Campaigner claims rough sleepers

ROUGH sleepers in Birmingham are often being bullied out of council-run accommodation, a campaigner has claimed.

And she is calling on the council to scrap the proposed introduction of a public spaces protection order (PSPO), insisting that similar policies in other parts of the country have led to homeless people being criminalised.

Birmingham-based Joanne Shemmans, who has run for the council in the past, has been heading the campaign against the introduction of the order for Birmingham city centre.

A PSPO bans specific acts from taking place in a certain area, with police and council officers having powers to issue warnings, refer people to help services and even hand out fines.

The council says the order will be used to target anti-social behaviour in the city centre, with incidents on the rise in recent months.

However, specific references to begging within the strategy have led many to become concerned over the potential impact on rough sleepers.

These concerns are particularly worrying for the campaigner, who recently joined an outreach team to speak to some of the homeless people in the city.

“Well, one thing that’s struck me is this insistence that there’s a bed for everyone, when in reality there’s not,” she said. “I went out to a count of rough sleepers in the Colmore Business District, and within 45 minutes we came across a gentleman who had been mugged.

“All his stuff had been taken, including his shoes, so he’s there in the street with no shoes. He was crying, he was physically distressed. So the volunteer phoned all of the hostels, all of the overnight provision, and there wasn’t anywhere. They even tried as far as a house in Sutton, and there wasn’t anywhere that could take him.

“So they literally had to leave him out there on the street, with no shoes, and it was awful. And it’s really frustrating when you hear it reiterated that there’s a bed for everyone that needs one, and we