Nickie wrote the essay below for Localis as her contribution to their "Valuing Housing, Improving Lives" collection. If you would like to read the full collection you can do so here.
John* sits hunched up on Victoria Street, Central London, with a traffic cone which he uses to as a trumpet to play When the Saints Go Marching In. You can see him most workdays between 8-9am. Prime commuter travelling time.
Thousands of workers rushing up from the station on their way to their desks. Smiles spread over their faces when they hear John’s rendition. They toss a silver or sometimes a gold coin into the pot lying next to him. A warm feeling may pass over them as they consider the help they’ve given the chap trying to make a living through his unusual busking style.
But take a closer look. John’s body tells a very different tale. His body ravaged by years, perhaps decades of drug abuse. Glimpse at his feet. What is left of them. Poor veins because of what he has injected into them. Time ticking away before there is no option but to amputate one or both of his feet. Do those generous people give a passing thought to what John will spend his takings on? Breakfast? A bed for that night? No.
John isn’t a rough sleeper. The money he will raise this morning, like every morning, will be gathered up and then given to one of his regular dealers who are only a quick call away. They in turn will send one of their teenagers over on their bike to provide him with his fixes for the day.
Debbie* sits outside a nearby Pret. She looks like death. I have known her for over five years. She appears every few months. Looking worse on each visit. She looks over fifty, but I suspect she is nearer 35. She sits begging for money. Coffee cups and sandwiches strewn all around her. Offerings from kind-hearted souls popping in to Pret to purchase their own breakfast or lunch.
Debbie may look as if she has slept rough for months, years even. The truth is she has a hostel over the river which provides a host of holistic services and support to help her overcome her heroin addiction. But she regularly leaves the safety of the hostel to sleep rough in Victoria to beg to pay for her drugs.
She will sleep on the street for a week or two. Then she will be persuaded by a council outreach worker to reconnect with her hostel. It is a regular cycle I and my neighbours have witnessed for years. These real-life examples may make shocking reading. Sadly, John and Debbie’s stories are repeated every day on the streets of London and other major UK cities and towns.
The causes of rough sleeping are complex. They can range from people experiencing mental health issues and substance abuse to being victims of human trafficking. People are often forced to be part of organised begging networks by criminal gangs. However, it is always very challenging to prove a crime is committed as they often operate in close-knit family groups – increasing the complexity of helping people in these circumstances.
The new Conservative Government has ambitious plans to eradicate rough sleeping by 2024 which I fully support. The much-heralded Rough Sleeping Strategy Review to be launched in March 2020 is an opportunity for Government to begin reforming the current system. To really look into effect real ground-breaking reforms that will transform people’s lives, save lives. Local authorities like Westminster, where 35% of London’s rough sleeping happens, must be at the heart of the new polices that will be introduced.
As most people who live or work in the centre of London can see, Westminster has more people sleeping rough than any other council in the country. Tonight, you can expect to find more than 300 people sleeping rough - in doorways, parks, and increasingly so inside tents. Ironically this is fewer than the 400 who regularly used to sleep rough in Trafalgar Square in the 1860s.
Rough sleeping is getting worse and is claiming lives on regularly basis. More than 30 rough sleepers have died in Westminster in the past year, and there will be more fatalities. The average life of a rough sleeper is just 47; the streets are no place for anyone to live, the life they deserve or should expect. Those who won’t accept help from the authorities risk a life fraught with menace, a world where sexual assault and drug use are rife on the streets and in tents.
Why?
My eight years as the politician responsible for rough sleeping services in Westminster, has taught me that there is no easy solution. It is not just about building more homes or providing more hostel places. Though new homes are always welcome in the capital there are no ready-made solutions. This is largely because the number of people wanting or needing to sleep on the streets is driven by a poisonous cocktail of societal issues from addiction to mental and marriage breakdown. Rough sleeping is the symptom, not the cause of deep- seated personal problems.
If we are going to reduce the numbers of those sleeping on the streets, a complete overhaul of the present approach is required. The current legislative system local authorities and police have to use to help rough sleepers is vastly ineffective. The best example being the 1824 Vagrancy Act, an archaic piece of legislation designed to deal with soldiers returning from the Napoleonic Wars. A law introduced to react to very different issues in a very different era.
We can no longer rely on 19th century piece of legislation to cope with what is a defining problem of 21st century inner cities. We need to begin by repealing the Vagrancy Act, which criminalises rough sleeping and adopting a Preservation of Life approach. Equally important is the need to greatly increase funding for poorly resourced mental health and drug treatment teams which are struggling to deal with the ever-increasing complex problems on our streets.
Westminster Council is doing more than any other local authority to get people off the streets and into accommodation. The council is spending over £7 million every year, commissioning 415 supported housing bed spaces, an assessment centre which can sleep up to a further 40 people, a night centre which can support up to 80 people, with access to a further 40 emergency bed spaces. More beds than official statistics show for the numbers sleeping on Westminster’s streets each night.
Where rough sleepers will and are able to talk to outreach workers, the majority are helped off the streets in just a couple of days. But there are some who need extensive wrap-around support to be persuaded to come indoors and seek the help they need – accommodation, health services, job training and more. Working with partners such as St Mungo’s and The Passage.
However, councils cannot solve this systemic crisis alone. We need a cross-government approach that takes a completely different perspective focusing not on criminalisation but on Preservation of Life. This needs four things:
- Legislation and proper funding for a housing first approach. This has been proven to work across Europe in places such as Finland, where the introduction of a national housing first model, with new homes being built, led to a 35% decrease in long-term homelessness.
- Adequate funding to properly resource mental health and drug treatment teams which are struggling to deal with the scale and complexity of the problems on our streets.
- Public education to explain that donations should be channelled into organisations that can help in practice, instead of giving cash for a short-term fix.
- The right powers and resources for the police to tackle any associated anti-social and criminal behaviour when it occurs – be that drug dealing or violent behaviour.
These changes could either be introduced as amendments to current legislation or as a new package of measures – Preservation of Life measures that highlight the true complexity of the issue and involve public health, housing, welfare support and when necessary, enforcement.
Government agrees that eradicating rough sleeping is one of the most challenging and important issues our country is facing. But we must recognise that if we are to halve it by 2024, action is needed, and it is needed now. We mustn’t walk by and leave people suffering on the streets.
For the sake of John, Debbie and the thousands of others on the streets across UK we need to act now, we need a new bold, brave and caring approach – one that values every life, a new Preservation of Life Approach.
*Names have been changed to John and Debbie for this essay.
