Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

[François dan un fez]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

About 15 years ago the then labour government set about dealing with a crisis in homelessness in London.

They required all the boroughs to count the rough sleepers and provide enough hostel places.

Numbers of rough sleepers in e.g Hammersmith and Fulham dropped from up to a hundred a night to 1 or 2.

The consensus amongst people working on this issue was that if there are safe places to go all bar a very small minority will take advantage of them.

[DCI Harry Batt]

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?

Short answer - yes, absolutely.

"Choose to" isn't how I'd put it. But yes.

[Ginger Yellow]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

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

In the ones I've seen recently, it's not that the council takes them to court, it's that if they demand a high or socially sensible affordable housing quotient (or some other s.106 compensation), then the developer complains to Boris and it gets taken out of the council's hands.

[Guy Profumo]

Chester Council - kicking beggars on your behalf -

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

Oh good.

An expert with access to empirical information writes.

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

Okay. What did I miss? Because I read a majority of people declining hostel accommodation have no valid reason for doing so.

Happy to be corrected, and any misunderstanding clarified here.