Charities have called on Suella Braverman to come and see the reality of homelessness for herself after she described rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice”.
Ms Braverman claimed on Saturday: “We cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice”.
The row comes amid reports she has drawn up plans that would forbid charities from giving tents to homeless people in a bid to outlaw rough sleeping in urban areas, which has soared in recent years.
The Financial Times reported that charities could be fined for doing so if the tents should cause a nuisance under the proposals, which it was claimed would come alongside additional “support” for homeless people.
Fiona Colley, director of social change at Homeless Link, said Ms Braverman’s comments and plans were “damaging and divisive”.
“The comments are simply absurd,” she told i. “It’s just absurd to say that people are making a choice to be homeless or to sleep on our streets, and it’s absurd to suggest that a solution to rough sleeping is a crackdown on tents. I think it’d be really laughable if it wasn’t so damaging and divisive.
“The one thing that I think she’s right about is that nobody should be sleeping on the streets in Britain. And it’s a real scandal, that rough sleeping has been rising and still is rising really rapidly, that people are sleeping in tents and in doorways in our towns and cities. It reminds me of when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s.
“But it wasn’t always like this, and we can solve it, but certainly not by simplistic headline-grabbing announcements like these. Support is what’s needed, and not these sort of measures.”
(Photo: Marcello Simeone Photography)
Homeless Link is the national membership charity for organisations working directly with people who become homeless in England and has more than 800 members.
Ms Colley said she is extending an open invitation to Ms Braverman in the hope that she will develop an “understanding” of the challenges for people sleeping rough as well as those faced by homeless charities.
“What I’d really like is the Home Secretary to actually come and meet with homelessness charities and people who’ve been forced to sleep rough,” she said.
“She clearly doesn’t understand why people end up sleeping rough and the challenges that charities face in supporting people to end their rough sleeping.
“She needs to come and listen to the people who know what the answers are. We’d be really happy to organise for her to come and meet some charity leaders, with people who’ve experienced rough sleeping, so she can develop her understanding and properly come up with solutions. I think then she will want to retract that statement. And that’s certainly what we’d like to see.”
It is understood there will be a joint charity letter coordinated by the charity Crisis, which will address among other subjects, the Vagrancy Act and concerns around the comments made by Ms Braverman.
Emma Haddad, CEO of the St Mungo’s said the charity was “deeply concerned” by the Home Secretary’s comments.
“Rough sleeping is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ but the result of many complex factors,” she said. “The Government should be focusing on the chronic shortage of housing and statutory support services, rather than condemning vulnerable people and the organisations that prevent them from dying on the streets.”
She added: “It is ironic that currently one of the biggest drivers of homelessness is the Government’s approach to clearing the backlog of asylum claims. It is the Government’s choice that people are sleeping in tents, not a lifestyle choice.”
Charities in the UK have warned of a growing homelessness crisis caused by a combination of rising rents, and a shortage of social and affordable housing. The cost of living crisis is another factor making more people vulnerable to eviction.
The latest annual figures show that 157,640 families were homeless in England in 2022/2023, 12.1 per cent higher than the pre-Covid level in 2019-20 and up 8.6 per cent from 2021-22.
Meanwhile, Lord Bird, founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue and a crossbench peer, told i that it was vital to address the issues that cause homelessness.
“I have a Bill going through for the creation of a Ministry of Poverty Prevention, and that is really to address the fact that people like Suella Braverman are entirely incapable of looking at a problem like homelessness and having an all-rounded view of it because their job is just to do law and order,” he said.
“What happens if you don’t address it as a health issue, as a mental health issue as an educational issue as a social issue, as a housing issue? If you don’t address it there then it will end up on the streets. And the streets become almost the social barometer of whether a society is failing, or whether it’s providing, and in my opinion, it’s failing. What is really significant to me at this is the inability of government departments to actually sort out the problem of poverty.”
The likes of The Big Issue, Crisis, Shelter and other organisations have “enormous support “ from the public “because they know we’re trying to address a problem that is not addressed anywhere else in society”, he added.
Commenting on Ms Braverman’s description of sleeping rough as a “lifestyle choice”, he said: “The very presence of The Big Issue, of Crisis, St Mungo’s, Centrepoint etc belies this rather malignant piece of commentary which is based on no data or evidence to back it up. They [the government] base everything on anecdote, and anecdotes are there to be shot down on too many occasions.”
It is understood there will be a joint letter from charities and other organisations, coordinated by the charity Crisis, which will address among other subjects, concerns around the comments made by Ms Braverman.
Ms Braverman was pushing for the policies to be among the proposals outlined in the King’s speech on Tuesday, people with knowledge of the proposals told the Financial Times. They could be included in two clauses to be inserted in a new criminal justice bill that applies to England and Wales.
