The Local and National Government would like to irradicate homelessness, and so they should, everybody deserves a roof over their head, but it is the way it is done that makes our life difficult.
The Government is trying to criminalize Street Homelessness and it has even been suggested that roughsleeping should carry a �500 fine.
AFORS can assure, those who believe that the Street Homeless are there out of choice, that NO ONE in their right mind would choose to sleep rough on the streets of London.
The streets are dirty, there are horrible fumes from motor vehicles, an abundance of wildlife such as Rats the size of small ponys and to top it all, FACE the ELEMENTS.
Or maybe our beloved leaders have forgotten where we live, London is wet in the spring and autumn and cold in the winter, our summer is very short.
NOT exactly Costa Brava is it.
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Some years ago the Government brought in the C.A.T's ( Contact and Assessement Team).
The idea was to assess rough sleepers on the street in order to provide each individual with appropriate accommodation, GREAT in theory, but like with so many great ideas, this one was exploited to the MAX.
The Government awarded tenders to a few private "Charities" who then set up the C.A T teams, the Pre Tennancy Teams, The Resettlement Teams and of course the Tennancy Support Teams (TST).
Sound a bit much, well it is.
All this has created a multi million pound industry, and WE are getting the blame for it.
Every time Homeless figures are quoted in press or in the media, there is allways a mentioning of how much WE cost the Tax Payer.
Now lets be fair, We did NOT introduce all these changes to the resettlement process, the Government did.
Yes WE want to be housed, but to blame the street homeless for the demise of the DSS or the local councils Housing Budget whilst keeping all these lovely resettlement workers employed is a bit unfair.
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organisations, charities and agencies are interested in housing (quickly) Street Homeless in to permanent accomodation.
The reason being that WE are their bread and butter, a lot of different people and organisations are dependent on US Street Homeless.
Where would all these people be if there was no more Homelessness? Probably in the same Social Service queues that we are in at this moment.
It has gone so far, that nowdays a roughsleeper who goes thru the resettlement process can expect it to take up to six months or more for a hostel placement.
Ones in a hostel, the organisation runing that particular one takes over the resettlement process and we all know what follows...
We have to live in that particular hostel for a number of monts before
completing the resettlement process and finaly getting a home of our own.
The reason for this is that the Hostels also want a peace of the cake.
Why house someone sooner, and loose all that Governmental Housing-
Benefits money, when they can milk the system for quite some time and house Us later.
Some ex-roughsleepers have lived for anything up to two years in a Hostel type accommodation before being resettled.
AFORS believes that enough is enough and its time for the decision-
makers to devise a new system for resettling Homeless People.
healthcare. Some daycentres have a visiting doctor and nurse but more often than not the resources just aren't there .
Refferals to special care such as Mental health institutions, Alcohol and Drugs Rehabilitation or Elderly Care are very difficult to recieve.
We need to get the same medical care as the rest of the population.
Rough sleepers are likely to be in trouble with the Law more often than most people due to the facts that we have discussed above.
Where is the justice in the Homeless getting persecuted for excisting on the streets and when a case finally goes to Court we are denied proper legal council. Some Homeless who have appeared in Court have only met their Solicitor minutes before trial.
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You can also read more about what AFORS is doing to combat these issues and others on our Resistance page, links are listed below.
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