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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
The beginning of a new reality in what will soon be the former "first world" countries. -
Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
how much Prince Will wedding-related expences cost the tax-payers, I suppose the tourist returns made it a good investment...Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HM7ukw_kraU"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HM7ukw_kraU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object> </div></div>
Please God, don't make me have to live there until I'm ready...
I was talking to friend in property development and he was telling me how people can't afford to buy anymore...
One of the richest countries in the world...
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
This is a bit surprising considering England's social structure? Well, so much for social programs.Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: J kid</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This is a bit surprising considering England's social structure? Well, so much for social programs. </div></div>
It's becoming more and more like the USA every day.Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'"><span style="color: #FF0000">U.S. Cities Criminalize Homelessness, Violate Human Rights Agreements</span></span>
The challenges poor and homeless Americans often face accessing clean drinking water and restroom facilities violate international human rights standards, according to a report issued by a United Nations investigator this month.[/b]
Catarina de Albuquerque, a U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, visited the United States in late February at the invitation of the U.S. government.
<span style="font-weight: bold">She found homeless individuals around the country not only struggle to access running water and restroom facilities but increasingly face criminal and civil sanctions when they improvise solutions.
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<span style="font-weight: bold">The right to safe drinking water and restroom facilities is a part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The U.N. report's findings detail just a few of the ways that U.S. cities and counties are failing to meet these obligations because of how they opt to deal with homelessness, said Eric Tars, human rights program director at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.</span>
The most recent federal homeless count data available is from January 2010. It shows there were 700,000 individuals in the U.S. who were homeless. The Department of Housing and Urban Development report found that homelessness grew very little between 2009 and 2010. But the share of families who lack a place to sleep continued the rapid expansion that began during the recession. <span style="font-weight: bold">Between 2007 and 2010, the number of homeless families grew by 20 percent.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">The nation's elevated unemployment rate and the large number of foreclosures have increased demand just as municipal and state budget problems have led to a reduction in services available to the poor and homeless. As a result, many communities -- in particular suburban communities where services for the homeless are often nonexistent -- are confronting an increasingly visible homeless population forced to sleep in city parks or take up residence in one of a growing number of tent cities, Tars said.</span>
Some cities have begun to regulate tent cities issuing temporary permits that allow churches or other organizations to host the homeless for few months. But in many more cities, developers, business district boosters and city councils have clashed with the homeless, encouraging police to issue more frequent tickets for violations such as sleeping in public, loitering, littering or public urination and defecation, Tars said.
<span style="font-weight: bold">This year, in Sacramento, Calif., city efforts to discourage homeless individuals and families from taking shelter in a growing tent city have included shutting off the water supply to nearby a fountain and locking or removing public restroom facilities, he said. A spokesperson for the city of Sacramento did not immediately return request for comment Friday.</span>
In 2009, Sacramento drew national attention when the "Oprah Winfrey Show" aired a segment describing the number of newly homeless people moving into that city's homeless encampments, said Amy Williams, spokeswoman for the city manager's office. But the city has not had problems with homeless individuals misusing public facilities and has not shuttered restrooms of cut water to fountains, she said. In 2009, Sacramento did temporarily close its park restrooms because of a budget problem. At that time, at least one city park's restrooms were not reopened due to community complaints about the homeless, the Sacramento Press reported.
<span style="font-weight: bold">In 2009, a Gainesville, Fla., a developer convinced the city to begin enforcing a nearly 20-year-old ordinance barring some social service agencies from distributing more than 130 meals per day. For two years, one downtown shelter was forced to turn homeless individuals away from its soup kitchen line.</span> The city changed the policy this month to allow soup kitchens to serve an unlimited number of meals during a limited number of hours each day.
<span style="font-weight: bold">In 2007 Los Angeles began an initiative to reduce crime downtown, leading police to issue thousands of citations to homeless individuals for things such as flicking the ash from a cigarette onto the sidewalk (cited as littering) to urinating or drinking in public, said Tars. Those citations have been overwhelmingly issued to poor and homeless black people, he said. <span style="color: #FF0000">When downtown art gallery crawls bring to the area upper-income city residents who frequently walk from one gallery to another with full wine glasses in hand, police do not take action, he said</span></span>.
In 2009, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty issued a study of the crackdown and others like it around the country that named Los Angeles the No. 1 "meanest city" for its treatment of the homeless. A spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called the report "short-sighted and misleading" at the time, Reuters reported.
<span style="font-weight: bold">"Rather than doing good things like providing more housing, more shelter, more assistance, cities are using these measures to push problems out of view," said Tars.</span>
Tars said the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty is planning a series of cases to challenge ordinances that criminalize activities -- such as using the restroom, sleeping or accessing water -- that can not be avoided or handled in private if a person is homeless.
<span style="color: #FF0000"><span style="font-weight: bold">"What this [U.N.] report will allow us to do is go into court and argue that these laws violate international standards and amount to what a U.N. investigator said was cruel and unusual punishment," Tars sa</span>id.</span>
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: J kid</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This is a bit surprising considering England's social structure? Well, so much for social programs. </div></div>
It's becoming more and more like the USA every day. </div></div>
Wrong, the USA is becoming more like Europe. Obama wants to emulate Europe as it pertains to Socialism. Europe is bankrupt because of Socialism. Eventually you run out of other peoples money. There is no such thing as a free ride. Socialism does not work.
It never has and never will.Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Socialism does not work.
It never has and never will. </div></div>
Not totally disagreeing with you but capitalism in its purest form does not work either, except for the small percentage of the people that hold most of the wealth.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Every</span> human being IMHO should have the right to a few items and services.
<span style="font-style: italic">Clean drinking water, enough calories a day as not to suffer from malnutrition, basic medical care, a monthly allowance to purchase items to maintain their health and inclusion in society (to purchase things like toiletries and clothes etc...) ,a roof over their head and a basic education as to afford them the opportunity to gain employment.</span>Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Wrong, the USA is becoming more like Europe. Obama wants to emulate Europe as it pertains to Socialism. Europe is bankrupt because of Socialism. Eventually you run out of other peoples money. There is no such thing as a free ride. Socialism does not work.
It never has and never will. </div></div>The UK and the rest of Europe for that matter all have capitalist economies.Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Not totally disagreeing with you but capitalism in its purest form does not work either, except for the small percentage of the people that hold most of the wealth </div></div>
I agree, unchecked capitalism does not work. This is where the governments responsibilty lies, but it's a fine line. Capitalism like water eventually seeks its level.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Every human being IMHO should have the right to a few items and services </div></div>
Again, I agree, but what we see in the US is decades and generations of dependency on social services. Welfare or social services before retirement should only be a safety net... when times are good and the economy is booming there are those that are able bodied that stay on the services.Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'"><span style="font-size: 14pt">Homelessness could spread to middle class, Crisis study warns</span></span>
Homelessness charity points to direct link between economic downturn and welfare cuts, and rising numbers living on streets
Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editor
The Guardian, Wednesday 31 August 2011
<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-size: 8pt">A homeless man sleeps in a doorway in central London. The number of people sleeping rough in Britain has risen for the first time in a decade. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters</span></span>
The economic downturn and the government's deep cuts to welfare will drive up homelessness over the next few years, raising the spectre of middle class people living on the streets, a major study warns.
The report by the homelessness charity Crisis, seen by the Guardian, says there is a direct link between the downturn and rising homelessness as cuts to services and draconian changes to benefits shred the traditional welfare safety net.
In the 120-page study, co-authored by academics at the University of York and Heriot-Watt University, Crisis highlights figures released over the summer that show councils have reported 44,160 people accepted as homeless and placed in social housing, an increase of 10% on the previous year and the first increase in almost a decade.
Last year another 189,000 people were also placed in temporary accommodation – such as small hotels and B&Bs – to prevent them from becoming homeless, an increase of 14% on the previous year.
Crisis says that with no sign of economic recovery in sight, there are already signs that homelessness is returning to British streets. In London, rough sleeping, the most visible form of homelessness, rose by 8% last year. Strikingly, more than half of the capital's 3,600 rough sleepers are now not British citizens: most are migrants from eastern Europe who cannot find work and, unable to get benefits or return home, are left to fend for themselves on the streets.
The charity says the evidence is that the current recession has seen the poor suffer the most, but other parts of society may be in jeopardy if the government's radical welfare agenda is acted on as the economy stutters.
"Any significant reduction of the welfare safety net in the UK as a result of coalition reforms may, of course, bring the scenario of middle-class homelessness that much closer," the report states.
The charity says that the government needs to reverse cuts to housing benefit and invest urgently in new housing. It also calls on ministers to withdraw the most radical provisions in the localism bill, which would make "temporary accommodation" for needy families just that. Under the new legislation, councils would be forced to remove parents and children who have been in a hotel for a year. At present the assistance is open-ended.
There is also an alarming trend in what the charity calls the "hidden homeless" – families forced to squeeze into one room rather than a flat. It says 630,000 households are now "overcrowded", with London and the south-east the worst hit. This trend could worsen: this summer a survey by the National Landlords Association found more than half of private landlords were planning to reduce the number of properties they let to tenants on housing benefits. Crisis says more families will be forced to share an ever decreasing number of homes.
In a separate report, Channel 4 News will broadcast further evidence that official figures underestimate the true picture of homelessness. In Crawley, West Sussex, the Open House hostel said it turned away people needing a bed almost 2,000 times last year, although official figures estimate there are just seven homeless people in the town. Two-thirds of homelessness organisations nationwide told Channel 4 there had been a rise in rough sleeping in their area.
Leslie Morphy, Crisis's chief executive, said: "We are extremely worried. Homelessness in both its visible and hidden forms is already rising and as the economic downturn causes further increases in unemployment and pressure on households' finances, homelessness is likely to continue to rise. This research is clear that it is the welfare and housing systems in the UK that traditionally have broken the link between unemployment and poverty and homelessness, yet these are now being radically dismantled by the coalition government. The government must listen and change course before this flow of homeless people becomes a flood."
Crisis argues that instead of doubling its efforts to end the "scandal" of homelessness, the government is in effect making it impossible for those on low incomes to pay their rent. It says in the past British welfare policy, unlike that in the US, has linked housing benefit to actual rents. But the government's changes break this link and mean that claimants will be priced out of swaths of the country – or end up on the streets in wealthy regions.
The report also says the government's "affordable" house-building regime is likely to generate fewer than 50,000 homes by 2015, "well short of the 80,000 required to meet ministers' targets". Gone will be the lifetime tenancies offered by councils which had to give priority to those in need. Instead, under new powers, local authorities will be able to choose families with "local connections".
With the coalition's welfare reform bill heading to the Lords and MPs voting on the localism bill next week, Labour said Crisis's warnings were a "timely reminder of a looming homeless catastrophe". Karen Buck, Labour's welfare spokesperson, said the government had played down the rising number of people who thanks to the economic downturn were forced to rely on housing benefit.
She said that since the government took power another 150,000 families had been forced on to housing benefit. "The numbers relying on housing benefit to help with housing costs have been soaring. These figures include not just the unemployed but hundreds of thousands of working families. Rising rents, benefit cuts and housing shortages risk a homeless catastrophe will with all the associated human and financial costs."
The Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Ministers have always made clear their commitment to ensure the most vulnerable in society are protected, which is why the government is investing £400m in preventing homelessness, and has announced plans to extend the London project, No Second Night Out, across the country so no one spends more than one night sleeping rough.
"But the most important thing the government can do to help struggling households to stay in their homes is to keep interest rates low, and to do that we must cut the deficit. That is why we are introducing reforms that will cut the housing benefit bill. But to ensure a smooth transition to this new system, the government is giving councils a £190m fund to help those families most in need.
"Far from the claims made by Crisis, the government's £4.5bn affordable homes programme is set to exceed expectations and deliver up to 170,000 affordable homes by 2015."
<span style="font-size: 8pt">© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.</span>
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Not totally disagreeing with you but capitalism in its purest form does not work either, except for the small percentage of the people that hold most of the wealth </div></div>
I agree, unchecked capitalism does not work. This is where the governments responsibilty lies, but it's a fine line. Capitalism like water eventually seeks its level.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Every human being IMHO should have the right to a few items and services </div></div>
Again, I agree, but what we see in the US is decades and generations of dependency on social services. Welfare or social services before retirement should only be a safety net... when times are good and the economy is booming there are those that are able bodied that stay on the services. </div></div>
yet the good old capitalist US economy crashed in 1929---
BEFORE there was a welfare state...why didn't the god-like invisible hand of capitalism step in to save the holy grail of capitalism?
because ALL these isms & schisms are only as good as the vision of the people behind them...
american capitalism is now bankrupt from greed & corruption, therefore no better than any other type of 'unchecked' ismComment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
I agree with you JY.....as long as there are greedy, corrupt individuals behind the wheels of capitalism, the wealth will be one-sided and the economy as well as the working/middle class will suffer....
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">yet the good old capitalist US economy crashed in 1929---
BEFORE there was a welfare state...why didn't the god-like invisible hand of capitalism step in to save the holy grail of capitalism?
because <span style="font-weight: bold">ALL these isms & schisms are only as good as the vision of the people behind them...</span><span style="font-weight: bold">american capitalism is now bankrupt from greed & corruption</span>, therefore no better than any other type of 'unchecked' ism </div></div>Comment
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Re: Homelessness on the rise in the UK
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
It's becoming more and more like the USA every day. </div></div>
Wrong, the USA is becoming more like Europe. Obama wants to emulate Europe as it pertains to Socialism. Europe is bankrupt because of Socialism. Eventually you run out of other peoples money. There is no such thing as a free ride. Socialism does not work.
It never has and never will. </div></div>
I was referring to the thread topic: <span style="font-weight: bold">Homelessness on the rise in the UK </span> and not the Left (or is it Right?) wing isms that's causing it.
<span style="font-size: 8pt">
Right, back to my holiday...</span>
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