Homelessness is a lifestyle choice according to Suella!

The link shows how few homeless people needed help in Finland compared to the number in the UK. OK, the population of Finland is much smaller. The Finnish model would be hugely expensive here. It would require a considerable increase in taxes imho.

Most of the Torys forget that when we had Covid not that long ago every borough vowed to take in every homeless person in their area and get them off the streets to safety. Many of the homeless in my area were put in hostels and B@Bs and also provided with meals and addicts plus alcoholics were taken in. Apart from about 3 hardened street people who wanted to be on the streets the others went in somewhere. Then came the big government promise all the homeless would ne housed temporarily until a permanent property came up all very good and everyone happy. What ended up happening once people could safely be outside again they were all given several days to vacate where they were staying and kicked back out to the same lifestyle. Shame on the government letting them all down and now look at Suella she wants to even take their tents off them at the time of year when at least they could have some shelter and could try and survive with a tent and sleeping bag some people do not have an ounce of compassion.

My nephew has been on the streets for years. He has drug induced psychosis. My sister, a senior social worker pulled every string she could to help, and he got it, often.
I was about to give him his last chance ( work) when he f+&£#d up spectacularly the eve before my daughter’s wedding.
As some of you know, there are some who just can’t be helped.

This is true Meryl but some don’t want to accept it, just as they don’t want to accept that some would rather live on the streets.

Sorry to hear your story MerylStreep I totally understand 💐

Rory Stewart was supporting the Canadian way of dealing with the homeless on the street.

They give each person about £4500 and apparently it has been spectacularly successful.

MerylStreep

My nephew has been on the streets for years. He has drug induced psychosis. My sister, a senior social worker pulled every string she could to help, and he got it, often.
I was about to give him his last chance ( work) when he f+&£#d up spectacularly the eve before my daughter’s wedding.
As some of you know, there are some who just can’t be helped.

It's so sad isn't it? It worries me though that your sister had to pull every string she could to get him help. I think there's a very judgemental approach to people with mental health difficulties, especially if they are drug or alcohol related. We still treat people with diseases caused by smoking or being overweight but somehow see drug and alcohol related illnesses in a different way as if, because they might be seen as being a result of "bad behaviour", the ill person is less deserving of our help. A person in my extended family was very ill for a very long time, they also had lots of support, many hospital admissions because they were close to death because of over doses of one kind or another and so many false starts which led to disappointment. I spoke to this person today and ATM all is stable, about as good as it could be but no one holds their breath as it's always so fragile! Don't give up on your nephew, he still might find a way through his problems. I feel for your sister, the constant worry about her son must be terrible.

Whitewavemark2

Rory Stewart was supporting the Canadian way of dealing with the homeless on the street.

They give each person about £4500 and apparently it has been spectacularly successful.

Depends why you are on the street, £4,500 would keep an addict high (alcohol or drugs) for a while…

Germanshepherdsmum

This is true Meryl but some don’t want to accept it, just as they don’t want to accept that some would rather live on the streets.

No, I'm quite willing to accept that; people have chosen to live rough for many decades.

But I'm not willing to accept that 220,000 have made it a lifestyle choice since the tories came to power.

Nor am I happy about racist crap stuff about them being 'foreigners'.

GrannyGravy13

Whitewavemark2

Rory Stewart was supporting the Canadian way of dealing with the homeless on the street.

They give each person about £4500 and apparently it has been spectacularly successful.

Depends why you are on the street, £4,500 would keep an addict high (alcohol or drugs) for a while…

It was found that not so many as you might think did that. Most got themselves into accommodation, and then went on to get employment and a stable existence. If the evidence proves as Stewart described I see no earthly reason why it couldn’t be tried in the U.K. it would save an enormous amount.

Addicts cannot get themselves sorted whilst living on the streets, it's just too difficult but giving someone a stable place to stay can make a huge difference. I'm sure most of us understand this but homeless people are just like you and me, they aren't a different species of human.

If the Home Secretary really wanted a solution to the problem she would be promoting the need for housing/shelters for addicts but she isn't. It's not just "foreigners" sleeping in tents, prisoners discharged with nowhere to go are issued with a tent. Leave the old folk to die with COVID, paint over murals for children, take tents away from the homeless - Tories eh? Don't you just love them ? And still people will vote for them because they will keep taxes low, look after the economy and police our streets - oh! Wait a moment, they can't do any of those thing either.

30 years ago when I was living in Cornwall we had two homeless men who used to come into our cafe. We were one of the few places that would take them in because, if no one had rounded them up and got them showered and into clean clothes recently, they really did smell. They both had mental problems and were adamant that they were happy on the streets and didn't want helping. But that was two men. Even then there were many others desperate for food and shelter.

I'm surprised that more people haven't picked up on her casual racism. Foreigners who choose tents as a lifestyle? It sounds as if she's talking about brown people who come from lands so primitive that they don't know what houses are. Nobody would choose a lifestyle that includes living on the streets in a tent in an English winter. I wonder what temperature Suella's central heating is running at.

Your post Deedaa made me wonder whether it is because Suella Braverman is herself a brown person that she thinks she has a licence to be far more racist than any white person would ever dare to br.

Deedaa SB is preparing us for the asylum seekers who will be turned out of hotels and end up living on the street because there is nowhere else for them to go. She's vile and unfit for public office.

foxie48

Deedaa SB is preparing us for the asylum seekers who will be turned out of hotels and end up living on the street because there is nowhere else for them to go. She's vile and unfit for public office.

A local lad who’s just been granted settled status is looking for somewhere to rent a room. He has to leave his accommodation immediately but only has £450 a month to pay for a room. He’s from Afghanistan so, imo we are responsible for him. TRIP’s also touches on the fact that Braverman gets away with racist comments because people think that someone can’t be racist towards people of their own colour. They also comment on what an enigma she is: a Buddhist ex Erasmus student who has, in the past, worked with Cherie Blair and is very pleasant to those who work with her.

Lifestyle Choice is a controversial phrase in this context because we project on to others the lifestyle choices we make for ourselves and imagine it’s what everyone would want. Maslows ‘hierarchy of needs comes to mind.’ But if your a drug addict and all you can think about is injecting your next shot of heroin in your veins then living on the street and having immediate access to your drug, which has become necessary for your survival, becomes the best option the best choice. Men and women boys and girls selling their body for their fix this becomes their best option.
The plasticity of our brains means our neuro pathways very quickly alter, and the addiction takes precedence over every other need. Of course absolutely the addicts need to be supported with compassion, how that is best practiced is what’s in question, and the tents in my mind are only giving more licence for abuse and exploitation to take place. Until an addict wants to stop using we are powerless to stop them. This is highlighted by the many famous people, who have all the financial and emotional support but are still unable to get clean and stay clean and often die as a result of their addictions

I was with you Stormystar until you got to the bit about the tents.

Prove to us that all the homeless living in tents are drug addicts.

Because, at the moment this assumption that tent = drug addicted occupant seems to me to be entirely distorting the issue.

MayBee70
We've treated the Afghan refugees dreadfully, at times I feel ashamed to be British we seem to have lost our ability to think creatively and show empathy. SB is using her position to appeal to the far right of the Conservatives once Sunak is gone. TRIP is always worth listening to.
Stormystar
Homeless people are not all drug addicts and not all drug addicts live on the streets. Having nowhere to live is a much more complex picture than that but helping any addict to get better is easier if they are not living on the streets.

Mortgage interest is deductible to me at my marginal tax rate. In addition to the claim that it is impossible to tell what is going on inside and whether the tenant requires medical assistance, there are some locations where a tent would be downright harmful.
twitter.com/emily4MK/status/1721149388582531093/
snake-io.io

Oldbat1

Thatcher selling council houses has a lot to answer for.

There’s another policy that affected council housing and that is the requirement to house the unemployed and otherwise homeless. . At one time council houses were for low paid workers and people stayed there for many years creating a community. That changed before right to buy was brought in. I agree it turned out to be a bad policy but as is often the case it started off as a good idea. Those who had lived in a house for many years would be able to buy it and stay there for the rest of their lives. Trouble was the discounts were so big and the eligibility criterion so generous that people bought their houses to make money and move somewhere else. Maybe this should have been foreseen but I can see why it wasn’t.

Given people tents is not the answer to what is a very complex question.

Giving

For some reason all those tents dumped after pop festivals over there keeps flashing up in my mind. Never seen or heard of this before- what happens to them, do they just get chucked away? Maybe they could be put to good use.

google is good at answering questions, nanna8.

duckduckgo.com/?q=tents+left+at+festivals&t=ipad&ia=web