Homelessness is a lifestyle choice according to Suella!

Thank you CvD66 for your informative post. (I did click on the link actually) What was done in MK is essentially what the charity Crisis do at Christmas - take people off the streets, provide a warm place to stay, suitable meals and company of volunteers, then follow up with professionals to give the help needed to stay off the streets. Many are helped each year.

Before Covid I volunteered with the Salvation army giving out clothing to the homeless. (An yes we gave out tents and bedding when we could.) After the pandemic, although their soup kitchen resumed, the clothing distribution didn't initially and meanwhile I had started volunteering elsewhere - the local foodbank. I also volunteered with the local Night Shelter for the homeless which operated for the coldest 3 months of the year. The homeless regulars were picked up by minibus in the town and bussed to a local venue, mostly churches, for the night where they slept in sleeping bags with airbeds, were given a homecooked meal (sometimes cooked by me) then were provided with breakfast before being returned to the town centre in the minibus in the morning. Volunteers were available to give advice or just provide friendly company and a game of dominoes.

On Saturday nights a podiatrist was one of the volunteers and she would work on the feet of our clients who needed it. (She was lovely. She once gave me treatment at the end of the session when there was still time, though she only managed to deal with one foot as time ran out!)

Some of the regulars were helped out of homelessness into accommodation and helped with getting furniture etc when accommodation was found. Again my volunteering with them ended due to Covid and I'm not sure what the charity is currently doing as winter approaches again. While volunteering with them I twice did a sponsored rough sleep to raise funds. The second time it was bitterly cold and after that I realised I was getting a bit old to do it again. I was pleased to see our local Labour MP at the second rough sleep! Respect!

This thread has made me aware that I probably should be finding out what the needs are as I could spare some time again in the winter months. I originally felt challenged to get involved after my DD helped with a soup kitchen in Birmingham and raised money and items such as towels and toiletries for a charity providing facilities for the homeless to have showers. I'd just been reading about a homeless boy in a book the year 7s were studying in English in the class I worked with and various things came together to prompt my involvement.

The people I met in these volunteering roles were homeless for all sort of reasons. Of course not all were helped as their lifestyle choices made helping them challenging, but those who wanted to be helped often were successfully helped off the streets. Feeling very challenged again today. It can be too easy to simply send a donation to Crisis and feel like I've done my bit but it's not enough!

silvercollie

Well I happen to think that certain of the homeless, for a multitude of reasons, choose to be so.
Have you read her entire comment on this subject?

I have read this, [posted by GrannyGravy13

I have read more than just the headline , what she implied was that we shouldn’t allow tent cities to pop up in and around our major cities. This is not an unreasonable want in the 21st Century.

To which I responded that taking away the tents would merely result in cardboard cities in their place.

I haven't actually seen exactly what Braverman said. Did she have any proposasl for ending homelessness?

Lovetopaint037

Oldbat1

Thatcher selling council houses has a lot to answer for.

This. It gained her votes and saved Councils paying upkeep at the same time gaining them money. A short term solution
as the promised rebuilding didn’t take place.

This has been pointed out already on this thread, and on many similar threads over the years.

THE COUNCILS WEREN'T ALLOWED TO SPEND THE MONEY, FROM COUNCIL HOUSE SALES AT KNOCKDOWN PRICES, ON BUILDING NEW COUNCIL HOUSES.

THERE WAS NO PROMISE OF REBUILDING.

Thatcher's whole ideology was based on reducing state spending; which includes money spent on local services.

undines

We all know there are some people who choose to be tramps. My grandma used to give them soup in the '40s and '50s
They are VERY few and far between. And there are no doubt foreigners/refugees out there too. But we all know that there are far, far more homeless now, and it seems pretty clear why. Surely we all know also that the entitled a******es in this government do not give a s***. It's offensive to use the words Braverman used, to all those who are homeless and in heartbreaking, health-threatening, bleak circumstances. How dare anyone even focus on the tents - find the answer to the PROBLEM

As James O’Brien pointed out, Braverman’s solution to the problem is to stop giving homeless people tents.

Hymnbook

The problem we have here in Nottingham is that the council demolish existing buildings and build new or convert others into accommodation for students!!!! What about the homeless? The residents of our city? Don't they count? Obviously not. Even an empty Argos store is currently being converted for students.

Is that actually being done by the council? I think not. They may have granted planning permission but it will be private developers, or the university, paying for and doing the work.

We all know there are some people who choose to be tramps. My grandma used to give them soup in the '40s and '50s
They are VERY few and far between. And there are no doubt foreigners/refugees out there too. But we all know that there are far, far more homeless now, and it seems pretty clear why. Surely we all know also that the entitled a******es in this government do not give a s***. It's offensive to use the words Braverman used, to all those who are homeless and in heartbreaking, health-threatening, bleak circumstances. How dare anyone even focus on the tents - find the answer to the PROBLEM

Primrose53

JennyCee

How many of these people are illegal immigrants or are they still relishing our British hospitality in clean sheets, central heating, constant hot water and how many meals?
If we weren’t taking superb care of these people we may have been to help these homeless people you’re speaking about.

That is true. We are paying out millions every single day for these people staying in hotels and will be doing so for ever unless something is done.

I have nothing against helping people but we must help our own first.

And how, exactly is this government ‘helping our own’? I seem to recall that, during the pandemic’ they were going to stop people sleeping rough. What came if that? Another one of Johnson’s unfulfilled promises.

susz

Love her or hate her at least she has the courage to tell the truth. Living on the streets is a lifestyle choice for some - not all. There is help out there for those who want to be helped and turn their lives around but many I am afraid do not want to. There have always been rough sleepers for as long as I can remember, living in the country we often encountered 'tramps' who most certainly didn't want four walls!

That’s very true. A few years ago an elderly lady turned up in our village with an old pram containing all her worldly belongings. She was dressed in layers of clothes and hanging off her pram were carrier bags of more stuff, a kettle, shoes, saucepan etc. she was quite well spoken and polite.

She hung around for a few days and I gave her some warm hats and gloves and other people gave her food and warm clothing. Someone got in touch with the local council and they came out but she said she was fine as she was and went on her way.

The problem we have here in Nottingham is that the council demolish existing buildings and build new or convert others into accommodation for students!!!! What about the homeless? The residents of our city? Don't they count? Obviously not. Even an empty Argos store is currently being converted for students.

JennyCee

How many of these people are illegal immigrants or are they still relishing our British hospitality in clean sheets, central heating, constant hot water and how many meals?
If we weren’t taking superb care of these people we may have been to help these homeless people you’re speaking about.

That is true. We are paying out millions every single day for these people staying in hotels and will be doing so for ever unless something is done.

I have nothing against helping people but we must help our own first.

Love her or hate her at least she has the courage to tell the truth. Living on the streets is a lifestyle choice for some - not all. There is help out there for those who want to be helped and turn their lives around but many I am afraid do not want to. There have always been rough sleepers for as long as I can remember, living in the country we often encountered 'tramps' who most certainly didn't want four walls!

Oh Cold that is a terrible story. My experience volunteering at a foodbank in Kent is that the majority of our homeless clients are local people with a variety of needs, including mental health issues, relationship breakdowns and addiction.

How many of these people are illegal immigrants or are they still relishing our British hospitality in clean sheets, central heating, constant hot water and how many meals?
If we weren’t taking superb care of these people we may have been to help these homeless people you’re speaking about.

Have we asked those who allegedly choose to live on the streets why the do so? What are the reasons? Have they rejected
rejected help? This "life style choice" sounds suspicious.

silvercollie and GSM

I think that I am not the only one to respond to you - "yes we have" and "no we haven't"

Oldbat1

Thatcher selling council houses has a lot to answer for.

This. It gained her votes and saved Councils paying upkeep at the same time gaining them money. A short term solution
as the promised rebuilding didn’t take place.

silvercollie

Well I happen to think that certain of the homeless, for a multitude of reasons, choose to be so.
Have you read her entire comment on this subject?

This is what she does to get the ultimate amount of publicity for herself. Throws in something that she knows will be a talking point. And, as I’ve already pointed out has put it into people’s minds that it isn’t the governments fault that there are more homeless people than ever (nothing to do with starving social care of funding) and she’s combined it with the fact that it’s foreigners that are part of the problem. Baroness Warsey is appalled by her. The only reason she still has her job is that Sunak needed her support to become PM so he owes her one ( just remind me how many times she’s previously been sacked: is it twice?). Even if something isn’t true you only have to sow the seed in peoples minds and it never goes away, the prime example is Keir Starmer and Jimmy Saville. Which was used in parliament by Johnson, something that disgusted even his own party ( or, at least, the remaining decent Tory MP’s). I suggest that everyone who does think it’s a lifestyle choice gets themselves a cardboard box and a sleeping bag and sleeps on the streets for a few nights.

She ain’t nothing new. Suella Doberman is just the 2023 version of Edwina Curry, whowas always passing uninformed, prejudicial comments about things of which she knew nowt.

I have loathed Curry(the woman and not the cuisine) ever since as health minister she voiced in a national newspaper that the parents of a little girl were to blame after she died in the dentists chair under gas anaesthetic. Vile person.👹

Precisely what I have said - but people take away from her comments what they want to.

Well I happen to think that certain of the homeless, for a multitude of reasons, choose to be so.
Have you read her entire comment on this subject?

Suella Braverman is disgusting. She has no compassion whatsoever and denigrates complex health and social problems to a stereotypes and soundbites to boost her profile.

This issue is close to home for me because my brother died on the streets as homeless under a previous Conservative government because of a Mental health crisis that remained untreated (despite over a year waiting for help). My brother was 44 when he died and all the things that would dispel Suella's nasty soundbites - privately educated, a taxation accountant, with strong family support ... but who suffered a MH crisis and whose life fell apart.

He died in the middle of Mayfair on a park bench. Sadly killed by some well meaning person who gave the homeless man a bottle of expensive whiskey - a corporate gift - inadvertently causing his death from acute alcohol poisoning.

These days he would have been classed as vulnerable. He was almost certainly autistic (but high functioning autism was not recognised in those days), had severe ADHD - plus the mh crisis and no care because of cutbacks ...

The biggest irony is that he was a lifelong Tory, a party member ....

So is being a racist bitch with not a hint of compassion or understanding for other humans in that case Which is the choice Suella made

I am deeply ashamed to say that this horrible woman represents my constituency and I would do ANYTHING to he represented by almost anyone else but alas the local conservative association, almost all older than me, chose her over Flick Drummond in the recent boundary change new candidate update. Short of something illegal how does one get rid of a dreadful
MP in a place where a donkey in a blue rosette would have a huge majority ?

Well I know this much: until Margaret Thatcher there were no homeless people on the streets of the city where I live.

There were a handful at most of “old style tramps/vagrants/ gentlemen of the road. There might have been one woman.

They were well known “characters”.
They did not beg.

The very notion of rough sleeping was something confined to London, and only heard of in songs such as *Streets Of London.
So summat went wrong 😼

Nannan2

What the GOVT should have done is ringfence the money made from sale of social housing and built more