Yesterday morning (04/11), Suella Braverman, home secretary of the United Kingdom was the source behind, yet another controversy, this time surrounding homeless people…
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Braverman branded sleeping rough as a ‘lifestyle choice.’ As if this wasn’t bad enough, creating a scapegoat out of the most vulnerable in society, she went one step further by blaming the brunt of the problem on ‘individuals from abroad.’
Suella Braverman On Homelessness:
‘We will always support those who are genuinely* homeless. But 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.’
*(By ‘genuinely homeless’, does she mean ‘British’, yet another racist rhetoric being pushed forward)?…
In the tweet which has been widely critiqued on social media, Braverman outlined how she plans to crack down on the pitching of tents in urban areas, and went on to describe the growing numbers of rough sleepers on Britain’s high streets as ‘antisocial behaviour.’
‘What I want to stop, and what the law-abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress* to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities.’
*(Oh the irony- she wants to stop people causing ‘nuisance and distress’ to other people, and yet the Tories are the biggest cause of nuisance and distress in British society, whose going to stop them?!)
Braverman is pushing for a new civil offence that would see charities fined for providing tents to homeless people.
‘Unless we step in now to stop this, British cities will go the way of places in the US like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies* have led to an explosion of crime, drug-taking, and squalor.’
*(‘Weak policies’, I think it’s a bit late for that… this being a sentiment which is echoed by Jen Clark, economic and social rights lead at Amnesty International who said:
‘Of course, the government likes to peddle the idea of ‘intentional homelessness’ — it’s a very convenient cop-out, but in truth the spiralling housing crisis is a result of systematic government failures’).
The fact of the matter is that the increase in homelessness has not come about because people are choosing to be homeless- despite what Braverman says, being homeless is NOT a lifestyle choice- it’s come about due to the cost of living crisis (a crisis whose sole responsibility lies in our government), meaning that people simply cannot afford anywhere to live…
With private rents being at an all-time high, people can’t afford to pay their rent, and so evictions are rising, thus forcing people to be homeless. And so, again, people are not ‘choosing’ to be homeless, as Braverman so ignorantly suggests, the cost of living crisis, combined with decades of government failure to build genuinely affordable social homes, THIS is what is driving record levels of homelessness and leaving thousands of people on the streets.
‘Even by this government’s standards, this is disgraceful. Imagine looking at the housing and homelessness crisis you’ve presided over and thinking, ‘let’s take away their tents’.’
– Lisa Nandy, Labour frontbencher
Just like she did with asylum seekers- ‘fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for refugee protection’– Suella Braverman is, yet again, creating a scapegoat out of the most vulnerable members of society, dehumanising homeless people this time…
And, very conveniently timed too, may I add…
When the government pledged to end rough sleeping before the next election, due by January 2025, call me pessimistic but, I can’t help but question their motives behind this, the quote ‘out of sight, out of mind’ seeming relevant.
Just because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not there…
By forcing homeless people away from our high streets, by taking away their tents, the only shelter they have, this isn’t solving the problem, but will just make the most vulnerable members of society even more vulnerable…
And so, we must not let this happen. The government need to accept responsibility for the cost of living crisis and, with that, the housing crisis, which THEY have created. They need to accept that THEY are to blame, NOT homeless people.
To put it bluntly, they, and their wholly bigoted proposals, they need to
!! f**k off !!
Give Suella Braverman a tent and force her into homelessness for a week, and let’s see, upon returning to the comfort of her £1.2 million family home, if she still thinks people would ‘choose’ to live like this…
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