The rough sleeper count in Brighton and Hove is in three figures – and has prompted an election challenge to politicians.
Andy Winter, the chief executive of Brighton Housing a Trust (BHT), said: “The challenge to politicians, as we approach the local elections, is: will you commit yourselves to ending rough sleeping in Brighton and Hove by 2020, or is your ambition merely to make rough sleeping as tolerable as possible for the rough sleepers?”
Writing in his blog, the charity boss said: “We should end street homelessness in Brighton and Hove by 2020.
“I have never known a time like this, when people are so shocked by the number of men and women sleeping on the streets of Brighton and Hove.
“People comment on this to me, donations to First Base at Christmas were at an all-time high, the Argus regularly runs stories on homelessness, and individuals have gone out of their way to offer hope.
“There is a general consensus that at this time of the year there are around 115 people sleeping rough. In the summer it rises, to around 150 last year.
“These are large numbers, but not when compared to some of the major cities around the world.”
“There is a relatively small street homeless population, although each and everyone is a real person who experiences fear at night, whose view of the world is often the legs of people walking by, who get cold and wet and hungry, and who see people going home, locking their doors, turning the lights on, and closing their curtains.
“The closing of curtain, as one former rough sleeper said to me, was the clearest sign that he was out and they were in.
“The challenge to politicians, as we approach the local elections, is: will you commit yourselves to ending rough sleeping in Brighton and Hove by 2020, or is your ambition merely to make rough sleeping as tolerable as possible for the rough sleepers?”
Mr Winter told the BBC: “The reality is not good for anyone … it’s not good for the homeless people and it’s not good for the city and its reputation. It’s not good for anyone.”
Former Hove police chief and Conservative candidate Graham Cox said: “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.
“There needs to be some element of compulsion in how we help rough sleepers. It isn’t just about providing accommodation.”
He said that some of the help at the moment sustains a lifestyle that is going to kill them.
Councillor Bill Randall: “There is a hard core of people who have been on the streets for a long time and it’s hard to shift them off.”
He said that the council’s People First policy was aimed at giving the right level of support to those people who often had “a portfolio of problems”.
He added that we’re managing homelessness not solving it. The solution, he said, was to build more homes.
This rise is hardly surprising when B&HCC’s sole response to the problem is to removed some of the covered seating that the homeless people had been sleeping on. Apparently this was an “effective solution” against this “antisocial behaviour”. Pathetic, really.
The problem will never go away unless only homeless with roots to the City are helped and others are told to move on because The City will only continue to be the magnet that it is . accommodation at New England street was found for over 30 and yet there are still more than a Hundred.It reminds me of the Film Field of Dreams ‘build it and they will come’ how about the 18,000 on the Social Waiting List surely that should be of more concern.
Well the ‘root’ of the problem is Thatcher’s sick “Care in the Community” policy which turfed the mentally ill out of institutions and onto the streets.