Is "affordable housing" a red herring when it comes to roughsleepers?

It's very easy to sit on the streets asking for "spare change" so you can meet up with your like minded pals at the end of the day and pool together for drink/drugs, it's not so easy to get your crap together and find a job, go to work every day, spend your money on bills and food, and take responsibility for yourself. The options and support for homeless people in this country are endless, yet all they're doing is facilitating what has become a life style for a lot of people.
 
dl8860 said:
There was a good programme on channel 4 last night called something like Who is getting rich off the housing crisis, and it was mostly about housing associations price gouging and demolishing genuinely affordable and social housing and replacing it with expensive new developments.
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Yep. Everyone is quick to blame the Tories but this **** has been going on longer than they've been in power. Blair/Brown and co were all at it. The problem is that housing/property is seen as the biggest get-rich-quick scheme in this country (and it is). So anyone within 12ft of owning some property is only look to make a profit. Including councils, housing associations, literally everyone. It's sucked this country dry and we wonder why property is so unaffordable for "normal" working people. You can look at any development around the country and see thousands of box-flats going up, sold as "luxury apartments" to foreign buyers/investors. Absolutely none of them affordable for locals to live in.

MikeTheNative said:
Affordable housing doesn't mean a load of people of benefits. Usually it's working people who need to use an housing association to buy a home in the area they live.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38067626 80% of the average local rent in London for example, is still quite a lot ;)
 
There's a new housing development going up in my town. Prices have risen a lot, my house has gone up by 40% in 3 years, wages haven't increased though so it's hard for first time buyers to live in the area. Is this new site 2/3 bed starter homes? Of course not, they are all at least 3 beds, and either detached or semi detached which start at £300,000. Maybe 5 will go to affordable housing but as above that's not what people think it is.
 
Roar87 said:
It's very easy to sit on the streets asking for "spare change" so you can meet up with your like minded pals at the end of the day and pool together for drink/drugs, it's not so easy to get your crap together and find a job, go to work every day, spend your money on bills and food, and take responsibility for yourself. The options and support for homeless people in this country are endless, yet all they're doing is facilitating what has become a life style for a lot of people.
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I agree but I also think, through viewing certain people, thats there a point of no return. A lot of these peoples memories will be destroyed as will their sleep patterns. The chances of working a 9-5 are next to none. They would be late for work, possibly fall asleep or injure themselves or others and would not be able to get along with anyone.

So it's a lost cause, maybe in a third world country a manual job could be found for them but in this society it's just not going to happen.

Look at Paul Gascoinge, in the space of 6 months he became a hopeless drunk never to return. So drink and drugs are the real problem. IMO.
 
Try offering the homeless your spare room for free, I bet you 9 of 10 won't accept your offer. They choose to be homeless in the city as it's easy access to drugs/drinks by public.

As someone mention here, drugs and drinks make your mind go. Very sad situation.

Only solution is have them sectioned so they can be rehabilitated but we don't have the power. Catch 22
 
There's only one job that lets you smoke spice and work and that's sitting on the floor with your hand out.

The homeless problem you see is a symptom of government failure. A combination of drug policies, housing crisis, poor social care, lifetime social care....etc....etc. It's a rot that's been allowed to evolve for so long that it would require a massive change in society to ever hope to fix. It takes 10x the resources to help people at this point, the solution is to stop it happening in the first place, but that's not how governments work as we know; governments are almost always reactionary, so wait for a problem to manifest then try to address it, rather than fixing the source 10 steps above it. Until society starts adopting this behaviour it will only get worse.

Just think of all those children raped in Rotherham, how many was it, over 1500 or so. Now, rather than stopping this occurring in the first place there's 1500 children coming of age into a system that's utterly destroyed them. Coming to a town centre near you soon.
 
Regarding the large numbers of beggars/homeless in large towns and cities.

I'll wager that a lot of them will be professional begging gangs. Many towns and cities have a problem with them.

Recently visited Glasgow and there were beggars pretty much evenly spaced down many streets, not one of them spoke with an accent based in the UK. Witnessed a van full being dropped off around 8am and they were gone at 7pm, so basically opening hours for the city centre stores.

Regarding "affordable housing", particularly with the rental market, it will never be and hasn't been since the repeal of the fair rents act. The final FU to the people of the UK by Thatcher before her term ended.
 
You can understand, to a degree, why certain Asian countries are so tough on drugs. Death penalty for importing even smallish amounts and I think Thailand? have state sanctioned murders for drug dealers.

They view drugs in the same way as a terrorist bombing only that the effects are seen over a longer period.
 
I think affordable housing as now become an advertising selling point rather than its true meaning.

There seems to be an unwillingness of the government or councils to see the reality of the situation. There will always be people begging for whatever reason because we live in an hierarchical society. Someone at some point will be on the very bottom (this isn't to say they are stuck there). So society should accept that it is a situation that will always be there, then start about fixing it.

I think we need the return of the workhouses with accommodation.
 
A friend of mine offers any beggar some manual work in his garden, for above minimum wage, cash in hand. He's lost count of how many times he's offered this, and not ONCE has he been taken up on it. Part of the problem in Manchester is the Labour / Lib Dem run council and its unwillingness to address the issue. Many are professional beggars who DO have a home they return to after fleecing mugs. It wants sorting out, I had one pull a knife on me for refusing him a quid, on Piccadilly Station approach, at 7PM amid lots of people. Luckily I had a robust pal a few steps behind and we overpowered him and left him needing a dentist, but the situation was bad 15 years ago and is now intolerable. Piccadilly Gardens were a no go area after dark, even back then, God knows what it's like now, thankfully I was able to get far away from all that.

Edit. Seems Piccadilly Gardens ain't changed..... https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...lly-gardens-manchester-your-thoughts-14646534
 
Resident said:
Regarding the large numbers of beggars/homeless in large towns and cities.

I'll wager that a lot of them will be professional begging gangs. Many towns and cities have a problem with them.

Recently visited Glasgow and there were beggars pretty much evenly spaced down many streets, not one of them spoke with an accent based in the UK. Witnessed a van full being dropped off around 8am and they were gone at 7pm, so basically opening hours for the city centre stores.

Regarding "affordable housing", particularly with the rental market, it will never be and hasn't been since the repeal of the fair rents act. The final FU to the people of the UK by Thatcher before her term ended.
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I vaguely remember Glasgow from the 90's and I would harbour a guess that it has some of the most deprived places in the UK if not the EU.
 
There's a bunch of beggars popped up in our small town over the past year or so but I suspect they are not really homeless, the main one I walk past going into town was sat on his mobile phone with a fag in his mouth the other week and he often has mates stood around him and we've also seen a bunch of them congregating early morning. I think like Resident says they are just professional/organised beggars. I've also heard about a few people getting their phones stolen at knife point and there's been a couple in the news, so I wouldn't be surprised if they are operating as lookouts to spot vulnerable people flashing their smart phones around and then alerting their mugger mates but that's just me with my tin hat.
 
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basically 99% of them are either professional beggars or alcoholics/drug addicts that don't want help.

I knew a person who ran a hostel years ago and she said there were ALWAYS places for homeless but they had to throw out loads of them for being violent drug addicts/alcoholics.

affordable housing is very important for many people in society but it won't solve the homelessness issue.
 
I cant remember the last time i saw a homeless person that didn't look like a druggy. I have seen someone try to offer one a coffee from costa once and he didn't want it but wanted money instead. Is that because you cant buy drugs with coffee.
 
the number of homeless in glasgow city centre has also considerably increased in the past 6 month.

you would be lucky to see 1 every other day. now you will see at least 3-4 a day even on a short 10 minute walk.

the housing situation is unique as in the demand is so much it's pushing up cheap housing faster than anything else. therefore what was cheap is no longer as cheap.

wages have been stagnant or in real terms declining since 2007/2008. loss of jobs, etc. brexit seems to have been the last nail in the coffin.
 
Tefal said:
But why does this affordable housing need to be city center stock?

These aren't the types who are particularly In need of central housing.
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It doesn't. It's a farce in London whereby housing is organised by each individual borough so you end up with some ridiculously valuable council housing in zone one, in some cases council flats pushing 1 million. They just don't need to be there and it is frankly an inefficient use of resources, not to mention taking up space that others could bid for/distorting prices for the rest of us.

In the case of London the inner London boroughs in zone one are a lot smaller than Greater Manchester with one single borough for the City of Manchester.

If people want to watch Jeremy Kyle and eat pot noodles they don't need to be in central London.
 
aardvark said:
basically 99% of them are either professional beggars or alcoholics/drug addicts that don't want help.
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This tbh...

Plenty aren't homeless but are just feeding a drug addiction, they're often quite active too and will go up and down trains etc.. begging.

We also have the additional issue of our EU friends from Romania who can come here freely - some to beg, some to work and some to scam or get involved in criminal activity. Some of them do rough sleep in the summer and thanks to a recent court case the government now has more difficulty removing them.

Genuine homeless are a mix of short term people down on their luck and who will get some accommodation sorted relatively quickly and people who have chosen to be there as they don't want a hostel or place in a half way house etc...
 
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