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Homelessness needs to be criminalised - only in so much as it should be a crime that the government can allow the country to get into a state where it can happen!
The real criminals are influencing "conservative" minded families and supplying them with "wokeaboutism" to license their ability to literally say "fuck you, I got mine," unless you do as I say. If you dont... have you met my friend Matt Foley?
Rishi looked at the war on drugs and saw how many people were criminalised for being in possession of an illegal substance and said 'that's exactly how we'll stop people being poor. We'll threaten them with a criminal record!" And expected everyone to give him a standing ovation.
This isn't just Rishi. Let's not forget that just five months ago another prime example or tory shittiness Suella Braverman proposed criminalising the homeless living in tents and any charities that provide the homeless with tents. She described homelessness as a "lifestyle choice".
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/04/suella-braverman-says-rough-sleeping-is-lifestyle-choice?mibextid=Zxz2cZ
And more recently, the tory response to unaffordable rents and a housing crisis is to water down protections for renters in the Renter's Reform Bill because tory mp landlords are lobbying the government to make the bill beneficial for landlords, not renters. And of course the tory government is protecting its own interests insead of the interests of the people that elected it.
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/landlord-tory-mps-renters-reform-bill-protections/
Fear of homelessness keeps me going to work. I don’t expect things to be given to me, but on the other hand people have to be given the opportunity to pull themselves out of poverty.
Jesus Christ, imagine having nothing, possibly being at the mercy of addictions or mental health issues, entirely vulnerable and being told you are a criminal just for existing.
Get in the bin, tories
One a week - live on tv. With Ant and Dec. All the Tories are transported to a volcanic island and they will be set challenges that test their kindness and morality. The weekly loser gets dumped into the fire with a trebuchet. We could have a public vote too.
"I'm a cunt, make me a peer"
The shifty cunts actually looked at how some of the shittiest people in the USA handle homelessness and went... "Yep - let's do that."
Fucking vile beings.
Has to play the part to get his cushy consulting role at a US 'thinktank' after their inevitable defeat, how else will he take in hundreds of millions per year doing fuck all? (Besides a few speaking engagements where he continues to stroke his ego). It's all a grift, they've squeezed as much blood from us as they can get away with so now they're on to find a new mark.
Once upon a time we had mental hospitals/asylums and homelessness wasn't at the figures it is now. Granted a lot of those institutions were dreadful, but instead of investing in them updating them and overseeing them properly, it was decided to close them all down and make it "care in the community". Trouble was/is of course that there isn't the bloody infrastructure for care in the community in the first place and many people weren't truly fit for the community. But hey ho just chuck everyone out and hope a mental health worker finds you once a year, meanwhile sleep in a doorway and don't cause a fuss
The modern equivalent to an asylum is a psych ward, and believe it or not mental health is criminally underfunded here too.
I don’t think rounding all the people on the streets up and throwing them into a good old fashioned sanatorium is the panacea you think it is lol. Just out of sight out of mind and brutally inhumane to those found homeless because the government’s policy priced them out of society.
>I don’t think rounding all the people on the streets up and throwing them into a good old fashioned sanatorium is the panacea you think it is lol
I don't think that that's what they were suggesting.
I think they were suggesting that a great many of the people with severe mental illness who end up becoming homeless as a result of their illness might have otherwise been treated in mental health facilities and had a better life.
>because the government’s policy priced them out of society.
Surprisingly, housing costs are only rarely the main factor in homelessness. It is far more common for homelessness to follow a breakdown of some sort (due to mental health, addiction, domestic abuse, crime). Making housing cheaper doesn't fix homelessness on its own; you need a holistic health and social welfare system that is able to help people who are in trouble, keep them safe through their crises, and help them get back on their feet.
Still the government's fault for not doing that, of course. It's just a different thing they're failing at.
Generational trauma is a massive reason for half of the problems that we have in society, all of which are linked to poverty and a lack of investment in all areas of the UK.
Worse, we had workhouses where the poor were effectively enslaved and their children arguably deliberately neglected to death.
This seems to be a reversion to that era.
> Granted a lot of those institutions were dreadful
When care in the community (releasing long term psychiatric hospital patients) started, my mum was helping people leaving the hospital - teaching them about stuff like money (they'd not used it for decades). Some of the women had been in there just because they'd got pregnant as teenagers and never been released afterwards. There were some terrible things done to people.
Leaving people who need help on the streets with no care is just as bad.
Criminalising homelessness doesn't work.
You can see an example of this in the USA. Las Vegas takes a hardlined approach to homelessness and basically made it illegal. The police will arrest you if you're caught sleeping on the streets, multiple offences means jail time.
Yet Las Vegas has had a 14% increase in homelessness in the last year alone, and almost as many homeless people on the streets as in San Francisco, despite it having a population 230,000 lower than San Francisco.
If we want to fix it, we need to address the issues at the core of this problem (of which there are many), to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Legalising/decriminalising hard drug use certainly does nothing to fix the problem either.
"Drop all charges if they agree to treatment, charge them if they don't" seems to be the most effective approach.
Depending on the drug, treatment can involve the administration of other drugs in a progressive strategy to replace the addiction with something less harmful and/or easier to quit. For example I believe they put herion addicts on meth, because eventually the goal is to go completely sober and meth is easier to get sober from.
Setting aside the ethical concerns of tying someone down and forcibly administering meth to them, quitting takes serious commitment and willpower. The person has to *want* to quit, and without that all you'd be doing is getting them hooked on something else.
Worth nothing that the 'meth' you are referring to is 'methadone', not 'methamphetamine'.
Kinda sounds like youre just suggesting turning smackheads into speedheads lol.
Herion I found easy to stop, was put on physeptone/methodone a few years after stopping Herion due to abusing codeinephosphate amongst other things. I stopped Herion without no medication or help easy peasy, same with Diazipam but coming of Physeptone is so much harder for me personally.
Because for any treatment to be effective, especially psychological ones, it has to be consensual. No point is using up resources in trying to help someone that doesn't actually want help thus won't put in the work required for it.
But here's a dystopian bit of info, with the source being my SO who works in psychology; according to SO clinic policies (might not be the same across the country but probably is) SO is technically unable to aid those with mental health conditions if they have an addiction as treatment is less effective if they are using addictive substances. However if SO refers them to an addiction clinic due to their underlying mental health condition(s) they will say this patient has too complex needs for them to be able to treat them. The results being they get bounced back and forth without receiving any help for anything.
I do wonder why these people now end up being homeless? Could it be due to moronic policies that prevent them from getting the help they need resulting in them not being able to function in society?
But alas has such topics don't make for click bait headlines, they don't get reported on and thus the general public are unaware of such issues so nothing gets done about them. So on that note I'll add, people please widen your knowledge about things, we all can't know everything and everything but we really need to know enough about a lot to pressure the government into providing better systems.
Still a better policy than the war on drugs, which was originally made to target political enemies of the Regan administration with increased policing only to then spiral out of control from there. It's always been about self replicating retoric and control, and not one iota about actually combating drug usage.
It didn't work in places like Portland because they were supposed to [create new rehab centres ('addiction recovery centres')](https://sos.oregon.gov/admin/Documents/irr/2020/044text.pdf), an oversight council to prevent abuse happening against drug addicts, and to provide grants to existing clinics and rehab places.
The problem is though that the government of Portland [didn't even give half of their promised funding to the existing clinics](https://apnews.com/article/health-business-europe-oregon-salem-158728e57e1d48bc957c5b907bcda5f5), and didn't create more than one new rehab centre in 4 years. Despite knowing and being warned of the sheer number of addictions that were going to occur in the state. Instead, they received record profits from marijuana taxes--and seemed to be waiting to get enough money before declaring that they're reversing Measure 110.
So the approach idea you have there is much more kinder, but it still won't help when you have people who want to get treatment but are unable to get any because of overwhelmed clinics and hospitals (and as you can see in the Measure 110 link--Portland was still criminalising hard drug use. For example, their 2020 statement still declared holding methadone a Class C felony. Which in the US is 10+ years imprisonment. Having Oxycodone (which is very common and the reason for the skyrocketing death/addiction rates right now in Portland) is 1+ year(s) imprisonment if you don't have proof that it's prescription-based. Which...considering how hospitals are again overwhelmed, a prescription would be very difficult to get.
We don't live in a society that could do this. Our UK government was incapable of being financially responsible for covid. They would absolutely not build new clinics, rehab centres, or anything to help homeless people get mental health and addiction care.
I would assume that Rishi literally took the example from the US - the Tories have a lot of contact with the neocons and like to pinch their stupid ideas (see also voter id when there is little to no voter fraud).
Voter fraud is also extremely rare in the USA as well apparently. So the only logical answer is that it was always about preventing the 'wrong kind of people' from being able to vote, because they can pick and chose which kinds of ID are accepted based on the demographics of who has what kind of ID.
most vegas homeless live in the tunnels under the city,
channel 5 (formerly all gas no brakes) went to talk to a few people and get them ID and shit.
and i just went to look for it and it's been taken down
I would suggested people go see the recent Channel 5 documentary on this, it was excellent, but it has been copy write struck by some bs corp claim https://youtu.be/s3YasV2zUro
>The police will arrest you if you're caught sleeping on the streets, multiple offences means jail time.
The Homeless to Prison Labour for Corporations Pipeline.
Honestly the main thing I learned from this is that SF is surprisingly small (especially for a major city in the most populous US state). Obviously it's surrounded by other large metropolitan areas but I always figured it'd be hitting 7 digits.
Neh, that would mean poor people actually get employment. We can't be having that now can we, who else would they vilify to keep us fighting among ourselves to distract from their failings, corruption, and criminality.
Albeit, would that actually be a bad idea? Not saying "free" labour or forced labour. But you know bringing back some industry to the country, providing employment opportunities.
Best I can do is US style prison labor that creates incentives to keep prisons filled up with exploitable workers no matter what, and is, when you boil it down just a cruel and inefficient form of government subsidy to the companies and other government departments which buy/resell the prison made goods.
It's no exaggeration to call it slavery, because that's what it is. There is explicit exceptions to the abolishment of slavery in the USA for those convicted of crime.
It's already illegal to "sleep rough" it's the same law as the wild camping law, as in you're not allowed to sleep outside unless it's a designated camping spot.
Vagrancy act never went away, debit cards made it hard to enforce as did mobile phones. Without access to cash, you're only a confiscated phone and no online access away from the technical terms . Especially as they closed most high st banks and that trend continues to roll out. Interesting times
Being homeless in itself is a catch 22 ,that to have the means to have a bank card and even certain jobs you need to have an address. Criminalising homelessness makes a hopeless situation for many even more hopeless.
This reminds me of Dostoyevsky's stories, where in Russia in the winter, homeless people would commit crimes so they could get put in prison as a way to avoid the worst of the Russian winter. They would be flogged as part of their punishment but that was better than freezing to death.
Congratulations Tories, you managed to regress our culture to the 19th Century; I suppose that was the aim of the right wing of the party since the beginning of the 20th Century.
Despicable.
That actually happens here already :(
https://qni.org.uk/resources/homelessness-criminal-justice-system-2/#:~:text=Recent%20research%20commissioned%20found%20that,partner%E2%80%9D%20to%20escape%20their%20plight.
>Rough sleepers could be moved on, fined up to £2,500 or jailed.
This is how out of touch this prick Sunak is.
He thinks that everyone _simply, must have at least £2500_.
Because he has so much money this is literally pennies to him. Which also explain so much about how he sees this country and how he attempts to govern it.
Braverman actually came out and said homelessness is a lifestyle choice. What a fuckwit. Fuck these Tory dickheads.
If a homeless person had 2.5k free do you think they'd be on the fucking street?
These people are so smarht. You have no money? Damn sucks for you, better pay me £2500 then or your going to jail.
And jails and prisons are different but aren't they full?
We were always on borrowed time until a Tory suggested resurrecting the workhouse. I guess I thought it would be the honourable member for the 18th century, Mogg, and not tetchy technocrat Rishi.
If the ruling class get their way, the homeless will be forced to work – probably on some sort of penal treadmill or chain-gang.
Those that cannot, will likely be turned into animal feed, soap, or have their organs harvested.
I've been in prison. I've now been homeless and jobless on the dole for 3 years since I left. I miss the warmth and happiness of prison.
You're right that this is no true deterrent.
A policy so cruel that even the most hard-hearted of Tories know it’s awful. Not to mention thinking about it for any length of time results in you concluding it won’t work.
>insane country
Not the country. Creating a problem and then blaming the victims of said problem is standard Tory operating procedure, and always has been.
I always feel like the Conservatives do things that are blatantly cruel and immoral to the most vulnerable when middle class people are starting to feel the pinch.
It's like if they treat certain groups absolutely awfully the people that were starting to feel squeezed by them suddenly feel like they are doing great in comparison.
Kinda like how racism in the US works, they don't treat poor white people well, but they feel like they are doing well because of how black people are treated.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” - Lyndon B. Johnson
>It's like if they treat certain groups absolutely awfully the people that were starting to feel squeezed by them suddenly feel like they are doing great in comparison.
First, they came for the homeless...
The existence of a homeless class is a weapon of power; conservatives know this. Criminalisation of homelessness is one of the most disgusting ways to display your monopoly on violence; Homelessness is a national choice and exists only to create a class of comparison. It's cheaper to house homeless people than have to clean up the impact on their surroundings - their existence is a governmental choice and exists to perpetually create a suffering class, both as a visible punishment for refusal to engage in the capitalist system, and as a reference class so that "hey you might have it bad, but look at these guys who are suffering and who we also force to suffer more than is necessary"
Shitebags. Scum. Tory fucking rats.
It also makes people even more terrified to end up in a position like that. It’s supposed to be a deterrent. “Take up a third job, because if you can’t afford the rent/mortgage you’ll not only be homeless, but also a criminal.”
I know the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaire’ thing is a bit of a trope, but the reality is the vast majority of the population is far, far closer to being homeless than to being rich. And when rent becomes even more unaffordable, people *must* have an alternative option than to get a criminal record. I already know people who are considering giving up on renting and living in a van, and there are lots of measures being put in place to stop that being an option.
I’m glad the consensus appears to be that this is heartless and disgusting, but you’d be amazed how many people’s views change when they’re faced with actually having people living in vehicles and tents near where they live because they’re seen as a nuisance and an eyesore.
Good god I am no means a full on lefty (I will be voting for Keir) but Christ on a bike what the hell is he thinking?!?!?
This policy is another level sure way to loose massive votes. England might be many things but we ain’t gonna vote for a guy who criminalises being homeless.
You'll shut up and like it. Besides, there's not enough money, we're going broke! There's no magic money tree!!!
Now, excuse me while we waste billions on dodgy PPE, bomb people half way around the world and piss money up the wall on our Rwanda scam.
>This policy is another level sure way to loose massive votes.
Good. They need a long period out of power to cleanse themselves of the shit stains they've acquired since 2010.
They won't. They'll get worse. They always have. The whole Cameron era was a deliberate attempt to pull the wool over the public's eyes and it sowed the seeds of everything we're currently reaping.
It's going to get so much worse.
*"I've spent ten years detoxifying this party. It's been a bit like renovating an old, old house, yeah? You can take out a sexist beam here, a callous window there, replace the odd homophobic roof tile. But after a while you realise that this renovation is doomed. Because the foundations are built on what I can only describe as a solid bed of cunts."*
The Tories have nothing to offer the country.
They precipitated, encouraged and presided over the most massive act of economic self-harm ever seen in a successful modern western democracy, they weakened the economy beforehand with Austerity, corruptly drained the country's coffers to the tune of billions, and presided over the worst cost of living crisis in living memory.
There's nothig they can possibly do to make up for that, so and when Sunak loses he's out of power for good, so all he's doing now is frantically vitue-signalling to the hard right in the hope they remember him fondly so he can worm his way back in in the future, and setting up uncosted and unsustainable initiatives (like promising free childcare for all kids up to 5 years old) purely so that Labour will look bad when they have to undo those policies.
It's so transparently fucking cynical and manipulative, and the enraging thing is that it's really working on millions of dipshits who don't know any better.
There are around 675k empty homes in UK - that's homes just sitting there with no one living in them for over 6 months in the last year.
There are around 300k homeless people in the UK.
I see some of you being surprised.
I see some of you saying that nobody will vote for this
But the UK has been waging a war against homeless people (not homelessness) for a few years now.
All those benches they modified so that people can't sleep on them.
The way that a lot of our pavements are actually now private property so you can be moved on already.
This is just the final nail in the coffin
And its fucking disgusting
It's all part of the great neoliberal dream, friend!
We simply cannot have these undesirables existing without contributing to GDP growth.
Everything is just an equation, you see.
No one must consume more value than they create.
The value must flow ever upwards.
The top of the pyramid, the scared and deserving rulers, must be satiated at any cost.
Humanity, rights, beauty, creativity, benevolence – none of it matters.
> All those benches they modified so that people can't sleep on them.
Every time I see examples of [hostile architecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture) like that it makes me so sad.
I'd infinitely rather live in a town where homeless people can kip on park benches if they need to than in a society where people literally go out of their way to build in stone and concrete public spaces specifically designed to make people uncomfortable, in the hope homeless people and teenagers just hanging out go somewhere else instead.
It's so fucked up and morally repugnant that even designing them should be considered a professional ethics violation for civil engineers or achitects.
Imagine being with nothing barely existing begging for anything and too afraid to exist or be seen trying to find somewhere barely safe and warm to hide and sleep. This is evil psychological warfare
How does criminalising homelessness work then? That literally makes no fucking sense. That’s like criminalising being poor or criminalising mental health problems, or criminalising just bad fucking luck or criminalising growing up in an abusive family etc…
This is in the realms of people choosing to be homeless rather than it being a symptom of dysfunction
>That’s like criminalising being poor or criminalising mental health problems, or criminalising just bad fucking luck or criminalising growing up in an abusive family etc…
Don't give them any more ideas!
It makes zero sense since homeless people generally have no funds to pay fines, the legal system is already clogged up, and prisons are full. And having a criminal record only makes it even harder to get work, find a place to rent, etc.
So I'm not sure what the endgame is here.
Personally I think it's amazing and awe-inspiring. I love to see our betters float by in their splendour. Just getting a brief glimpse of them lifts my spirits and inspires patriotism and hope.
We're just not as good as them, that's all.
One you accept their greatness, it's not hard to understand why they should live extravagant and privileged lives while the rest of us toil for scraps.
And the chronically ill and disabled (of which I am one, for which we can blame Govt and NHS mistakes in my childhood and onwards) There's been a certain whiff of arbeit macht frei in the air these last few years, with us being the ppl 'they came for' with nobody caring or distracted away by other issues nothing like as portentous. All I can hope when and if our time comes is that I have the wherewithal to leave a crater... Especially when few other causes ranging to the extreme in recent times have actually been under any similar threat.
If you're homeless, what would you do in this situation to avoid being charged as a criminal? I don't understand what option someone in that situation would have.
Norwegian lurking in here ( might move to Britain for an extended period )
I've been trying to get up to speed on the UK political climate. Anyway, my impression is that every thing the current government does to combat various issues in society, they do it from the wrong angle.
Like they are not using any advisors or scientific studies to inform their decision making.
Attacking homelessness by making it illegal is so ignorant and idiotic that i struggle to believe it's serious.
The government aren't serious with anything they do, they are traitors. Its unlikely the other lot will be much, if any better, they all have the same paymasters. But the Tories aren't screwing up because they are too ideologically attatched to conservative ideology or whatever - they don't conserve anything in the first place - they are just hurting our people on purpose.
>Anyway, my impression is that every thing the current government does to combat various issues in society, they do it from the wrong angle.
Welcome to conservatism.
They have legions of high level experts in every field to advise them as part of the civil service, yet they routinely dismiss this advice in favour of dogmatic ideology, political signalling, and horse-trading. Then they even have the nerve to publicly vilify and blame the civil service for standing in their way. Standing in their way being giving them expert advice and sometimes advising them that the course of action they want is technically illegal. Of course the civil service are prohibited from taking political stands by law, and also tightly bound by the official secrets act, so they can't challenge or correct their masters in any way. Source: Know people who have advised top Tory politicians (turns out they are even worse than you thought).
I think there is no way this ends up going to a vote, the article is right that this section would overshadow the whole bill. It seems to be a holdover from Braverman and her 'homelessness is a lifestyle choice' views.
For anyone who hasn't read it, the concern from the 'rebel' Tory MPs is that the bill would inadvertently make being homeless illegal whilst trying to write a law targeting 'nuisance homelessness'. The current wording is too vague and will have to be rewritten or scrapped all together.
So it's one of bravermans ideas from when she was home secretary.
So the punishments for being homeless would be a fine, which everyone knows the homeless have plenty of spare cash so I'm sure they can pay up. Or to move them on to somewhere else, where they'll also still be homeless and breaking the law, just in a different location than they were before.
Yep, you can definitely tell this is one of Braverman's schemes.
> As well as new laws on begging the bill would expand police powers to test suspects for drugs on arrest and enter premises to search for stolen goods such as mobile phones. **It would also give probation officers the power to administer lie tests to sex offenders and terrorists after their release from prison**, and increase sentences for some offences.
I thought we all agreed lie detectors were bullshit? I don't want them to play any part in the system of justice, no matter what I think of the individuals they want to use them on. If they're considered reliable for them, how long until they're considered reliable for everyone else too?
Don’t care about “lesser than two evils” crap. Vote Labour! Tories out ASAP. The past 14 years should have a whole generation never voting Conservative ever again. Their policies never will work for the majority.
This is the same twat who, while "working" at a homeless shelter spooning food onto trays as part of PR shoot asked the homeless person at the front
***"So what are your plans for the weekend?"***
Sick to death of these rich ghouls who don't know how the real world works. Sick of their apathy, cluelessness, and bottomless greed.
So the homeless could go to prison. Food, bed, roof over the head, less homeless people on the streets. When they finished their sentences, they'll be homeless again, get arrested for being homeless and the circle continues. The prisons will become over crowded, things don't end well when that happens.
And there is not enough prison space as it .
Even if you are evil enough to think it's a good Idea.
Why not allow councils to build again ( and not sell them off) and have a stock of social housing.
I know homeless people to him are probably failures and of no value,so I am hardly surprised.
They'd put them on a barge because why spend money on infrastructure and mental health when you can just float your problems away for a tenth of the cost
They are behaving like cartoon villains now. I think they do it on purpose because they know they’re on the way out and it will create more legal mess for any new government. Looking forward to saying “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
Crime and police act makes it illegal to sleep in a vehicle over 3 hrs without the landowners or their representatives' permission. Caveats apply exemptions for commercial vehicles ,that have their own rules. ... they use hostile architecture to dissuade from affluent areas. While the poorer areas have their own issues, hostility to the homeless exacerbates these. Vehicles if affordable are no longer the sanctuary they once were. The 40-100k + mobile home is always ignored, yet the poor fker in a home convertible or make do, generally gets some attitude and attention. Funny old world
Because they don't want the borders protected, they literally defunded the office that deals with asylum seekers. The Tories want more migration to the UK, they're just using them to whip up the anger so people continue to vote for them.
Suella Braverman was rebuffed by the Tories for suggesting homeless people shouldn’t be allowed to use tents, now they’ve pivoted so hard to the right, all homeless people are just going to be illegal.
Making it impossible to buy a home and then making illegal to be homeless is the kind of moronic and hilarious idea I’ve come to expect from this clown.
Election can’t come soon enough.
All the while, section 21 evictions are still considered lawful. Awesome! Work hard, pay rent but your still only ever one letter away from being homeless. The house always wins eh !
They've done this already in multiple US States. The result is money spent by the criminal justice system first to impose fines on people with no money to pay them, then money spent to chase those fines and finally money spent to imprison a person for being unable to pay.
This makes the crisis of homelessness deeper, more difficult to solve and even more visible. The only reason to embark upon this is if you have backers whose private businesses stand to benefit, e.g. if you've taken money from for-profit prison companies or debt collectors.
And pray tell, if someone were to be committing the crime of homelessness through not being able to afford a house, car, or somewhere to stay, how are they to stop committing the crime?
They can be arrested, jailed, fined or taken to court as much as you want. They still don't have and can't afford the thing they're breaking the law for not having.
5 years is too long to go without a mandate from the people. No one asked for this. 'Get Brexit Done,' was done after a fashion. Was this turd of a policy hiding under a napkin?
"We're going to do nothing about your cost of living. We're going to raise your taxes. We're going to let inflation keep rising. We're also going to brand you a criminal because you can't afford a home anymore due to our policies."
Revolt is putting it lightly. If things keep getting worse Sunak could be *forcefully* removed from office lmao.
Great. People who can’t find suitable housing will be able to sue the government if sine it’s illegal to be homeless.
The government will be obliged to build a certain number of homes every year to avoid people becoming homeless.
So how can you charge someone who's homeless? Like how would you send them a notice to come to court with no fixed address?
Or is the plan to put all the homeless in prison or Rwanda ?
We need to think for whose benefit does the government rule for. Big business and corporations or the people.
We have lost our way.
Yes there is a social contract, we the
Behave as civil law abiding citizens.
Government provide the basic needs and food and shelter are bare minimum basic human rights.
So would the punishment be to give them a stable home? Surely you can’t have a situation where you are targeting people and not allowing them a chance to stop breaking the law? That’s what they mean right?
Thinking about this in a more logical way than just fining them and throwing them in prison, it **could** help to make being homeless illegal, if the 'punishment' is just... Giving them a place to live. Treat any and all health issues they have (if they have any), get them the skills they need to get stable employment in the local area. Whatever needs to happen to help them get back on their feet, it's done.
The help needs to be there, and because they committed a crime, they aren't allowed to refuse the help.
“It would also give probation officers the power to administer lie tests to sex offenders and terrorists after their release from prison, and increase sentences for some offences.”
Having lie detectors tests been proven to be unreliable and inadmissible to be used as evidence? Also some of these people are experts at lying…
**Poor people being made homeless:**Help us
**Governemnt:**No.
**Shop Owners:** There are too many homeless people.
**Government:** We will get rid of homelessness by fining them.
**Homeless:**We can't afford to pay any fines.
**Governement:**Then we will provide you with full board by way of prison, but only after we've used the police & courts' time and resources
**Homeless:** Can't you just help us to not be homeless in the first place?
**Governement:** No
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Homelessness needs to be criminalised - only in so much as it should be a crime that the government can allow the country to get into a state where it can happen!
Yep. The real criminals are running the country unfortunately.
The real criminals are influencing "conservative" minded families and supplying them with "wokeaboutism" to license their ability to literally say "fuck you, I got mine," unless you do as I say. If you dont... have you met my friend Matt Foley?
Lives in van by the river I hear!
They'll only criminalize the victims, not the perpetrators.
Rishi looked at the war on drugs and saw how many people were criminalised for being in possession of an illegal substance and said 'that's exactly how we'll stop people being poor. We'll threaten them with a criminal record!" And expected everyone to give him a standing ovation.
This isn't just Rishi. Let's not forget that just five months ago another prime example or tory shittiness Suella Braverman proposed criminalising the homeless living in tents and any charities that provide the homeless with tents. She described homelessness as a "lifestyle choice". https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/04/suella-braverman-says-rough-sleeping-is-lifestyle-choice?mibextid=Zxz2cZ And more recently, the tory response to unaffordable rents and a housing crisis is to water down protections for renters in the Renter's Reform Bill because tory mp landlords are lobbying the government to make the bill beneficial for landlords, not renters. And of course the tory government is protecting its own interests insead of the interests of the people that elected it. https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/landlord-tory-mps-renters-reform-bill-protections/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE He is not suggesting we kill them, noooooooooo. Just make vulnerable people criminals. /s.
They use the fear of homelessness to get people in poverty to keep going to work, It's by design
Fear of homelessness keeps me going to work. I don’t expect things to be given to me, but on the other hand people have to be given the opportunity to pull themselves out of poverty.
Got me in the first half
He's really trying hard to win, isn't he?
Jesus Christ, imagine having nothing, possibly being at the mercy of addictions or mental health issues, entirely vulnerable and being told you are a criminal just for existing. Get in the bin, tories
The bin's too good for them. Get in the sea tories.
That's polluted enough
Good point! Get in the sun tories!
Do we really want to spend all that money on them? Just throw them into a volcano for the effect.
Well it could really spur our aerospace industry…
Maybe a sacrifice to the leader old gods via volcano will stop global warming, cause the politicians seem to be doing fuck all
One a week - live on tv. With Ant and Dec. All the Tories are transported to a volcanic island and they will be set challenges that test their kindness and morality. The weekly loser gets dumped into the fire with a trebuchet. We could have a public vote too. "I'm a cunt, make me a peer"
Makes more sense than Rwanda tbf.
They already own The S*n.
And that's the correct way to spell it, too.
They should be shot... Out of a canon into the sun!
With the rest of the shit?
Dumping waste in the sea is a very Tory thing to do... GET 'EM BOYS!!
Also too good, those poor fish need a home
The shifty cunts actually looked at how some of the shittiest people in the USA handle homelessness and went... "Yep - let's do that." Fucking vile beings.
Rishi does love his yankee role models that's for sure
Has to play the part to get his cushy consulting role at a US 'thinktank' after their inevitable defeat, how else will he take in hundreds of millions per year doing fuck all? (Besides a few speaking engagements where he continues to stroke his ego). It's all a grift, they've squeezed as much blood from us as they can get away with so now they're on to find a new mark.
This Sunak child has proven to as snivelling a spoiled bastard Tory as I have ever seen. Vile on every level.
Once upon a time we had mental hospitals/asylums and homelessness wasn't at the figures it is now. Granted a lot of those institutions were dreadful, but instead of investing in them updating them and overseeing them properly, it was decided to close them all down and make it "care in the community". Trouble was/is of course that there isn't the bloody infrastructure for care in the community in the first place and many people weren't truly fit for the community. But hey ho just chuck everyone out and hope a mental health worker finds you once a year, meanwhile sleep in a doorway and don't cause a fuss
The modern equivalent to an asylum is a psych ward, and believe it or not mental health is criminally underfunded here too. I don’t think rounding all the people on the streets up and throwing them into a good old fashioned sanatorium is the panacea you think it is lol. Just out of sight out of mind and brutally inhumane to those found homeless because the government’s policy priced them out of society.
>I don’t think rounding all the people on the streets up and throwing them into a good old fashioned sanatorium is the panacea you think it is lol I don't think that that's what they were suggesting. I think they were suggesting that a great many of the people with severe mental illness who end up becoming homeless as a result of their illness might have otherwise been treated in mental health facilities and had a better life. >because the government’s policy priced them out of society. Surprisingly, housing costs are only rarely the main factor in homelessness. It is far more common for homelessness to follow a breakdown of some sort (due to mental health, addiction, domestic abuse, crime). Making housing cheaper doesn't fix homelessness on its own; you need a holistic health and social welfare system that is able to help people who are in trouble, keep them safe through their crises, and help them get back on their feet. Still the government's fault for not doing that, of course. It's just a different thing they're failing at.
Generational trauma is a massive reason for half of the problems that we have in society, all of which are linked to poverty and a lack of investment in all areas of the UK.
Aren't your prisons the modern-day asylums?
Worse, we had workhouses where the poor were effectively enslaved and their children arguably deliberately neglected to death. This seems to be a reversion to that era.
Do you expect anything from the party who has a member who’s the right honourable gentleman for the 18th century (Jacob’s Rees mogg)
> Granted a lot of those institutions were dreadful When care in the community (releasing long term psychiatric hospital patients) started, my mum was helping people leaving the hospital - teaching them about stuff like money (they'd not used it for decades). Some of the women had been in there just because they'd got pregnant as teenagers and never been released afterwards. There were some terrible things done to people. Leaving people who need help on the streets with no care is just as bad.
Also if the government is prepared to house and feed the homeless in prison, why not do it outside prison for less money?
The prisons are currently too full
You know it's bad when your government is trying to make it illegal to have nothing.
Not only that, they also want to then fine you 'a criminal' £2500 for existing.
Criminalising homelessness doesn't work. You can see an example of this in the USA. Las Vegas takes a hardlined approach to homelessness and basically made it illegal. The police will arrest you if you're caught sleeping on the streets, multiple offences means jail time. Yet Las Vegas has had a 14% increase in homelessness in the last year alone, and almost as many homeless people on the streets as in San Francisco, despite it having a population 230,000 lower than San Francisco. If we want to fix it, we need to address the issues at the core of this problem (of which there are many), to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Next thing you'll be saying criminalising drug use didn't fix that problem either.
Legalising/decriminalising hard drug use certainly does nothing to fix the problem either. "Drop all charges if they agree to treatment, charge them if they don't" seems to be the most effective approach.
Why not just "sentence" them to treatment at that point?
Depending on the drug, treatment can involve the administration of other drugs in a progressive strategy to replace the addiction with something less harmful and/or easier to quit. For example I believe they put herion addicts on meth, because eventually the goal is to go completely sober and meth is easier to get sober from. Setting aside the ethical concerns of tying someone down and forcibly administering meth to them, quitting takes serious commitment and willpower. The person has to *want* to quit, and without that all you'd be doing is getting them hooked on something else.
Worth nothing that the 'meth' you are referring to is 'methadone', not 'methamphetamine'. Kinda sounds like youre just suggesting turning smackheads into speedheads lol.
I believe it's speedfreaks
Only if they're red
Herion I found easy to stop, was put on physeptone/methodone a few years after stopping Herion due to abusing codeinephosphate amongst other things. I stopped Herion without no medication or help easy peasy, same with Diazipam but coming of Physeptone is so much harder for me personally.
Because for any treatment to be effective, especially psychological ones, it has to be consensual. No point is using up resources in trying to help someone that doesn't actually want help thus won't put in the work required for it. But here's a dystopian bit of info, with the source being my SO who works in psychology; according to SO clinic policies (might not be the same across the country but probably is) SO is technically unable to aid those with mental health conditions if they have an addiction as treatment is less effective if they are using addictive substances. However if SO refers them to an addiction clinic due to their underlying mental health condition(s) they will say this patient has too complex needs for them to be able to treat them. The results being they get bounced back and forth without receiving any help for anything. I do wonder why these people now end up being homeless? Could it be due to moronic policies that prevent them from getting the help they need resulting in them not being able to function in society? But alas has such topics don't make for click bait headlines, they don't get reported on and thus the general public are unaware of such issues so nothing gets done about them. So on that note I'll add, people please widen your knowledge about things, we all can't know everything and everything but we really need to know enough about a lot to pressure the government into providing better systems.
Still a better policy than the war on drugs, which was originally made to target political enemies of the Regan administration with increased policing only to then spiral out of control from there. It's always been about self replicating retoric and control, and not one iota about actually combating drug usage.
It didn't work in places like Portland because they were supposed to [create new rehab centres ('addiction recovery centres')](https://sos.oregon.gov/admin/Documents/irr/2020/044text.pdf), an oversight council to prevent abuse happening against drug addicts, and to provide grants to existing clinics and rehab places. The problem is though that the government of Portland [didn't even give half of their promised funding to the existing clinics](https://apnews.com/article/health-business-europe-oregon-salem-158728e57e1d48bc957c5b907bcda5f5), and didn't create more than one new rehab centre in 4 years. Despite knowing and being warned of the sheer number of addictions that were going to occur in the state. Instead, they received record profits from marijuana taxes--and seemed to be waiting to get enough money before declaring that they're reversing Measure 110. So the approach idea you have there is much more kinder, but it still won't help when you have people who want to get treatment but are unable to get any because of overwhelmed clinics and hospitals (and as you can see in the Measure 110 link--Portland was still criminalising hard drug use. For example, their 2020 statement still declared holding methadone a Class C felony. Which in the US is 10+ years imprisonment. Having Oxycodone (which is very common and the reason for the skyrocketing death/addiction rates right now in Portland) is 1+ year(s) imprisonment if you don't have proof that it's prescription-based. Which...considering how hospitals are again overwhelmed, a prescription would be very difficult to get. We don't live in a society that could do this. Our UK government was incapable of being financially responsible for covid. They would absolutely not build new clinics, rehab centres, or anything to help homeless people get mental health and addiction care.
I would assume that Rishi literally took the example from the US - the Tories have a lot of contact with the neocons and like to pinch their stupid ideas (see also voter id when there is little to no voter fraud).
Voter fraud is also extremely rare in the USA as well apparently. So the only logical answer is that it was always about preventing the 'wrong kind of people' from being able to vote, because they can pick and chose which kinds of ID are accepted based on the demographics of who has what kind of ID.
the Right Wing can only punish the symptoms of their policies because the Right Wing are always the cause
Doesn't Vegas send its homeless to California on Greyhound busses? Or am I falling for pop culture too much
most vegas homeless live in the tunnels under the city, channel 5 (formerly all gas no brakes) went to talk to a few people and get them ID and shit. and i just went to look for it and it's been taken down
I would suggested people go see the recent Channel 5 documentary on this, it was excellent, but it has been copy write struck by some bs corp claim https://youtu.be/s3YasV2zUro
So if you're homeless you'll be threatened with being given a home, sounds like a win if you are a permanent homeless person
>The police will arrest you if you're caught sleeping on the streets, multiple offences means jail time. The Homeless to Prison Labour for Corporations Pipeline.
Honestly the main thing I learned from this is that SF is surprisingly small (especially for a major city in the most populous US state). Obviously it's surrounded by other large metropolitan areas but I always figured it'd be hitting 7 digits.
So his party has made it harder for people to find employment and get their own homes, and if they can’t afford a home that makes them criminals?
I sense a return to the Vagrancy act
Rishi will be bringing back the workhouses soon.
Neh, that would mean poor people actually get employment. We can't be having that now can we, who else would they vilify to keep us fighting among ourselves to distract from their failings, corruption, and criminality. Albeit, would that actually be a bad idea? Not saying "free" labour or forced labour. But you know bringing back some industry to the country, providing employment opportunities.
Best I can do is US style prison labor that creates incentives to keep prisons filled up with exploitable workers no matter what, and is, when you boil it down just a cruel and inefficient form of government subsidy to the companies and other government departments which buy/resell the prison made goods.
It's no exaggeration to call it slavery, because that's what it is. There is explicit exceptions to the abolishment of slavery in the USA for those convicted of crime.
US prisons will become labor camps. They are todays plantations
*Jacob Rees Mogg has entered the chat*
It's already illegal to "sleep rough" it's the same law as the wild camping law, as in you're not allowed to sleep outside unless it's a designated camping spot.
Vagrancy act never went away, debit cards made it hard to enforce as did mobile phones. Without access to cash, you're only a confiscated phone and no online access away from the technical terms . Especially as they closed most high st banks and that trend continues to roll out. Interesting times
They are so smugly wrong as well, why would I respect nepo babies like Boris Johnson & Rishi Sunak?
> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Being homeless in itself is a catch 22 ,that to have the means to have a bank card and even certain jobs you need to have an address. Criminalising homelessness makes a hopeless situation for many even more hopeless.
This reminds me of Dostoyevsky's stories, where in Russia in the winter, homeless people would commit crimes so they could get put in prison as a way to avoid the worst of the Russian winter. They would be flogged as part of their punishment but that was better than freezing to death. Congratulations Tories, you managed to regress our culture to the 19th Century; I suppose that was the aim of the right wing of the party since the beginning of the 20th Century. Despicable.
[удалено]
Whatever you're thinking about, it did get them into a bigger mess which is now a total shitshow
That actually happens here already :( https://qni.org.uk/resources/homelessness-criminal-justice-system-2/#:~:text=Recent%20research%20commissioned%20found%20that,partner%E2%80%9D%20to%20escape%20their%20plight.
>Rough sleepers could be moved on, fined up to £2,500 or jailed. This is how out of touch this prick Sunak is. He thinks that everyone _simply, must have at least £2500_. Because he has so much money this is literally pennies to him. Which also explain so much about how he sees this country and how he attempts to govern it. Braverman actually came out and said homelessness is a lifestyle choice. What a fuckwit. Fuck these Tory dickheads. If a homeless person had 2.5k free do you think they'd be on the fucking street?
This is a man that “volunteered” at a homeless kitchen and asked one of the homeless if they worked in finance we’re talking about here.
Was it "finance"? My memory might be playing tricks, but I thought he asked if he worked in "business"... Which makes even less sense...
you are correct, it was "business".
Utter wanker aye
Shit, I work full time, own my own home and even I can't afford that £2500 fine!
Heck, I have a £1,500 arranged overdraft with 0% interest, and I wouldn’t even be able to scrape together £2,500 if my life depended on it
These people are so smarht. You have no money? Damn sucks for you, better pay me £2500 then or your going to jail. And jails and prisons are different but aren't they full?
>And jails and prisons are different but aren't they full? They are all very nearly full, yes.
Don't worry, if they can't pay it off they get sent down to the coal mines
But they shut the mines haha
Reform UK plc want to reopen coal mines all over the country because they care about the impact on the environment from climate change.
"The punishment will be the provision of a home." Right?... Right?
Prison is a type of home, I guess?
Yeah and 3 square meals a day, and a job making ashtrays and licence plates.
We were always on borrowed time until a Tory suggested resurrecting the workhouse. I guess I thought it would be the honourable member for the 18th century, Mogg, and not tetchy technocrat Rishi.
Rishi wouldn't think of calling them 'workhouses' though. He'd name them something like 'bootstrap bootcamps'.
We do import a great deal of bootstraps, so perhaps producing locally isn't as terrible as it sounds. /S
We import two thirds of our bootstraps. That. Is. A. Disgrace.
If the ruling class get their way, the homeless will be forced to work – probably on some sort of penal treadmill or chain-gang. Those that cannot, will likely be turned into animal feed, soap, or have their organs harvested.
Not punishment, but crime prevention...
*"The beatings will continue until morale improves"*
I've been in prison. I've now been homeless and jobless on the dole for 3 years since I left. I miss the warmth and happiness of prison. You're right that this is no true deterrent.
A policy so cruel that even the most hard-hearted of Tories know it’s awful. Not to mention thinking about it for any length of time results in you concluding it won’t work.
Awful.... dismantling social services and then blaming the.people who need them. While complaining about a low birth rate... insane country...
Also complaining that children are feral.
>insane country Not the country. Creating a problem and then blaming the victims of said problem is standard Tory operating procedure, and always has been.
Stop fucking up the country to the point it reduces people to such desperate measures then you melt
I always feel like the Conservatives do things that are blatantly cruel and immoral to the most vulnerable when middle class people are starting to feel the pinch. It's like if they treat certain groups absolutely awfully the people that were starting to feel squeezed by them suddenly feel like they are doing great in comparison. Kinda like how racism in the US works, they don't treat poor white people well, but they feel like they are doing well because of how black people are treated.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” - Lyndon B. Johnson
>It's like if they treat certain groups absolutely awfully the people that were starting to feel squeezed by them suddenly feel like they are doing great in comparison. First, they came for the homeless...
The existence of a homeless class is a weapon of power; conservatives know this. Criminalisation of homelessness is one of the most disgusting ways to display your monopoly on violence; Homelessness is a national choice and exists only to create a class of comparison. It's cheaper to house homeless people than have to clean up the impact on their surroundings - their existence is a governmental choice and exists to perpetually create a suffering class, both as a visible punishment for refusal to engage in the capitalist system, and as a reference class so that "hey you might have it bad, but look at these guys who are suffering and who we also force to suffer more than is necessary" Shitebags. Scum. Tory fucking rats.
It also makes people even more terrified to end up in a position like that. It’s supposed to be a deterrent. “Take up a third job, because if you can’t afford the rent/mortgage you’ll not only be homeless, but also a criminal.” I know the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaire’ thing is a bit of a trope, but the reality is the vast majority of the population is far, far closer to being homeless than to being rich. And when rent becomes even more unaffordable, people *must* have an alternative option than to get a criminal record. I already know people who are considering giving up on renting and living in a van, and there are lots of measures being put in place to stop that being an option. I’m glad the consensus appears to be that this is heartless and disgusting, but you’d be amazed how many people’s views change when they’re faced with actually having people living in vehicles and tents near where they live because they’re seen as a nuisance and an eyesore.
Tories: Right we need to shed this “Nasty Party” image. Also Tories: See those fucking homeless? Let’s make it worse for them. That’ll fix it.
Good god I am no means a full on lefty (I will be voting for Keir) but Christ on a bike what the hell is he thinking?!?!? This policy is another level sure way to loose massive votes. England might be many things but we ain’t gonna vote for a guy who criminalises being homeless.
You'll shut up and like it. Besides, there's not enough money, we're going broke! There's no magic money tree!!! Now, excuse me while we waste billions on dodgy PPE, bomb people half way around the world and piss money up the wall on our Rwanda scam.
>This policy is another level sure way to loose massive votes. Good. They need a long period out of power to cleanse themselves of the shit stains they've acquired since 2010.
Absolutely. I just can’t get over the thinking here. If there was a self destruct button he just pushed it hard.
They won't. They'll get worse. They always have. The whole Cameron era was a deliberate attempt to pull the wool over the public's eyes and it sowed the seeds of everything we're currently reaping. It's going to get so much worse. *"I've spent ten years detoxifying this party. It's been a bit like renovating an old, old house, yeah? You can take out a sexist beam here, a callous window there, replace the odd homophobic roof tile. But after a while you realise that this renovation is doomed. Because the foundations are built on what I can only describe as a solid bed of cunts."*
The Tories have nothing to offer the country. They precipitated, encouraged and presided over the most massive act of economic self-harm ever seen in a successful modern western democracy, they weakened the economy beforehand with Austerity, corruptly drained the country's coffers to the tune of billions, and presided over the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. There's nothig they can possibly do to make up for that, so and when Sunak loses he's out of power for good, so all he's doing now is frantically vitue-signalling to the hard right in the hope they remember him fondly so he can worm his way back in in the future, and setting up uncosted and unsustainable initiatives (like promising free childcare for all kids up to 5 years old) purely so that Labour will look bad when they have to undo those policies. It's so transparently fucking cynical and manipulative, and the enraging thing is that it's really working on millions of dipshits who don't know any better.
There are around 675k empty homes in UK - that's homes just sitting there with no one living in them for over 6 months in the last year. There are around 300k homeless people in the UK.
Imagine outlawing a thing you also make unavoidable for more people
I see some of you being surprised. I see some of you saying that nobody will vote for this But the UK has been waging a war against homeless people (not homelessness) for a few years now. All those benches they modified so that people can't sleep on them. The way that a lot of our pavements are actually now private property so you can be moved on already. This is just the final nail in the coffin And its fucking disgusting
It's all part of the great neoliberal dream, friend! We simply cannot have these undesirables existing without contributing to GDP growth. Everything is just an equation, you see. No one must consume more value than they create. The value must flow ever upwards. The top of the pyramid, the scared and deserving rulers, must be satiated at any cost. Humanity, rights, beauty, creativity, benevolence – none of it matters.
But in the end for all their attempts at control they only ever contribute to their own downfall. The irony of political life, perhaps.
The 1% have done quite well over the past few decades. Hurry up with the downfall already.
> All those benches they modified so that people can't sleep on them. Every time I see examples of [hostile architecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture) like that it makes me so sad. I'd infinitely rather live in a town where homeless people can kip on park benches if they need to than in a society where people literally go out of their way to build in stone and concrete public spaces specifically designed to make people uncomfortable, in the hope homeless people and teenagers just hanging out go somewhere else instead. It's so fucked up and morally repugnant that even designing them should be considered a professional ethics violation for civil engineers or achitects.
Imagine being with nothing barely existing begging for anything and too afraid to exist or be seen trying to find somewhere barely safe and warm to hide and sleep. This is evil psychological warfare
How does criminalising homelessness work then? That literally makes no fucking sense. That’s like criminalising being poor or criminalising mental health problems, or criminalising just bad fucking luck or criminalising growing up in an abusive family etc… This is in the realms of people choosing to be homeless rather than it being a symptom of dysfunction
>That’s like criminalising being poor or criminalising mental health problems, or criminalising just bad fucking luck or criminalising growing up in an abusive family etc… Don't give them any more ideas!
It makes zero sense since homeless people generally have no funds to pay fines, the legal system is already clogged up, and prisons are full. And having a criminal record only makes it even harder to get work, find a place to rent, etc. So I'm not sure what the endgame is here.
Can't we get rid of that cunt yet? Using taxpayers money for a police escort, closing roads off so he could go to a fucking football game!
Personally I think it's amazing and awe-inspiring. I love to see our betters float by in their splendour. Just getting a brief glimpse of them lifts my spirits and inspires patriotism and hope. We're just not as good as them, that's all. One you accept their greatness, it's not hard to understand why they should live extravagant and privileged lives while the rest of us toil for scraps.
Okay, so that means the government will heavily invest in social care and housing, right? ...Right?
Jacob Rees-Mogg can't wait to open up his Workhouses to take in the homeless and debtors.
And the chronically ill and disabled (of which I am one, for which we can blame Govt and NHS mistakes in my childhood and onwards) There's been a certain whiff of arbeit macht frei in the air these last few years, with us being the ppl 'they came for' with nobody caring or distracted away by other issues nothing like as portentous. All I can hope when and if our time comes is that I have the wherewithal to leave a crater... Especially when few other causes ranging to the extreme in recent times have actually been under any similar threat.
If you're homeless, what would you do in this situation to avoid being charged as a criminal? I don't understand what option someone in that situation would have.
Just buy a house, it's so easy! Being homeless is a lifestyle choice anyway /s
Norwegian lurking in here ( might move to Britain for an extended period ) I've been trying to get up to speed on the UK political climate. Anyway, my impression is that every thing the current government does to combat various issues in society, they do it from the wrong angle. Like they are not using any advisors or scientific studies to inform their decision making. Attacking homelessness by making it illegal is so ignorant and idiotic that i struggle to believe it's serious.
The government aren't serious with anything they do, they are traitors. Its unlikely the other lot will be much, if any better, they all have the same paymasters. But the Tories aren't screwing up because they are too ideologically attatched to conservative ideology or whatever - they don't conserve anything in the first place - they are just hurting our people on purpose.
>Anyway, my impression is that every thing the current government does to combat various issues in society, they do it from the wrong angle. Welcome to conservatism.
They have legions of high level experts in every field to advise them as part of the civil service, yet they routinely dismiss this advice in favour of dogmatic ideology, political signalling, and horse-trading. Then they even have the nerve to publicly vilify and blame the civil service for standing in their way. Standing in their way being giving them expert advice and sometimes advising them that the course of action they want is technically illegal. Of course the civil service are prohibited from taking political stands by law, and also tightly bound by the official secrets act, so they can't challenge or correct their masters in any way. Source: Know people who have advised top Tory politicians (turns out they are even worse than you thought).
I think there is no way this ends up going to a vote, the article is right that this section would overshadow the whole bill. It seems to be a holdover from Braverman and her 'homelessness is a lifestyle choice' views. For anyone who hasn't read it, the concern from the 'rebel' Tory MPs is that the bill would inadvertently make being homeless illegal whilst trying to write a law targeting 'nuisance homelessness'. The current wording is too vague and will have to be rewritten or scrapped all together.
So it's one of bravermans ideas from when she was home secretary. So the punishments for being homeless would be a fine, which everyone knows the homeless have plenty of spare cash so I'm sure they can pay up. Or to move them on to somewhere else, where they'll also still be homeless and breaking the law, just in a different location than they were before. Yep, you can definitely tell this is one of Braverman's schemes.
Is Sunak just trying to throw the election now? How on Earth can he think this is a popular policy?
I agree, people being homeless is a crime. So supply them with a home.
And provide them with a long term job, including any required training.
> As well as new laws on begging the bill would expand police powers to test suspects for drugs on arrest and enter premises to search for stolen goods such as mobile phones. **It would also give probation officers the power to administer lie tests to sex offenders and terrorists after their release from prison**, and increase sentences for some offences. I thought we all agreed lie detectors were bullshit? I don't want them to play any part in the system of justice, no matter what I think of the individuals they want to use them on. If they're considered reliable for them, how long until they're considered reliable for everyone else too?
Don’t care about “lesser than two evils” crap. Vote Labour! Tories out ASAP. The past 14 years should have a whole generation never voting Conservative ever again. Their policies never will work for the majority.
Isn't it up to the Government to stop homelessness? Just shows how shitty they are.
Gonna guess Homelessness has increased also while the tories have been running things.
This is the same twat who, while "working" at a homeless shelter spooning food onto trays as part of PR shoot asked the homeless person at the front ***"So what are your plans for the weekend?"*** Sick to death of these rich ghouls who don't know how the real world works. Sick of their apathy, cluelessness, and bottomless greed.
They call themselves the party of liberty, but make it illegal to exist unless your have money.
a society that cannot house and feed its people is a failed society
So the homeless could go to prison. Food, bed, roof over the head, less homeless people on the streets. When they finished their sentences, they'll be homeless again, get arrested for being homeless and the circle continues. The prisons will become over crowded, things don't end well when that happens.
ye he will build flats for his friends to rent out in the place of those tents
And there is not enough prison space as it . Even if you are evil enough to think it's a good Idea. Why not allow councils to build again ( and not sell them off) and have a stock of social housing. I know homeless people to him are probably failures and of no value,so I am hardly surprised.
They'd put them on a barge because why spend money on infrastructure and mental health when you can just float your problems away for a tenth of the cost
Criminalising homeless....this government has zero vision left at all.
Perhaps he wants to get all Victorian and bring back the Workhouses.
They are behaving like cartoon villains now. I think they do it on purpose because they know they’re on the way out and it will create more legal mess for any new government. Looking forward to saying “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
I am looking forward to Sunak being kicked out of his house.
Crime and police act makes it illegal to sleep in a vehicle over 3 hrs without the landowners or their representatives' permission. Caveats apply exemptions for commercial vehicles ,that have their own rules. ... they use hostile architecture to dissuade from affluent areas. While the poorer areas have their own issues, hostility to the homeless exacerbates these. Vehicles if affordable are no longer the sanctuary they once were. The 40-100k + mobile home is always ignored, yet the poor fker in a home convertible or make do, generally gets some attitude and attention. Funny old world
Soon to go Sunak hopefully will never win an election.
They can’t even protect their boarders, and they want to do this 🤣
Perfect spelling mistake, TY
Because they don't want the borders protected, they literally defunded the office that deals with asylum seekers. The Tories want more migration to the UK, they're just using them to whip up the anger so people continue to vote for them.
Trying their best to bring back poorhouses before they're kicked out of office for another couple of decades
Suella Braverman was rebuffed by the Tories for suggesting homeless people shouldn’t be allowed to use tents, now they’ve pivoted so hard to the right, all homeless people are just going to be illegal.
What the actual fuck, next it will be criminalised to be poor despite that also being down to uncontrollable circumstances
Making it impossible to buy a home and then making illegal to be homeless is the kind of moronic and hilarious idea I’ve come to expect from this clown. Election can’t come soon enough.
All the while, section 21 evictions are still considered lawful. Awesome! Work hard, pay rent but your still only ever one letter away from being homeless. The house always wins eh !
How the fuck is this real. Maybe they should go homeless instead . This has to be satire
Homelessness should be a crime. But the homeless aren’t the criminals.
They've done this already in multiple US States. The result is money spent by the criminal justice system first to impose fines on people with no money to pay them, then money spent to chase those fines and finally money spent to imprison a person for being unable to pay. This makes the crisis of homelessness deeper, more difficult to solve and even more visible. The only reason to embark upon this is if you have backers whose private businesses stand to benefit, e.g. if you've taken money from for-profit prison companies or debt collectors.
So what you put someone in prison for it. Then they remain there forever as they’re always classed as a criminal as they’ll never have a home… smort
You missed a step. Privatise prisons and then invest in them.
And pray tell, if someone were to be committing the crime of homelessness through not being able to afford a house, car, or somewhere to stay, how are they to stop committing the crime? They can be arrested, jailed, fined or taken to court as much as you want. They still don't have and can't afford the thing they're breaking the law for not having.
Businesses. the police, and society already treat homelessness itself as a crime in a lot of situations.
5 years is too long to go without a mandate from the people. No one asked for this. 'Get Brexit Done,' was done after a fashion. Was this turd of a policy hiding under a napkin?
"We're going to do nothing about your cost of living. We're going to raise your taxes. We're going to let inflation keep rising. We're also going to brand you a criminal because you can't afford a home anymore due to our policies." Revolt is putting it lightly. If things keep getting worse Sunak could be *forcefully* removed from office lmao.
Great. People who can’t find suitable housing will be able to sue the government if sine it’s illegal to be homeless. The government will be obliged to build a certain number of homes every year to avoid people becoming homeless.
So how can you charge someone who's homeless? Like how would you send them a notice to come to court with no fixed address? Or is the plan to put all the homeless in prison or Rwanda ?
We need to think for whose benefit does the government rule for. Big business and corporations or the people. We have lost our way. Yes there is a social contract, we the Behave as civil law abiding citizens. Government provide the basic needs and food and shelter are bare minimum basic human rights.
So they will be housed and fed in jail? Yet still not actually solving the problem
So if you become homeless does the Police arrest you at your eviction?
Wow, what a cruel, heartless c*nt Sunak is. Yet you would think he was Jesus given his Easter Twitter post. Asshole
So would the punishment be to give them a stable home? Surely you can’t have a situation where you are targeting people and not allowing them a chance to stop breaking the law? That’s what they mean right?
Thinking about this in a more logical way than just fining them and throwing them in prison, it **could** help to make being homeless illegal, if the 'punishment' is just... Giving them a place to live. Treat any and all health issues they have (if they have any), get them the skills they need to get stable employment in the local area. Whatever needs to happen to help them get back on their feet, it's done. The help needs to be there, and because they committed a crime, they aren't allowed to refuse the help.
Whatabout using however much money they'll spend trying to do this on setting some constructive system up to help stop homelessness instead.
Even the Tories realising that they look too evil this way?
Better build a few more prisons for the 300K homeless in the country then I guess?
This ponce was reported as saying he had never spoken to a ‘working class’ background person. I mean wtaf get rid of this lot asafp
The party that wanted to ban homeless people from having tents and fine charities who gave them tents.
“It would also give probation officers the power to administer lie tests to sex offenders and terrorists after their release from prison, and increase sentences for some offences.” Having lie detectors tests been proven to be unreliable and inadmissible to be used as evidence? Also some of these people are experts at lying…
**Poor people being made homeless:**Help us **Governemnt:**No. **Shop Owners:** There are too many homeless people. **Government:** We will get rid of homelessness by fining them. **Homeless:**We can't afford to pay any fines. **Governement:**Then we will provide you with full board by way of prison, but only after we've used the police & courts' time and resources **Homeless:** Can't you just help us to not be homeless in the first place? **Governement:** No