Street Sleepers

Its easier for people to think that they're better than the people on the streets, and not the same as them but for a few twists of fate.

James Bowen, writer of the Bob the Cat books, is open about his own experiences of addiction and homelessness. Reading that, it's easy to see how someone can take a few steps along the wrong path then find there is very little chance to go another way.

I've heard it said that everyone one of us is only ever a few steps away from the street. As other posters have said it only takes a few twists of fate.

Like many people I am desperately sad about the plight of the homeless but I tell my self I do what I can in my own small way. But do I really do all I can? The harsh reality is no I don't. I am moved to tears by what I see and read of the plight of others. As a result I usually reach for my credit card to make a one off crisis payment, give a pound or two to those on the street and set up another small direct debit to help a charity. This helps me feel a little better but in all honesty I don't really miss these small payments. My husband and I are not financially well off by any stretch of the imagination but as mentioned by others, we have riches in abundance compared to the homeless. I got into a conversation in town one evening with a young man begging. I asked what had led to his homelessness. His story was one of family break up, remarriage and a fall out with his mothers new partner. He had lost his home and family and also had to leave his college course as he moved from sofa to sofa. Eventually, the sofas ran out. It was a very sad story but not an unusual one. I gave him a few encouraging words and a few pounds and went home. I told my husband about the young man and said I felt terrible about not offering him shelter for the night in our garage. My husband looked shocked and asked why would we offer him a bed in the garage when we had 3 spare bedrooms. He was right. I have often thought about this and wonder what happened to him. I am embarrassed to say that when I look at how I really help others I am found wanting. The bigger picture scares me.

The really frightening thing about all this is that as a society we seem to care less and less about those who need support. Many local councils are considering FINING the homeless £100 for sleeping on the streets - as if they choose to do so and could afford to pay the fine! Fortunately a local campaign prevented my council doing this when it was put forward last year. But just the suggestion of it is totally immoral.
My daughter works for the CAB and tells me that we have about 50 bedspaces for the homeless in the city but that this is nowhere near enough to cope with the demand. And we are supposed to be a new thriving (but small) city!!!

The number of people living on the streets is increasing. For many of them it is not a choice. It is a total disgrace that this is the situation in a supposed first-world country.

I sometimes hear people say that they don't want to give any money to the homeless as they might use it for alcohol or drugs. If I was homeless I too would want alcohol or even drugs.
Friends of ours who had been house hunting in Chester came across a lady in her 50s who had recently been made homeless after a marriage break up (husband had accumulated debts) My friends offered to pay for a McDonalds meal but she said she felt too sick with fear to eat; they offered to pay for one night's B&B, she thanked them but said it wasn't worth wasting their money as she'd be back on the streets again the next night. In the end she accepted a cup of hot chocolate. I think of that poor soul often. She must have even been fearful of using a loo as she wouldn't have been able to leave her cases.
Our council is persecuting the homeless, even spending £9000 to board up a car park where they seek refuge because 'upstanding' citizens have complained. I write to the council regularly and tweet them but of course it makes no difference.

Streetlink have an excellent outreach service, if you are worried about someone sleeping rough and want to do something concrete, you can register where they are on the Streetlink website and someone will go to them:

streetlink.mobi/tell-us-about-a-rough-sleeper

Has everyone seen the Ken Loach film "I, Daniel Blake"? It is a sad and frightening illustration of how government policy has affected ordinary, hard working people. If you go, take a box of tissues.
I think the best ways to help are by supporting a charity by direct debit (they can plan ahead better if they know the money is coming regularly), buy food and drink for the person rather than give them cash, leave a legacy to a relevant charity in your will.
If you are worried about admin and management costs of a charity, try typing "Which charity should I support" into your search engine for a range of sites giving information and guidance.

the situation has gone beyond helping individuals though (not that anyone should stop doing that too)

There are a number of issues IMO:
- Benefit cuts

- Cuts to mental health services

- Lack of council housing

- Lack of range of council housing: addicts, recovering addicts, people with serious mental health issues.. all need housing, but can't necessarily always be expected to function in a block of flats alongside families. We need wet houses for active addicts, we need REAL dry houses for recovering addicts (not "on paper" dry houses that end up with a mix of active and recovering addicts). Proper supported living,

-Estate agents prohibiting anyone who doesn't know any high earners from renting (the guarantor thing is getting ridiculous now! Some local estate agents to me ask for TOW guarentors even if you pay 6 months rent up front, is that not an oxymoron? and what do people do if all of their family and friends who are working are only on national average wage? IMO they should accept guarentors from anyone earning national average salary otherwise it's barring a large chunk of the population from mainstream rentals)

- Dodgy zero hour contracts that keep people living hand to mouth and never able to build up a rainy day fund incase they have to move

- we need to get rid of the "intentionally homeless" category, where people cannot apply for help unless they are forcibly removed from a property

- a better deal for tennants AND landlords. At the moment because people are advised by CAB that they'll get no help unless they're "unintentially homeless" etc, it's really hard for decent ordinary people to be landlords, the only landlords who the current situation is working for is the bad landlords.. that in turn makes renting rubbish for good tenants.

I remember reading a report not that long ago, about how many ordinary people in the U.S. are two months away from homelessness as a result of not having any savings.
Should they lose their jobs or due to a change in circumstance they too could find themselves on the street.
It's a very scary thought and one of the reasons I have told my son to always have enough money saved to cover any eventuality for at least 6 months should the worst ever happen.

One homeless woman I had a long chat with said she wouldn't go to a shelter because she would be back on drugs pretty quickly if she did. She also said she had been in hospital recently but discharged herself because she was safer on the street. The response of our council is to close another shelter.

A homeless ex-army man knocked at the door asking me to buy cleaning cloths. It was a bright day.... not too cold. I explained that I needed no dishcloths but could offer him a paid job weeding under the hedge. Before I had drawn breath he had packed up his bags and was running across the road to the pub. He called back to me that he felt, at that point, a need for coffee

What's your point Widgeon? that homeless people can have the full range of personalities that people in houses can have and some aren't honest?
Lots of people in houses aren't honest.
Maybe he wasn't honest about being homeless?
What are we supposed to deduce from your tale that's relevant to this thread? That the rise in homelessness is due to unwillingness to do garden work?
If that indeed were the case, what about the correlation between disabilities and homelessness?

I used to be quite unsympathetic to rough sleepers, but I now think that no-one would choose to be homeless in bitterly cold or wet weather, and they are not all alcoholics and drug takers. There are 5 churches in my area that open their doors at night, provide food and drink, and a good breakfast for these people, but of course during the day they have to find warmth and shelter. I wish there was an easy solution.

A few years ago DH and myself volunteered at a winter night shelter preparing an evening meal for them. When they were let in for the meal and a bed for the night their eyes were glazed over with cold. Chatting to some of them it was clearly not the life they had chosen but more about things just going wrong and them finding themselves on the streets. Very sad.

Notanan makes a very valid list of ideas and reasons why there are unfortunately so many homeless people. It is terrible to think of anyone without a warm bed and a meal for the night ...maybe we are too complacent but it is difficult to know what to do. When I lived in the UK I would always follow a family tradition of donating to the Salvation Army as I think they are an organisation that tries to do all they can for the homeless ...unfortunately even they cannot help everyone. I read every day in the UK press of empty houses, warehouses, etc that could be made into overnight warm accommodation and provision of a hot meal but as usual the Councils say they do not have the money to open them and heat them ......do they think it is better to have more people dead from the cold ?

Here in France people who rent accommodation out are under a law which says you cannot turn anyone out between the end of November and the beginning of March ....I have not seen any figures for anyone who abuses this though..I would hope not many, but maybe I have too much faith in human beings !

I give what I can to the Church who collect clothing, the Emmaeus charity that collects clothing and bedding and the food bank who collect with shopping trolleys at the entrance of supermarkets on certain weekends throughout the year. This is of course not enough, but if everyone donated just something it would be an enormous difference

As you say , there but for fortune ....and I am conscious of the fact that with a hard Brexit (ok it always creeps in somewhere) we may well be joining those 'sans arbri' sometime ! I saw in the press also those huge queues of migrants with only an unheated warehouse to sleep in...but I suppose they feel it is worth escaping a war zone (those that genuinely come from a war zone !) for. I also feel concerned for the elderly living in houses they cannot afford to heat or cannot afford to eat, in what, I heard from the TV yesterday. is 'one of the wealthiest nations in Europe'......try telling the homeless, the hungry, the cold and the elderly that whilst they go without ! AT least here in France (as in Spain when we lived there) they tend to look after their own first ....when is the UK going to adopt this policy !?

It is many years ago now that I walked through "cardboard city" in London (no longer there) with a couple of friends, one friend said always keep a few coins in your pocket so you don't have to get your purse out, I would never have walked through there on my own.

Sight I will never forget was leaving a meeting at 4.30pm in Winter & seeing young people bedding down in doorways, that was over 20 years ago

I have always supported Salvation Army & my clothing donations go to them, what isn't fit for resale etc is sent for rags for which they receive payment.

It is a sad state of affairs where there is so little support now for the homeless, more shelters are needed & housing also support for addicts & mental health issues

I saw several homeless people yesterday whilst in Cambridge it is heartbreaking to think of them having to spend the night on the streets in this bitterly cold weather. No wonder many turn to drink and drugs, a few moments of oblivion from their awful lifestyle that many have no control over.

In Newcastle there is a place called The Peoples Kitchen, it is where homeless people can go to have a hot meal, hot drinks, and get something warm to wear (second hand, donated by the public). It was started years ago by a little elderly lady who used to feed the homeless at night down under the bridge at the quayside, with help from other volunteers.
At the other end of the spectrum is Newcastle council, who want to fine the homeless for having any bedding.
A case of Angel's and Demons ?

Here in Milton Keynes there is a huge Sainsburys store that has been empty for 3 years now. The store located elsewhere in the city. Sainsburys still pay the rent on the empty store of over 1million a year just so no other store can move in. They have ignored repeated requests to open the store during the winter months to allow those in need at least a roof over their heads and let the Sally Army and other groups like them provide hot meals etc. Beggars belief!

I support St Mungos, a charity for rough sleepers and give nearly all my unwanted clothes to them. They are always short of clothing for women, especially underwear so I often buy packets of knickers from the supermarket and snap up bras from the charity shop. I have also put together packs of tampons, flannels, and other such stuff. In this day and age and a rich western country its a disgrace that we have rough sleepers. The numbers did actually go down under the labour government but have steadily risen under Tories.

Barmyoldbad I often think during that time of the month how awful it must be to try to manage sanitary protection when you're on the street. The council deliberately makes public toilet un rough-sleeper friendly - making sure they can't wash/freshen up in them etc and patroling them and locking them at night.

It must be an extra level of vulnerability/misery on top of the usual awfulness of being on the street

And of course homeless people get all the same ailments and life traumas as the rest of us. Imagine being bereaved.. while you're on the street. Getting the flu.. while you're on the street. Managing diabetes.. while you're on the street.
There are so many things that I can't imagine doing without a home

And now if we're going to have to show ID to access NHS services each time - where will they go? I imagine its pretty hard to keep hold of your essential documents when you have no home. They'll have to rely on charity clinics like in the US.

We have a couple of cafes where we can pay in advance for a meal for a homeless person. We also have a coat rail that says "need a coat, take one, want to help, leave one " . You can leave coats/warm clothing and homeless people can take what they want