For several years I was involved in the fight against the effects of homelessness. I have sat and listened to lots of informed and uninformed arguments and debates all trying to agree on the best means of providing essential services to homeless people in our society.
On the 19th April 2009, I attended a meeting at the office of a local district authority where together with another homeless charity operating in the same area, we again tried to look at solutions to problems faced by homeless individuals and the communities in which they live.
There are some who believe that since resources are so scarce, only people who want help should be afforded it whilst those who have either no insight into their position or no inclination to change can be excluded. It may sound very liberal but I happen not to agree with this stance believing more in the merits of "There by the grace of God...".
Many years ago I was told that the laws in Britain are based on the phrase “Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive, officiously to keep alive”. As time has gone on it seems that this is a profound or fundamental position taken by policy makers and implementers; not just a nuanced argument or perspective when considering the law of the land.
There are a lot of things wrong with the central government homelessness agenda, but when meeting with representatives of the Communities and Local Government (CLG) department, they always struck me as passionate about alleviating the effects of poverty and targeting ‘those most hard to reach’.
Obviously this was lost in translation by the time the district was implementing their plans. The reason I propose that the district was out of step with central government is because during my 19th April meeting, the local authority ‘officer’ stated:
“Well maybe our strategy needs to depend on trouble-makers dying in the winter”.
I was outraged and explained that any approach our agency would be part of would only be provided from the basis of compassion and without prejudice. Moments later the meeting ended.
It is uncanny that within 20 days of that meeting the charity was given notice that essential funding would be withdrawn and the night shelter would have to close, despite the feedback of monitoring officers informing us our performance was ‘on track’.
The charity and its team of staff worked extremely hard to comply with all that had been stipulated. When notice was ultimately received, it became clear that rough sleepers would no longer have an emergency night shelter from September onwards. The charity’s Board of Trustees appealed to the decision makers to enable the Nightshelter to remain functioning until March after the worst weather had passed.
“No” was the response.
And so, what may have been said flippantly by an officer of a district council turned into reality as we in the UK suffered the worst cold whether in 30 years.
Maybe their strategy did depend on trouble-makers dying in the winter.
We will never know.
NOTE:
It is fair to say that there were aspects of the service which did need
investment to improve them, either in respect of time or money. It is
also fair to say that I for my part was accountable and responsible for
a major proportion of the failings in the service. A proportion of
accountability reasonably is carried by everyone who had any
involvement in the service delivery from the front line staff to the
Board of Trustees.
However much we try to blame ourselves or each other, truth be told, the powers that be, simply did not want a nightshelter.
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