SPECTA1' ThE OR
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LONDON SHAME
Few social issues in Britain have become such a stick with which to beat the Govern- ment as that of homelessness. In the 1980s, as more and more people flocked to sleep on the streets of London, so cries rose from the Tories opponents that the Government was pursuing policies certain to aggravate poverty and drive the young, betrayed by our education system and unemployment, into a life of vagrancy. The spectacle of reg- iments of homeless dossed down on the Thames Embankment, at Charing Cross, was used as the symbol of all that was uncaring and destructive about Mrs Thatcher's Britain. Perhaps sensitive to the potential for damage, the Major regime has this week instituted measures to promote the alternatives to the streets. At a cost of £3 million, it has set up organisations in provincial cities to steer disaffected youths away from the bogus attractions of London. Strong advice, and practical help, will be given to such people to stay and look for opportunities nearer home. The scheme at least has the merit of seeking to prevent rather than to cure, and is to be applauded for that reason alone.
The Government knows that life on the streets of London is nasty, brutish and, in some cases, depressingly short. Youths who come to the city in the misguided belief of better prospects are too frequently, instead, sucked into the Stygian world of robbery, drugs and male prostitution, from which they are in some cases lucky to escape with their lives. Their activities impinge unac- ceptably on those going about their lawful business in London, and are further under- mining an already depressed tourist trade. There was an outcry last week when Metropolitan Police sources claimed that many of the capital's beggars were in fact criminals, with homes to go to, preying on the compassion (and sometimes the fears, of the public on London's streets. That the criminal element forms a large proportion of the capital's beggars is not, though, in doubt, as the growing number of cases of deception and assault heard by the courts show. Also, the business ratepayers of the West End of London have a right to expect to have the doorways of their premises pro- tected from those who choose to bed down in, and in some cases defile, them, disrupt- ing trade. Yet when Westminster City Council sought to obviate this problem by sending street cleaning lorries along the Strand — a prime site for vagrants — to spray the pavements with water, at the request of shopkeepers there, another out- cry resulted. Homelessness is a wretched condition for its genuine victims, but its vic- tims are not just the homeless.
The Government does seem to be pursu- ing a practical and humane solution to the problem. Dissuading youths from migrating to London in the first place when they have no place to stay, no job to go to, and hardly any chance of finding either while remain- ing within the law is the right approach. Yet it is not solely the Government's responsi- bility. The breakdown of family life — which is hard to pin on this Government, however hard its critics try, but more the legacy of the permissive 1960s and 1970s — is much to blame. Parents fail to discharge their responsibilities towards their children properly. In some particularly tragic cases, children end up looking for a better life on the streets of London because they are vic- tims of child abuse at home. In a welfare state there should be no excuse for them having to take such an option. Similarly, the welfare services should be looking after those former inmates of mental institutions now being exposed to vagrancy by failure of the 'care in the community' scheme. Such people, incapable of caring for themselves, deserve society's compassion.
Last winter, when the severe cold of February threatened to make life for the homeless unbearable, new initiatives were taken to find more hostel space for them around London. Many refused to take it, because they resented having to submit themselves to that discipline. This seems to give the lie to the liberal assertion that no one is intentionally homeless. Rather than complaining when vagrants are moved on, the advocates of their rights should recog- nise the liberties of everyone else to go about their business without being pestered, often in intimidating fashion, by mendicants. People cannot be forced into hostels, but it is quite proper for the authorities to take whatever steps are need- ed to protect the liberties of all the public.
As well as deterring the potential home- less, and providing hostels spaces for all on the streets who want them, the Govern- ment must take steps to make begging less fruitful. Politicians should support the police when they arrest criminal begging gangs, and should back the courts when, on proving offences, they punish them stiffly. The authorities, though, can do only so much. Individuals must be discouraged from giving money to beggars, but should instead contribute to one of the charities for the homeless. Only then will they be certain the money will be spent in the best interests of those who need it. Britain is not a third world country, and its inhabitants — whether providers or recipients of welfare — have a civic duty to ensure that its capi- tal does not turn into a city fit for one.
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