[Closed] Homelessness in Cardiff, and other cities

It's normal. Every town has them. Cirens can be found round the back of the church, there is a nice restaurant in town that offer a free hot meal to them once a week. A couple of Strouds are currently in tents under the railway arches on Dr Newton's Way.

There's definitely been an increase in the last year or two in Glasgow, of folks actually sleeping rough, without a doubt. Poor buggers.

Yeah there is an increase and visually noticeable too.

Edinburgh hasn't changed too much, though we've had some issues at the bike park. We had to fill in a small hollow that was out of view of the path as folk were shooting up and sleeping in it.

Was in Manchester a couple of months ago and it was REALLY bad - never seen anything like it

A good friend of mine is a Police officer in Leeds on a small team trying to solve homelessness in the city and all the issues surrounding it. She told me that around 90% of them all have a house and are on benefits etc. They can earn up to £200 a day from begging which is spent on alcohol/drugs. They even get groups of beggars travelling by train every weekend from smaller towns that come into the city on a weekend just to beg then travel back on a Sunday night.
She says they work to try offer them support with addiction problems but virtually every single one refuses to engage with services available to them.
It seems its more of a lifestyle choice to fund their addictions rather than a case of them not having homes to go to.

It’s normal. Every town has them. Cirens can be found round the back of the church, there is a nice restaurant in town that offer a free hot meal to them once a week.

Yeah, I know that, and, sadly, some homelessness has always been the case.

But in Cardiff we saw a lot. Much more than I've ever seen before.

A good friend of mine is a Police officer in Leeds on a small team trying to solve homelessness in the city and all the issues surrounding it. She told me that around 90% of them all have a house and are on benefits etc. They can earn up to £200 a day from begging which is spent on alcohol/drugs. They even get groups of beggars travelling by train every weekend from smaller towns that come into the city on a weekend just to beg then travel back on a Sunday night.
She says they work to try offer them support with addiction problems but virtually every single one refuses to engage with services available to them.
It seems its more of a lifestyle choice to fund their addictions rather than a case of them not having homes to go to.

None of this is true.

I'm not in (Edinburgh) centre enough to see it, and was pretty shocked to see it in Pimlico on a Sundy morning recently.

Anyways according to Brokenshire, it's due to family breakdown, not austerity or Universal Credit or any other Tory policy.

None of this is true.

From my experience and working with social services and the police it does happen. However, homeless has increased in the last 3 to 5 years or more due to world events that is not linked to the above statement. Homeless is a complicated issue, it differs from town to town and I agree general sweeping statements don't work but I do think the above is true in some towns.

My experience comes from 20 years of benefit fraud investigating.

A big problem with my area is subletting properties. We home them, they rent it out for cash. They go back out on the street as they do get a lot of hand outs, both food and money. I interviewed one man who said he felt safer on the streets than in the house of multiple occupation we put him in. That's a scary thought!

We've also found that profitable spots are fiercely defended.

When I go to Quarry house in Leeds (the dwp head quarters in my area) I often see tents on the grass outside the building. From the train to the office I counted 18 rough sleepers last time.

I changed my outlook on life a long time ago. You should always look at what you do have, not what you don't have.

sleeping rough at minus 5 this time of year must be horrendous. Makes you think.

Working the streets of central London put you in close proximity to the homelessness problem. No single reason, runaways, drinkers, drug users, mental health, poverty, bankruptcy, immigrants, long term, temporary, passing through. One of the most surreal things was a fantastic summers morning, going into Russell Square to witness a huge amount of rough sleepers, asleep, waking, on the grass, all weary, like a mass STW bivy out. Funny how other city users can't see them, step over them on their door step to get into work & then phone 999, when a gentle wake up call & maybe the offer of a cup of tea would be much more civilized. Used to chat most days with a guy in Phoenix Gardens, very educated & I'd guess a very high IQ, but likely on a spectrum of some kind / mental health issues, no way you'd get him inside four walls. Some you can reach, some you can't. Most surprising thing to my naievity was that you can't access a hostel unless your known to them on that patch. Specific services, such as the Soho podiatry clinic for the homeless shows the chronic situation which with more austerity, can only get worse More homelessness. More empty homes. 🤔

It has definitely got a lot worse in Bristol in the last few years. It’s a desperate situation and really sad to see.

None of this is true.

Quite.

We work with the Huggard Centre in Cardiff so get a bit more of an insight than "my fictional mate is a copper and they're all rich really and laughing at us".

http://www.huggard.org.uk

Homelessness in Cardiff (and lots of other places) has grown massively in recent years, reasons vary but if you wanted to point a finger then austerity and local government spending cuts would be a good place to start.

But more than the growth in homelessness, the reason you see it more now is the tents. Rather than tucked in doorways covered in whatever they can find the new homeless (who aren't all drunks and junkies these days) have been given tents, a more visual reminder of the gaps in our society now.

It worth remembering that when all this Brexit shit is resolved, however that may be, the current government brought in small tax cuts for most of us, bigger tax cuts for the few at the same time as more people than in decades sleep rough.

It seems to be a city problem, I was in London, Edinburgh and Brighton and the level of homelessness was high. There is a chap living under a railway bridge in sw london that does have a flat though as I know the landlord. Anecdotal evidence maybe, but begging in affluent areas apparently pays well.

Truly shocking to see people sleeping in freezing conditions.

A good friend of mine is a Police officer in Leeds on a small team trying to solve homelessness in the city and all the issues surrounding it. She told me that around 90% of them all have a house and are on benefits etc. They can earn up to £200 a day from begging which is spent on alcohol/drugs. They even get groups of beggars travelling by train every weekend from smaller towns that come into the city on a weekend just to beg then travel back on a Sunday night.
She says they work to try offer them support with addiction problems but virtually every single one refuses to engage with services available to them.
It seems its more of a lifestyle choice to fund their addictions rather than a case of them not having homes to go to.

The 'Good friend of mine' tale does have a whiff of daily Mail about it.

Definite increase in London. I had a friend over from the States recently who was shocked at the number of homeless now. She lived in London for 14 years previously.

Well things should get better..... oh wait....

The amount around Charing cross is ridiculous now, they were feeding the poor buggers the other day and the line stretched for hundr ds of meters.

It resembles a refugee scene......

Utterly mental for this to be happening in a developed nation - even my missus was shocked and she had friends who grew up in the slums of Manilla, had a friend who was kidnapped at gunpoint and used to travel in an armoured car.

You don't line up around the block for shity soup if you're a fake beggar. Whilst an ex friend of mine worked as a benefits caseworker and actively enjoyed ****ing people over, she then joined the police. She's working class as well.

All the people who think I'm talking bollocks: please feel free to offer the homeless your spare rooms to alleviate the problem.

I don't have a spare room buddy, studio flat etc. But I do contribute to charity.

The working classes are very very good at eating each other, by voting for Tory governments...because...immigrants and work dodgers

All the people who think I’m talking bollocks: please feel free to offer the homeless your spare rooms to alleviate the problem.

Comedy gold.

We know you are we don't think you are.

Tory Britain Innit, the a loads of ghetto camps springing up on roundabouts, under flyovers and in parks around Cardiff and Newport. The more prevalent these become the harder I see it to get rid of/solve the problem, before you know it it's all District 9 or Children of Men.

My wife used to pass this guy quite often on her way to work, usually outside her office. She’d say hello and give him a couple of quid.

She was disturbed to read this last night and will now think twice about engaging with people on the street

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-47045693

Homelessness has definitely risen in the UK over the last ten years.

When I left the UK and my adopted home town of Chelmsford, Essex, I can't recall anyone ever sleeping rough. I'm sure there were a few but not in any noticeable scale.

Now the High Street has lots of people filling the doorways of shops.

And Chelmsford is just some shitty provincial town, not a major metropolis.

Whilst an ex friend of mine worked as a benefits caseworker and actively enjoyed **** people over

Clarification on this - your friend was, for whatever reason, telling porkies and over-stating her autonomy.

A good friend of mine is a Police officer in Leeds on a small team trying to solve homelessness in the city and all the issues surrounding it. She told me that around 90% of them all have a house and are on benefits etc. They can earn up to £200 a day from begging which is spent on alcohol/drugs. They even get groups of beggars travelling by train every weekend from smaller towns that come into the city on a weekend just to beg then travel back on a Sunday night.
She says they work to try offer them support with addiction problems but virtually every single one refuses to engage with services available to them.
It seems its more of a lifestyle choice to fund their addictions rather than a case of them not having homes to go to.

From my experience and working with social services and the police it does happen.

I thought it was a myth until 3 weeks ago. A couple with a regular spot in an underpass in a nearby town were victims of arson when they left their kit unattended. Because of the exposure of that crime it transpired they both had a home. They also had recent criminal records and big drug habits. The reason their kit was left unattended at night was because they were both on tags and had to be home for their curfew. (Indeed, you can't be released on a tag unless you have a home.)

So it's happened once. Maybe it's happened more than once.

Notice this more and more on my trips back to the UK, I expect its a combination of factors though drugs and mental health issues would probably be some of the main factors.
I speak from limited experience of this as a cousin has recently be 'sectioned' (not sure of the correct term) after he went through a bit of a bad patch which at one stage had him living in a tent on the outskirts of Swindon. I also have a relative who works for a homeless charity in Camberley, which is as middle class an area as you can get and it seems to be a growing issue there.
Now living in a place with some of the highest gaps between poverty and wealth in the world, accompanied by it being one of the most expensive places in the world for property but I am surprised by all of this as I never see the level of homelessness/beggers as I do when back in the UK (ironically we do have an issue with European 'beg-packers').

The Leeds thing does happen, and it is well know that they do their daily commute by train to do their begging.

That aside, yes I think the genuine number of homeless is rising.

But it doesn’t matter does it because the government books are nearly balanced. And no it’s not just Tory policy.

I thought it was a myth until 3 weeks ago. A couple with a regular spot in an under

It is a myth. Yes there may be the odd one but 90% is utter bollocks.

But it doesn’t matter does it because the government books are nearly balanced.

Is my sarcasmometer failing me?

We've had 2 homeless people die in less than 6 months in my town. The population is only 60,000. The zero & 20 hours contracts are partly to blame. Working people living on the streets is just plain wrong ☹️

It's increased dramatically here in Bristol over the past 4 to 5 years. Shockingly increased.

On my bike commute through Bristol I used to see maybe 1 person begging on the street, now I see dozens, I see dozens of tents/makeshift shelters on every single patch of green deserted space in the city year round. The Fountains and Queen's Square is probably the only spots not used. Those are just the ones you can see from the path/road in plain sight on my single route.

Dozens of vans parked on residential or back streets obviously being lived in around St Werburghs and St Agnes. Some folk in Caravans parked up on the road as well. I've seen a few that have been torched too.

A very sad indictment of our society. Even if you're forced to live in a vehicle or sleep rough, you can't escape being hassled.

Seems appropriate to plug this charity for anyone who might have some decent kit which could be donated, especially helpful in the bitter cold at the moment. Collection bins are generally located at indoor climbing walls and we're trying to get them set up in more towns and cities for local collection and distribution.

Clarification on this – your friend was, for whatever reason, telling porkies and over-stating her autonomy

Apparently there were plenty of loopholes in their systems and procedures that they could exploit to help people they liked and piss off people they disliked.

Even if she was, the attitude is psychologically enlightening.

It’s a European problem - the numbers of people who are homeless in Hungary and Poland are crazy - I was very surprised to see the increase in numbers on my recent trips there.

In London around 60% of the homeless are foreign nationals. A good number of these have been repatriated at our expense but return to the uk anyway - in some cases multiple times.

At the end of the day the statutory duty to provide accommodation acts as a magnet and makes the problem worse - Channel 4 recently showed a Romanian family who came here with a clear understanding of how to work the benefits system to secure accommodation - the whole family had a house in Birmingham within a week of arrival. In the same circumstances I would probably make the same decisions but there is a very big issue for country when we already have so many people waiting for housing and around 200,000 more people arriving here each year than we can realistically build accommodation for (let alone the cost of doing this).

From my experience and working with social services and the police it does happen.

I thought it was a myth until 3 weeks ago. A couple with a regular spot in an under [snip]

It is a myth.

I know of one instance of it happening.

Not just the UK....though agree it is much worse these days.
San Francisco has a truly shocking homeless problem. I visited a friend who has lived there for 50 years and had not been there for a decade and I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. There are whole residential streets that are filled with tents and homeless in areas that are pretty gentrified. Property prices, gentrification, wealth gap to blame apparently. My pal said it had just gotten ridiculous in the last 5 years. Probably the same in other major us cities.

I'm sure there are some people taking the piss. But I'm equally sure there are plenty of people who aren't.

But as above, the problem has increased hugely in recent years. I wonder why?

**** the Tories.

European problem

Why is it a European problem, if Germany are able to restrict benefits for EU migrants for upto 5 years?

Lewis75 Member

A good friend of mine is a Police officer in Leeds on a small team trying to solve homelessness in the city and all the issues surrounding it. She told me that around 90% of them all have a house and are on benefits etc. They can earn up to £200 a day from begging which is spent on alcohol/drugs. They even get groups of beggars travelling by train every weekend from smaller towns that come into the city on a weekend just to beg then travel back on a Sunday night.
She says they work to try offer them support with addiction problems but virtually every single one refuses to engage with services available to them.
It seems its more of a lifestyle choice to fund their addictions rather than a case of them not having homes to go to.

How does a police officer solve homelessness? I'm intrigued...!!!!

A lifestyle choice? I'm intrigued.....!!!!!!!

Gangs of beggars swarming in by train at the weekends......!!!! Maybe they're going to soccer match with their £200 a day...!!!!!

*shakes head and wanders off to ERGtrackworld*

I’m sure there are some people taking the piss.

Are they taking the piss? I used to pass the couple in my post above daily. They never claimed to be homeless. They just sat there with sleeping bags and a coffee cup for money and people chucked it in. I'm not sure they were doing anything wrong by just sitting there.

They might have been doing other things that were wrong, but that's a different issue.

Apparently there were plenty of loopholes in their systems and procedures that they could exploit to help people they liked and piss off people they disliked.

Even if she was, the attitude is psychologically enlightening.

Not the case either - but the type of person that says that kind of thing, as you say, is the worry - just don't believe the pap they come out with.

I do think this is a much more complex issue than is often presented. In particular the idea that because someone is begging they must be homeless seems a bit outdated to me. They may have a ‘home’ but still feel the need to supplement their income. Whilst it’s laudable I do feel a little uncomfortable with the number of charities in this sector, as it doesn’t address the root cause.

I meant “European problem” in the context of a significant rise in homelessness across many EU member states - interestingly some of the largest increases have been in countries that haven’t had “austerity” which would seem to point to root causes that are borderless e.g.

- access to drugs / mental health issues linked to this
- family breakdown
- migration
- difficulty in helping the homeless. ( irrespective of the funding and tremendous investment of time and effort from the many amazing volunteer organisations).

“Fake” homelessness is a real thing though - see link below. But when I can see people who’ve clearly been sleeping in hedges all night when I walk through local parks early in the morning there are clearly many genuine homeless people for whom the available help isn’t enough.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33729766

Not the case either – but the type of person that says that kind of thing, as you say, is the worry – just don’t believe the pap they come out with.

Good to know.

Don't get me wrong either, most coppers are decent people - I see the MET regularly helping homeless people and chatting in a friendly manner with them.

Must be crap to sign up with a genuine intention of wanting to help people and then feel so powerless in the face of huge social issues like this - and be reminded of that on a daily basis.

timborg160,

What are the name(s) of the charities you are "uncomfortable" with and what makes you so "uncomfortable"? How many do you see?

I completely agree with you regarding the complexities of homelessness.