Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

[Guy Profumo]

- so you don't have to.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-33557876

[Stumpy Pepys]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

I think the subject's more complicated than that.

I mean people demonstrably still sleep rough in areas where there's sufficient hostel provision (whether there is in Chester I've no idea). But in these instances, do you still defend people's right to sleep rough if they choose to?

[Guy Profumo]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Stumpy Pepys wrote: I think the subject's more complicated than that.

I mean people demonstrably still sleep rough in areas where there's sufficient hostel provision (whether there is in Chester I've no idea). But in these instances, do you still defend people's right to sleep rough if they choose to?

Doubtless it is.

But it's still stigmatizing the dispossessed and the vulnerable, and as such it's despicable.

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

why not?

Also, it's often doubtful whether hostels themselves are safe places.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

This was tried in Hackney but overturned in the face of vociferous local opposition.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/05/hackney-council-drops-threat-to-fine-rough-sleepers

Safe to say, anyone wondering about whether rough-sleeping is a "choice" or not is beneath contempt.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Bizarre Löw Triangle wrote: Safe to say, anyone wondering about whether rough-sleeping is a "choice" or not is beneath contempt.

Probably a fair opinion if you think rough sleepers are a homogeneous group. I just happen to believe they're not.

[beak]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Stumpy Pepys wrote: But in these instances, do you still defend people's right to sleep rough if they choose to?

I do, yeah.

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Heh, superb 'maybe you're the one who is anti-homeless' trolling from Stumpy there, Brendan O'Neill quality.

Come to think of it, are you in fact Brendan O'Neill, Stumps?

[EIM]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

I had an argument on Twitter (I know, right!) with the GMP last year after they described homelessness as a lifestyle choice. As if it's comparable to camping, or rock climbing. You know, being a bit outdoorsy.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Nesta Arantes do Nascimento wrote: Heh, superb 'maybe you're the one who is anti-homeless' trolling from Stumpy there, Brendan O'Neill quality.

Come to think of it, are you in fact Brendan O'Neill, Stumps?

I apologise for daring to divert from OTF groupthink.

I'd argue that there's a rough-sleeping subculture among a proportion of homeless people. But many other people are sleeping rough for various other reasons.

Like I said, it's not binary.

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

I apologise for daring to divert from OTF groupthink.

Yeah, you're a real Andrei Sakharov here.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Bizarre Löw Triangle wrote: This was tried in Hackney but overturned in the face of vociferous local opposition.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/05/hackney-council-drops-threat-to-fine-rough-sleepers

Safe to say, anyone wondering about whether rough-sleeping is a "choice" or not is beneath contempt.

It's a reasonable thing to wonder, as long as you're not a cunt. It's the kind of thing people who work with rough sleepers have to wonder, and I'd say they know a damn sight more about it than anyone here.

The vociferous opposition to the Hackney one wasn't "local"; it was people from all over the world on Twitter, and then Ellie Goulding. The national press loved it. People protested about it outside the town hall a fortnight after it had been withdrawn.

This is the kind of message that councils excel at farting out: it will have begun with experts who work every day with homeless people, passed through policy making procedures and plopped out into public life as a disaster.

The Hackney one will have taken off because it's a borough being colonised by wankers with money. Chester, as we all know, is already full of them, from the football and the Hollyoaks, so again it's a nice story: it looks like they're brushing social problems under the carpet.

For the life of me I can't work out how fining anyone would ever be justified or effective. I'd like to know how these things come about, but newspapers hit press offices who defend councils against bad publicity, and councillors who don't know the job make statements that make everything sound worse. But I don't, and it's not something anyone reporting or blowing off about this seems to have covered - they've got as far as "homelessness charities say it's a bad thing", and I assume those charities know more than me, but I also assume council workers and the police know more than me about the subject. You can bet it won't have begun life as a callous attempt to gentrify the borough and keep up appearances, though.

I think I'm right in saying council officers/the police are obliged to offer hostel places or accommodation of some kind to any British rough sleeper (although not to rough sleepers from other coutries, who make up a lot of the numbers now). As Nesta says, there are plenty of good reasons why someone might not want to take them up on that offer. There are also plenty of issues which might lead them to make bad decisions on that front. I don't know. I'd like to.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Stumpy, can rough sleepers make a "choice", in the way that you or I can? Even if we assume they can, there can be very very good reasons for avoiding hostels, like owing nasty people money.

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

but I also assume council workers and the police know more than me about the subject. You can bet it won't have begun life as a callous attempt to gentrify the borough and keep up appearances, though.

Well, this is what I'm sceptical about. I'm not sure they do. Though you've certainly got more experience of watching the inner working of councils than I have.

At the very best, what seems to be happening here is a crashingly hamfisted attempt to 'nudge' rough sleepers away from what's seen here as sub-optimal behaviour, by criminalization.

And that's based on the most charitable possible reading of their motivations.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Tubby Isaacs wrote: Stumpy, can rough sleepers make a "choice", in the way that you or I can? Even if we assume they can, there can be very very good reasons for avoiding hostels, like owing nasty people money.

For many of them – maybe even a majority – no. For some, yes.

Even in Germany, where social security is a lot more generous, you still get rough sleepers.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

I imagine these councils are worrying that they're attracting in rough sleepers from other areas, and don't fancy that and problems that might come with them.

Councils now come under much more pressure to move problems on than they did. Particularly in London, with more middle class people with clout.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

Stumpy, can rough sleepers make a "choice", in the way that you or I can? Even if we assume they can, there can be very very good reasons for avoiding hostels, like owing nasty people money.

For many of them – maybe even a majority – no. For some, yes.

Even in Germany, where social security is a lot more generous, you still get rough sleepers.

I wouldn't disagree too strongly with that. But if it's something like a majority who don't have a choice, how can we treat the whole lot as if they do?

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Lucia Lanigan wrote: but I also assume council workers and the police know more than me about the subject. You can bet it won't have begun life as a callous attempt to gentrify the borough and keep up appearances, though.

Curious how you arrive at this conclusion. Housing activists document council workers systematically bullying service users, intimidating them and engaging in unlawful gatekeeping - so people aren't receiving the services they're entitled to by law.

Similarly social cleansing/gentrification is clearly a deliberate (and often explicit) policy for many London councils. The people who make housing policy spend far more time hobnobbing with large property developers and treat council tenants and housing groups with contempt.

As for cops caring about the homeless, well, that's so laughable I don't know where to begin.

The opposition to Hackney's homelessness policy was co-ordinated by local housing group Digs, FWIW.

[Guy Profumo]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

Stumpy, can rough sleepers make a "choice", in the way that you or I can? Even if we assume they can, there can be very very good reasons for avoiding hostels, like owing nasty people money.

For many of them – maybe even a majority – no. For some, yes.

Even in Germany, where social security is a lot more generous, you still get rough sleepers.

Oh good.

An expert with access to empirical information writes.

Pray. Continue.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Guy Potger wrote: Oh good.

An expert with access to empirical information writes.

Did you actually read what I wrote, in the context of the question?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Bizarre Löw Triangle wrote:
Curious how you arrive at this conclusion. Housing activists document council workers systematically bullying service users, intimidating them and engaging in unlawful gatekeeping - so people aren't receiving the services they're entitled to by law.

Similarly social cleansing/gentrification is clearly a deliberate (and often explicit) policy for many London councils. The people who make housing policy spend far more time hobnobbing with large property developers and treat council tenants and housing groups with contempt.

On your first point - I've already told you how, but add to that having worked at councils and knowing plenty of people who work in homelessness services. Do you seriously, honestly think that council officers who work with homeless people set out to make their lives more rather than less difficult? These are basically social workers you're talking about, not the long arm of the law.

On your second - of course it's fucking not. Councils have never had anything like that kind of coherence to their policy, it's just not how local government works. They also provide every service that prevents people from becoming homeless and areas from becoming hives of private money. They've had their budgets slashed severely under this government, which means they'll get the stick for services gettting cut back; but then, they always got the stick for anything that happened on their patch anyway. Sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. It's good that people take them to task, but most of those people are wrong in the specifics because they don't know how any of this stuff works in practice.

You're much closer to the people who kick off about lefty councils banning Christmas than you think with this stuff. If by 'the people who make housing policy' you mean the people in local government, what do you base this view that they're spending their time hobnobbing with property developers and treating tenants with contempt from?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Similarly social cleansing/gentrification is clearly a deliberate (and often explicit) policy for many London councils.

They need the money from the developers. As long as they negotiate something decent under s 106, I don't think you can blame them at all.

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Well, they do seem to take their cue from central government on that, whoever controls the council. ie they've been negotiating less and less under s 106 because central government doesn't give a fuck, and what council has the money to take property developers to court these days?

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

That last bit's an assumption actually, maybe they do still take developers to court.

[N est à?]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

In any case, after the 'homelessness budget', it looks likely that the number of homeless will very shortly hugely overwhelm the ability of councils to offer even the most basic and inadequate housing provision.

So these moves towards criminalization of rough sleepers do look just a little bit like steps towards a rapid expansion of the prison population: I know the conservative party has for a long time looked enviously at the US prison system, wishing they could somehow realise those sort of enormous profits and incarcerate (and disenfrachise!) such a large proportion of the less aspirational amongst us.