Polish people who emigrated to UK. Most were great people but I had one case where the tenant returned to Poland and the neighbours alerted me that she had left the flat. We assumed she had decided to go home so I proceeded to do all the tests we had to do before letting. During that time I received a call from Heathrow telling me the tenant had said she had a flat in Camden and knew the address so they alerted me. So although she had abandoned the flat we had to let her return. Then we had larger numbers of Polish people in the same block all signed up and on benefits. I felt there was something not quite right and tenants were phoning me insisting that they did not stay long and another new family arrived. I was investigating and I had a call from local police telling me to back off. It turned out that a very clever criminal was bringing groups of people into London, getting them flats and receiving benefits and then they would depart and another lot would come. He was making lots of money and bribing people to come for a short time and he would collect their benefits. So he was brought to court and sent to prison. People who work in housing and social services know these crimes are common. Sub letting and selling keys are common crimes. Hunting down illegal occupants is a very time consuming business. Add that to no council housing being built and no wonder there are homeless people and they are often that they do not want to pay rent even if on full benefits they only paid water rates of about £3 a week! So both Labour and Tory Councils face these problems. There is a camaraderie on the streets and no irate tenants to deal with. Hostels can be very nasty places and are not popular.

Oldbat1

Thatcher selling council houses has a lot to answer for.

So did Bliar with "all are welcome!"

Selling off the council homes was a mistake, yes, because they didn't build any more to replace them. Now, they are called social housing. In my town there are so many developments going up, yet the homes being built by me (we think they have blocked the drains as I have ducks swimming where sheep should be grazing) new homes are being advertised for £440,000. Another development has new homes at £340,000 for the same size but it's more built up. On that development they offered several homes to locals at a reduced price to "help them get on the ladder", BUT who decides which locals get this discount? Locals who have lived here for a few years or lots of years?

It doesn't matter which way you look at it, social housing on a big estate is always a bit snobbish as those with the big houses are aware that those with the smaller compact houses only got theirs due to "help". There are lots of current "council" houses still available in town and have been in the same family for years, they stay there as it's their home.

Council garages were sold off about 5 years ago, knocked down and rebuilt as social housing, 1&2 bedroom little bungalows FOR LOCALS we were told. Going by accents, not local to Shropshire! Fancy cars too!

My nieces grandmother still lives in her 3 bed council house, at 84, she's tried to get a smaller home, she was offered a 1 bed ground floor flat in the same village before Covid, she accepted, Covid hit, it was withdrawn. She applied for a new build old folk bungalow on a new development, was turned down due to being alone, apparently she only needs 1 bedroom, these bungalows are 2 bedrooms! Her house has 3 and being social, is up-to-date with all regs including a new air source heat pump that is costing her a fortune to run, (family have looked to see what she is doing wrong, nothing, it just costs too much for her pension!)

I like the Home Secretary, she says what she thinks and what a lot of us actually think! I'm afraid I'm old school, peoplechoose to drink, choose to take drugs. I'm not saying people choose to be homeless, but she did say that they are people mainly from abroad and to be honest WHY should we put up with it? A lot of people come to this country to have a western life yet CHOOSE to live by their own rules etc and if anything is said, we are classed as racist or non friendly, non welcoming etc! I would NOT go to another country and disrespect that countries rules or customs yet it's ok for them to come and do that here??

If you don’t have a fixed address you won’t be given a job how can you afford these days to get started without income. I’m sure nobody wants to live on the streets , what a heartless woman she is born with a silver spoon in her mouth no doubt like the rest of the tories. They have never had to struggle, speaking from experience has once was a single parent and didn’t get handouts

The timing of this is relevant. It's just been announced that asylum seekers are to be evicted from hotels. Probably because now that they have been reclassified as illegal migrants they cannot be funded via the overseas aid budget! They will become reliant on local authorities who have neither the money or the housing to provide them with somewhere to live. So we may start to see them living on the streets. There is always more to these announcements than you might think! Horrible woman!

Yes. If some of the asylum seekers refuse to go on the barge, into converted army bases or where else the govt chooses to house them and end up living on the streets, they are making a life style choice.

Vintagewhine

The timing of this is relevant. It's just been announced that asylum seekers are to be evicted from hotels. Probably because now that they have been reclassified as illegal migrants they cannot be funded via the overseas aid budget! They will become reliant on local authorities who have neither the money or the housing to provide them with somewhere to live. So we may start to see them living on the streets. There is always more to these announcements than you might think! Horrible woman!

If we hadn’t taken these people in we wouldn’t be in this mess now!

why dont you take him in

We need a massive social housing (Council house) building programme funded from taxation. The Tories keep talking up 'affordable homes' but they are well out of reach of the average private sector renter or the homeless: it's just a Tory ploy to avoid building social housing. Braverman's attack on tent dwellers is an utter disgrace for which she should be sacked.

Affordable homes can be for rent as well as for sale Grantanow. It’s the former which are required. How much extra tax are you happy to pay?

There are also shared ownership schemes. One of my nieces has one and it’s lovely and cheaper and bigger and easier to heat than her private rented one.

Notable that Braverman and her so called policy announcements were missing from the King’s speech.

The King’s speech doesn’t drill down to policy details.

Germanshepherdsmum

The King’s speech doesn’t drill down to policy details.

It does though.
inews.co.uk/news/politics/kings-speech-how-likely-law-2737348

I listened to it. It’s simply broad details of the proposed legislation.

Germanshepherdsmum

I listened to it. It’s simply broad details of the proposed legislation.

I did too, and it was the policies they plan to implement. Maybe Suella was bigging up her ideas which aren’t actual policies which will be implemented although she referred to them as such.

You wouldn’t get detail such as ‘my government is going to stop tents being handed out to homeless people’ would you? That’s what I mean.

It has definitely been dropped.

But some of the so called crackdown on the worst crimes is being brought in. E.g. whole life sentences. Whilst I am broadly in agreement, I am puzzled how this is going to be achieved. The prisons are in the worst state that they have ever been in in modern times - so where is the room, staff etc?

If someone gets a whole life tariff instead of a minimum of 30 years, the need for extra space or staff to deal with that person as a result of the increased length of the sentence will not be felt for 30 years. Doubtless until such time as more prisons are built we will see fewer people convicted of lesser crimes receiving an immediate custodial sentence.

Germanshepherdsmum

You wouldn’t get detail such as ‘my government is going to stop tents being handed out to homeless people’ would you? That’s what I mean.

Well, she was said to be proposing new laws which covered the tents issue, to be included in the Kings Speech, which weren’t there.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67321319
I haven’t seen anything specific as Whitewavemark2 has to say it’s been dropped, but I think her conclusion is correct.

We shall have to await the new draft legislation that the tents could be snuck into. It might not actually mention tents at all but still cover her proposals.

There was a You Gov poll on the Homeless issue and it came out massively against describing it as a lifestyle or removing tents. Well over 80% of respondents which is unusually high. Perhaps the govt got the message.