‘Westminster soundbites’ are making homeless issue worse

‘UNFAIR’ LANGUAGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL

A CHARITY boss tackling rough sleeping in Nottingham says “soundbites from Westminster” can often make the problem worse.

Framework says it is still seeing record levels of people sleeping rough on the city’s streets, with a 19% year-on-year increase and 55 rough sleepers counted in April.

Amid those record levels, MPS are still said to be at loggerheads over a controversial piece of legislation that some charities claim could criminalise people “simply for how they look”. The Criminal Justice Bill was first revealed last November and it is designed to replace the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act, under which rough sleeping is illegal.

The criteria contained within the Criminal Justice Bill include references to people sleeping in a doorway, creating an “excessive smell”, or someone “looking like they are intending to sleep on the streets”. The language has led to reports that many Conservative MPS are prepared to vote against the Government on the measures.

Claire Mcgonigle, pictured, the deputy chief executive of Framework, spoke at the opening of a new block of flats for rough sleepers in Hyson Green about the impact that language can have on attitudes towards rough sleepers. The charity boss said: “I think public attitudes can obviously be fuelled by political rhetoric and I think that’s really sad because people we work with have often suffered massive disadvantages in their lives.

“This sense of othering people because they don’t fit in with the political view of what should be right is really difficult to work with and really unfair on people. I think the team continue to experience that and see that first-hand in terms of what’s going on in the streets.

“We see continued soundbites from parts of Westminster which are really unhelpful to the problem. The reality is everybody who’s sleeping rough in Nottingham is a human being who has needs and deserves the protection of society and the things that we all take for granted.”

The Criminal Justice Bill, which would allow police to forcibly move on rough sleepers, still has to go through several Parliamentary stages before it becomes law.

Speaking about the pressures in helping those sleeping rough more broadly, Ms Mcgonigle added: “Every sector that we work with, whether it’s mental health services, physical health services or drug and alcohol treatment services, are all facing pressures. That means it’s harder for people to get the help they need early. People are more often presenting in crisis. That doesn’t help anybody.”