Forum Topic

Rough Sleepers

If council /Gov have dealt with rough sleepers/beggars well doneBut in reality there are more on Chiswick high road than before so our great council /gov have not finnished doing there job

William Leask ● 2290d22 Comments

the hotel rooms for rough sleepers was only a short term solution, and I think it pretty much finished a while back.

Emma Renton ● 2289d

A lot of hotels refused to take rough sleepers during the height of the pandemic.

Richard Greenhough ● 2289d

Homelessness is a national disgrace.  Until this is solved we can’t consider ourselves a civilized country.  Finland has managed it.  So could we.

Alastair Banton ● 2289d

What have Finland done to help eradicate this that we could learn from?I always thought that many of the homeless refused accomadation when offered or that me being misled?

Paul Fisher ● 2289d

You will not like the approach taken in Finland:https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness

Alan Clark ● 2289d

If you google ‘Finland homeless‘, you can find out about it.  But basically anyone who is homeless is immediately offered a small apartment and counseling without preconditions.

Alastair Banton ● 2289d

"It is important that they are tenants: each has a contract, pays rent and (if they need to) applies for housing benefit. That, after all, is all part of having a home – and part of a housing policy that has now made Finland the only EU country where homelessness is falling."So it is the same here then. Our citizens can all enter into a contract, pay rent and have a place to stay. It is all part of 'having a home'

Steve Taylor ● 2289d

The quote you provided has not been given its context. The comment about being tenants is made to highlight the common alternative for homeless; that is, they offered a space in a hostel. And as such they are not rent paying tenants but ‘guests’. Your subsequent statement now does not appear to add anything. What you to be saying is that UK tenants are renting. Which is a statement of the obvious and doesn’t relate to homelessness in the UK. Or have I missed a critical point you made?

Alan Clark ● 2289d

What is missing is enough good public sector housebuilding, unless and until we get a government that allows, encourages and funds councils to build council housing this problem will remain.

Vanessa Smith ● 2289d

VanessaH.M.Govt gave LBH via the GLA £60m for housing.This sum and other Capital funding remains unused.

John Todd ● 2289d

It's a great shame that a lot of council housing stock was as is  sold of for peanuts under The Right to Buy, initially a bribe to buy votes and now only few politicians have been honest enough to say enough is enough.

Adrian Irving ● 2289d

Please ask them if they need anything like a sandwich or a coffee: even Andy the Big Issue seller outside Waitrose likes a BLT or a coffee. The homeless on our High Street are very polite and very appreciative.

Chris Blackwell ● 2289d

And so are the ones on the Askew Road. I gave one of them a sandwich and a packet of biscuits and he insisted I took some home with me to have with my tea. Very sweet of him to share.

Georgina Flint ● 2289d

https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/riba-regional-awards/riba-east-award-winners/2019/goldsmith-streetNo sooner had this social housing won the award than the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajed Javed changed or stopped the ability of Councils to borrow as Norwich had done for this.

Philippa Bond ● 2289d

'It's a great shame that a lot of council housing stock was as is  sold of for peanuts under The Right to Buy, initially a bribe to buy votes and now only few politicians have been honest enough to say enough is enough.'What people conveniently forget is that Thatcher would not allow councils to use the capital receipts from those sales to build new homes.

Vanessa Smith ● 2289d

I can't understand how anyone who bought their council house during Thatcher's reign could possibly expect a market forces led administration to build more of them.For simplicity, the Tories want small government and Labour big government.It is more realistic to 'blame' subsequent Labour administrations for not building more public housing as one might expect them to try to expand public housing supply in accordance with its  historical priorities.It is they who one might expect to do this and they had enough years to make a fist of doing just that but did nowt.

Keith Iddon ● 2289d

Maybe so Vanessa but how many new homes can you build/ buy with a fraction of the value you get from selling a council home? Answer; Less than one. Only a few years ago Westminster were buying back, though me, for circa £325000 that they flogged off for around £30,000.How dumb is that?

Adrian Irving ● 2289d

Keith, what would be the point of building council homes only for the authority being forced to sell them at a substantial discount some years later?Camden  stated some while back that they had the money to build but were holding back because they were not in the business of making tenants hundreds of thousands of pounds.The joke is that council tenants have lower rents and far more security of tenure that the people in the private sector.

Adrian Irving ● 2289d

Council housing was also built to higher standards than a lot of private housing - cf the Prime Minister's comments about Parker Morris standards in Parliament.  That was just one of the standards.

Philippa Bond ● 2289d

I have not advocated doing that.

Keith Iddon ● 2289d

That answer for Adrian

Keith Iddon ● 2288d

Yes Keith, I know you weren't, I was making a general point.Sadly there are  politicians that still cling to the party line and 'say' they support the scheme.

Adrian Irving ● 2288d