London is ahead of us with their “rough sleepers initiative,” which is their plan to move the homeless off the streets and into permanent supportive housing (what we call “housing first” in our Ten Year Plans here in America.) But has it worked? Has anything really changed?
“If you look at things logically, some things have changed. Not so many rough sleepers but we now have hidden homeless. Which you don’t see. That’s what governments want us to see. They want to be able to say, look we have cleared the streets of rough sleepers and they are not homeless anymore. It’s just like a bad magic trick. You see them. Then they are gone but they are not really. They are all still there hidden away and that’s just it. They are all still there but in hostels up and down this country, on friends floors, in bed and breakfasts. There seems to be no end in sight because there’s no other place for them to go.”
— Jamie McCoy, homeless, London, UKÂ
I recall as a child, Mom’s worries about the “tramps” in the woods near our home. Never saw them but did see their “camp”, not that I knew what it was at the time. Thought the homeless sleeping on the sidewalks of NYC were “old drunks”.
The way things are going a lot of Americans (US) are one paycheck away from being homeless. Not to mention Hurricane victims. The only thing I see changing is Pres Bush will soon be marching us homeless into his equivilant of gas chambers.