Posted by: Isabel Hardman
18/03/2011Daniel Astaire, cabinet member for society, families and adult services at Westminster Council, defends his plans to stop soup runs.
We are committed to transforming the lives of rough sleepers and helping them to return to independent living. Indeed, every year we help more than 1,000 rough sleepers off the streets.
This is achieved through the extensive work done to address the complex needs of rough sleepers including drug and alcohol abuse services, initiatives to reconnect them with family members, counselling, literacy courses, training for employment and accommodation.
We of course share the concerns of others for the vulnerability of rough sleepers but no-one ends up sleeping rough simply because they are hungry: their needs run much deeper. Our experience built up over many years tells us that soup runs keep people on the streets rather than helping them off.
This is not just our view but is also shared by many leading homeless charities including Thames Reach, Look Ahead Housing and Care, Novas Scarman, the English Churches Housing Group as well as former rough sleeper and Big Issue founder John Bird.
This is why we are committed to bringing people indoors where they can access support from social services or medical assistance to help turn their lives around. In contrast, offering food to someone who is on the street might help convince them to stay out another night, a lifestyle that damages health and can in some cases lead to a premature death.
Even worse though, we see former rough sleepers in the first stage of adapting to life in accommodation tempted back onto the street by soup runs, who then choose to bed down for the night, rather than return home.
Thanks to the commitment and hard work of our outreach teams, the number of rough sleepers in Westminster has declined from over 300 a few years ago to around 100 now. But despite this there are still approximately 50 soup runs coming into central London on a regular basis. They in turn attract homeless people from across the city who would be better off accessing public and voluntary sector services within their own communities.
Following years of talks, we have now decided that we have no choice but to look to prohibit soup runs and rough sleepers in one particular part of Westminster, in and around the Westminster Cathedral piazza area near Victoria Station. This area has long been a magnet for soup runs with many travelling from across the capital and even outside of London.
To tackle this we have launched a consultation with residents, businesses, local day centres and hostels and the voluntary sector. Depending on the results, we will then seek provisional permission from the Communities and Local Government department to pass a byelaw before taking it to a meeting of the full council in the summer.
Let me stress though, no-one will be left to starve on the streets. We spend £9 million a year on services for rough sleepers – more than any other council in the UK – and we have the two largest day centres in Europe offering heavily discounted food, washing and laundry facilities, clothes, doctors, dentists and mental health services. We also have 1,000 hostel spaces so there is no need for anyone to sleep rough in the city.
Of course, those who give up their time to help people who need food should be applauded, but we believe they can make a far better impact if they look for other ways to help the homeless and put their energy to good use, without delivering food on the streets. We are prepared to help individuals and organisations fulfil that goal.
Finally, we would like to emphasise that our proposals are at the consultation stage and we are encouraging people to make their voices hear. At this stage we still hope to be able to work with soup run providers to reach a solution that is right for all parties without the need for any formal legislation.
This is a response to a blog by Nicky Gavron, Labour London assembly member.
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From Out of office
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Readers' comments (16)
Sidney Webb | 18/03/2011 12:47 pm
Mr Astair - Will you go on public record as committed to instantly resign the day the first homeless person dies through the curtailment of street feeding?
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Rick Campbell | 18/03/2011 1:31 pm
FROM JEREMY SWAIN'S BLOG -- A rough deal
A typical rough sleeper will often have experienced dysfunctional family relationships, experienced a disrupted education, had early experiences of the criminal justice system, misused alcohol or drugs and suffer from low self-esteem and poor mental health. The most recent statistics, compiled from information gathered by outreach teams working with rough sleepers in London, illustrate the brutal reality: 38 per cent have been in prison, 50 per cent have alcohol problems, 38 per cent have drug problems and 35 per cent suffer poor mental health. A rational approach to ending rough sleeping would, therefore, involve investing in ‘upstream services’- family mediation initiatives, Sure Start children’s centres, prison resettlement services, early intervention mental health projects and substance misuse treatment programmes.
Crushing cutbacks
Ominously, these are the very services that, across the country, are the focus of some of the most devastating public spending cuts and it seems highly likely that, as these cuts bite, the level of rough sleeping in this country will increase as a consequence. In contrast, I suspect that if the government’s £200 million mortgage rescue scheme were withdrawn, this might lead to more families becoming statutorily homeless and forced to move into temporary accommodation. But would not in any significant way impact on levels of rough sleeping.
So it seems to me a misjudgement to associate rough sleeping primarily with the lack of a home. For the vast majority of people living rough on the street, the complexities of their lives stretch leagues beyond the mere matter of housing.
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Lesley Williams | 21/03/2011 9:47 am
This is so wrong and I cant help wonder if there is an alterior motive for this decision. Homeless people are often chaotic. Some chose to engage and some dont. Those that dont benefit from the support of the soup runs. In a seamless service for homeless people, there is a place for food distribution, especially if it is preventing those on the margins from sleeping rough again - the counter argument to Daniel Astaire's flawed rationale. The food distribution in my City is a vital service; the safety net for many vulnerable people. Dont underestimate the importance of soup!
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Red Brick | 21/03/2011 9:53 am
If Westminster's position is to be believed, you could understand that they might want to ban soup runs. But that's not the half of it - they want to ban street sleeping itself. That's why most people think their motivation is simply to rid the area of homeless people. But they have also changed their line - recently they were arguing that most people attending soup runs are not homeless - so what are they doing about the fact that some of their residents are so poor that they rely on food from soup runs? See more on Red Brick: http://redbrickblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/let-them-drink-soup/
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Rosa Hooses | 21/03/2011 11:43 am
"This area has long been a magnet for soup runs with many travelling from across the capital and even outside of London."
They would rather pay for transport into the city (or walk a very long way) than buy a cup of soup from a shop more local to them?
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Sidney Webb | 21/03/2011 11:48 am
How far would you go if you were hungry Rosa?
I think that the point that they have no or little means may be the reason that they do not pop into their local Waitrose instead!
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Anonymous | 21/03/2011 12:09 pm
“This is why we are committed to bringing people indoors where they can access support from social services or medical assistance to help turn their lives around.”
So if the problem is outdoor food surely it is simple to find a indoor facility where professional support services and food can be served.
“Thanks to the commitment and hard work of our outreach teams, the number of rough sleepers in Westminster has declined from over 300 a few years ago to around 100 now. But despite this there are still approximately 50 soup runs coming into central London on a regular basis”
So 50 soup runs come into Westminster to serve 100 people? Can we simply replace them with 50 individuals each carrying a cup of soup in each hand? Interesting how a definition of a soup run is that it serves two people!
Perhaps we should let Tesco run such schemes, as apart from them having very strong links to Westminster (!!), they are currently offering a deal on Easter Eggs of buy one get two free. Why can’t Tesco extend this to soup? I can see the advert now - Buy some delicious specially prepared soup and we will donate two to rough sleepers – after all every little helps!
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Anonymous | 21/03/2011 12:24 pm
Provide the housing, healthcare, education and all that is needed and the homeless will disappear. The charitable soup runs will disappear with them.
The homeless and poor are the cause of the soup run - not the other way round. It is an indictment on the well educated that they fail to see the obvious. A high IQ does not represent practical intelligence.
When the cause has been sorted the Good Samaritans in the Big Society will be enabled to assist the needy in other ways.
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Rosa Hooses | 21/03/2011 12:39 pm
Point taken PSR. But I would be more likely to sit outside my local waitrose and blag a couple of quid rather than walk all the way from outside London into central London. And presumably, as these people aren't 'local' rough sleepers, they are travelling back out again and doing the same thing the next day. Seems a bit odd is all.
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Sexton | 21/03/2011 1:45 pm
ROSA HOOSES or whoever you are. I believe you agree with Marie Antoinette’s grand suggestion: Let them eat cake...
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Anonymous | 21/03/2011 2:05 pm
'Red Brick | 21/03/2011 9:53 am'
Stop advertising. If you have something to say. Say it here.
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Anonymous | 21/03/2011 2:09 pm
Sexton :'ROSA HOOSES or whoever you are. I believe you agree with Marie Antoinette’s grand suggestion: Let them eat cake...'
I think you are quoting incorrectly AGAIN Sexton.
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Sidney Webb | 21/03/2011 2:19 pm
"The homeless and poor are the cause of the soup run - not the other way round."
So the sick are the cause of hospitals and children are the cause of schools? No doubt the dead are the cause of wars too!
No - because of the society we live in we have made decisions to heal the sick and educate the children (until recently). In the same way we have created an economy that requires losers, but our guilt/compassion requires us to help those misfortunate souls whilst at the same time as generating ever more poor and homeless in order that we may have the profit of not being so.
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Jack Davies | 21/03/2011 3:14 pm
It seems WCCs issue is that rough sleepers tend to go to wherever there is food and by implication they disproportionately descend upon Westminster. So however distasteful the proposal to put a bye law in place may be, there appears some validity in Daniel Astaire’s point.
The bye law will only eventually move rough sleepers on to a different locale or in simple terms where the next soup run is being delivered as has been stated by me and others previously on this issue. If neighbouring councils then follow suit the rough sleepers become no council’s responsibility. That outcome cannot be entertained Mr Astaire
Yet what cannot square in his blog is that WCC wishes to bring rough sleepers inside and give them support. If that was the case why is the council cleansing Westminster of rough sleepers. And that’s not an emotive term it’s a correct term to describe this proposed bye law
If as this blog states WCC wish (a) to help rough sleepers and (b) they have a bed for them and (c) is willing to put in place support for all rough sleepers, then we should encourage this. It is time to call WCC’s bluff in this.
Rough sleepers often will have no local connection with anywhere given their transient nature and so it is necessary for all councils to simply accept a duty to accommodate and support rough sleepers. (National Assistance Act anyone?)
If rough sleepers don’t comply as WCC et al maintain they don’t, then the council can always section them, after all the thrust here by WCC and by rough sleeper providers is that it is mental health issues that are preventing rough sleepers from ‘coming in from the cold.’
Let’s see if WCC is serious in these three aims to prevent the inaccessible constraints placed on rough sleepers receiving accommodation and support. For a start make all shelters and homeless provision take in the dogs of rough sleepers not just council run establishments – This can be done through Supporting People monitoring and contract terms.
Then perhaps WCC can put in place a ‘housing first’ strategy for all rough sleepers. In short rather than support needs needing to be addressed before accommodating, accommodate rough sleepers then deliver support to rough sleepers.
WCC can direct its social care teams and CMHTs to assess every rough sleeper and provide a full written assessment and pathways plan for each rough sleeper.
It is natural to attack proposed plans such as this as being abhorrent and dogma and retort with outrage. Yet what we have in this blog is a councillor stating that his council wishes to do all it can for rough sleepers and ‘bring them inside.’
The only way to test that position is to call the bluff of WCC and force them to do exactly that.
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Rosa Hooses | 21/03/2011 7:02 pm
Sexton (or whoever YOU are), you make a bit of a leap with that suggestion. Still, it's better than being compared to the Nazis I suppose.
Besides, you are misquoting. I think the actual conversation went:
COURTIER: "Madamoiselle, the peasants are revolting, there is no bread".
M.ANTOINETTE: "Let them claim benefits"
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Anonymous | 22/03/2011 8:40 am
After learning of the bread shortages that were occurring in Paris at the time of Louis XVI's coronation in Rheims, as tradition persists that Marie Antoinette joked "Let them eat cake!" (Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.) This phrase, however, occurs in a passage of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, written in 1766, when Marie Antoinette was ten years old and four years before her marriage to Louis XVI.
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