Come and spend one week on the streets
without begging,
without robbing
without stealing
and try and live without doing them three things
and see if you’ve got food in your stomach.
Cause I guarantee you’ll be hungry, you will be hungry man.
Since 2010 there has been a 165% increase in rough sleeping.
There has been a 75% increase in those in temporary accomodation.
And an 80% increase in child homelessness.
The perfect storm of changes to housing benefit, Universal Credit, the hostile environment
and the spiralling cost of housing has led to a growth in homelessness.
And with a general election just around the corner
I wanted to find out how some of the most vulnerable people in our society view politicians.
They just walk past me,
even though I was screaming out for their help.
They just weren’t obliged to help me, they didn’t see the fact why they should
help me.
People just don’t care no more,
they really don’t,
all they care about is money, they don’t care about people.
What could have been done to help you out more?
Being seen,
parliament giving a damn, caring about us,
rather than just sweeping
us under the carpet
walking past us and not showing any signs of help
So we are in Westminster station, right here we are on
council, public land, just in there is owned by the Palace of Westminster
and this is where people are having to spend their nights
sleeping out in the cold because a group of rough sleepers
who used to sleep in there, I mean I knew people
who were sleeping in there a decade ago, they were all evicted
a couple of months ago by the palace of Westminster.
Just so that this tunnel could lie empty at night.
And people could continue to sleep in the colder
temperatures outside.
People were out sleeping in parks people, i mean, you know I had friends down
here and over the next few days
people were getting robbed, people were in unfamiliar surroundings.
And just forcing people out you’re also forcing them further
away from help.
Here is where Mungos, here is where the charities and the council
can come and offer people support.
Once they’re forced out they’re sleeping in nooks and crannies around Westminster
out in the cold.
They are further away from support far more vulnerable, far more likely to die
frankly and we’re getting to December, the idea
that this grate is still here keeping this tunnel empty and
warm and secure but not usuable for people is just
absurd.
Universal credit has made so many of my friends homeless,
because it takes weeks and weeks and weeks to get your money come through and by the
time it comes through your landlord’s kicked
you out, because you not paid.
So it’s not working.
You were in the forces, you served in submarines you’re a highly skilled worker, but also
this is a country which prides itself on the way in which it
celebrates the military, do you feel you’ve been looked
after?
Nah I feel like I’ve been let down.
You sign up, you serve and they say there’s all this help there
Help for Heroes, Veterans Aid this that and the other, and they don’t
help you they really don’t.
They’ve got all these millions in the bank from charities and fundraising that they get
and you don’t see a penny of it.
If there was one thing you could get the next government to do to improve
your life and the life of people in a similar situation to you,
what would it be?
I would say, every empty property in this country,
do it up and make it cheap living for the homeless.