THE BRITISH HOME SECRETARY'S ANGRY OUTBURST AGAINST HOMELESS USING TENTS
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
The British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has just made a speech against the homeless people living in tents for 'choosing this lifestyle,’ for 'aggressive begging,' and for 'addiction'. Further, she claimed that many of the homeless were not genuine but intentionally chose this way of life. She threatened to not only to strongly clamp down on the use of tents but fine homeless charities who hand out free tents to the homeless. The speech is viewed as an attempt to wholly criminalize not only the homeless but any charities which support and assist them.
Unsurprisingly, such a speech provoked an angry response from homeless advocates.
The home secretary went on to say, “The British people are compassionate. We will always support those who are genuinely homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice. Unless we step in now to stop this, British cities will go the way of places in the United States, like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies have led to an explosion of crime, drug taking, and squalor spreading. Nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets. There are options for people who don't want to be sleeping rough and the government is working to strengthen wraparound support including treatment for those with drug and alcohol addiction.”
Further, she stated, “What I want to stop, and what the law abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressive beggars, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities."
Not content with denigrating people sleeping rough, the home secretary threatened to fine those charity groups who provided tents to the homeless. Such a speech can often have dangerous connotations. It can incite some ignorant and cruel people to physically assault and beat up homeless people sleeping in tents or on the streets.
StreetSense has already mentioned cases in America—such as one where a harmless homeless woman living in a tent was shot dead by thugs bent on 'hobo- hunting.' But the home secretary is a fine one to speak about the homeless behaving like criminals. The Home department of this secretary already fails to observe legal court decisions obliging her to offer decent accommodation to refugees not to mention the protection of homeless children who have been kidnapped by criminal gangs from hotels.
The Home department has been responsible for illegally deporting British citizens to Jamaica. There is a good case for charging this home secretary with 'criminal negligence' as well as inciting violence against the homeless and refugees.
Her speech not only betrays gross ignorance of homelessness but is perhaps a deliberate attempt to make a scapegoat of the homeless, of refugees, and of anyone from 'abroad.' It is no accident that she seeks to emphasize that many of those people who are in tents are from abroad…
The cynical aim is to whip up nationalist resentment against foreigners or anyone who seems different.
Some might find the contents of this speech almost amusing. You might think it is not homeless people who are the victims but the law abiding majority who are being bullied by the homeless. Some people feel the homeless just won't leave people alone who go for a quiet stroll down the street. Some say the homeless are seen as using the city as a convenient camping site where they see local people as 'getting in their way.' …that they see London as 'a dossier's paradise' and 'want something for nothing.' …and that the use of tents encourages 'anti-social behavior.'
Although the British prime-minister Sunak is a little bit more tactful, his past comments in public also betray an incredible ignorance of the homeless problem. When he once encountered a homeless person on the streets he asked him whether he had ever thought of going into buying and selling shares or taking up a career in finance. The bemused man did not know how to answer him. This homeless person could hardly afford a roof over his head never mind have enough cash to embark on such a career.
This speech indicates a government increasingly out of touch and remote from the real ordinary social and economic problems of everyday life. And that reality is very grim. For the past 13 years, the number of those living in hunger, homelessness and relentless poverty has soared. If 30 years ago you told someone in Britain that many people were starving they would have laughed at you. Starvation was something that happened in Africa or India but not Britain. Now he won't won't laugh at you! For at present you have the emergence of food bank charities who claim they can't cope with rising requests for food parcels.
The problem of homelessness is huge…
The causes are not 'a lifestyle choice' nor the personal shortcomings or failings of the homeless themselves. The main reasons lie in the deep structural economic and social factors allowed by an unjust system—inaccessible accommodation brought on by never ending rising rent, a lack of social state accommodation and 'the no fault eviction' where a person can be thrown out on to the streets at any time.
As many as 157,640 families were reported homeless from 2022-2023 in Britain. This represents a 12.1% higher rise than before the pandemic. There are an estimated 104,510 homeless in temporary accommodation. There has been a sharp rise in the number of homeless aged 65 to 74. The number of children who are also homeless is staggering.
It is said that a society can be judged on how it treats its children and its old. If this is so, then the indictment against Britain is shameful. Even the birds in Green Park are better fed than children in London.
None of the statistics on homelessness can describe the immense pain and suffering which many homeless undergo. For instance, some homeless, out of a sense of shame, don't even tell their family or friends they are homeless. They keep it a secret and pretend 'everything is fine.' Some of them just 'go missing' or are not heard of from their families for years. Then they have to spend an enormous amount of time and energy just doing basic things such as trying to get food, a place they can wash themselves and a relatively safe place to sleep. And all the time they can be in danger of having their possessions stolen, being beaten up, sexually abused, or even murdered.
Being homeless is hard work! It is arguably harder work than those who are housed experience because a lot of the homeless are doing jobs as well. A homeless person not only has to struggle against the elements but is subject to cheap abuse and insults.
The latest speech of the home secretary is just one more part of the insults in this on-going negative litany !
Much of this endless pain and suffering could be avoided…
If you had a government and people with a strong decisive will and determination they could end homelessness. It helps when you look at the problem from a historical and international perspective.
The British Conservative Party were not always so indifferent to social housing or helping the homeless. While at the latest Conservative conference, housing was not even mentioned, in 1951 it was a fundamental issue. Their 1951 manifesto described housing as 'The First of social services.... one of the keys to increased productivity.' Then the Conservatives believed that if you provided decent and affordable houses to people it would improve economic performance of workers not to mention boost productivity.
Note that the success of boosting social housing is indicated by a massive subsidized investment program in Vienna from 1919 to 1934 by the Social Democrat Council. The city built many new homes, kindergartens, public baths, and theaters. They managed to assist a lot of the poorest people in Vienna. The on-going legacy of this Austrian experiment lives on! At present, the average person in Vienna spends just 21 % of his income on rent while in London they spend an average of 41%. Who is it better to be - a Viennese or Londoner?
In contrast to Austria, Britain remains one of the worst at building new homes. vA report by the Center For Cities calculates that Britain is short of 4 million homes. They build houses at a tortoise rate. Only 250,000 houses were built in the 12 months up to March 2023. At this rate it would take 50 years to end the shortage of housing.
So what is to be done? Wait in a tent for the next 50 years? Unfortunately, given the latest speech by the home secretary, this appears to be a less-than-wise option now!