Phillip Davies MP
Philip Davies MP spent 12-15 February 2008 working with the homeless in Leeds city centre. St George's Crypt was founded in 1930 and has been providing care for the homeless ever since.
The charity runs diverse projects and has just launched a banqueting and catering social enterprise to provide work experience opportunities for their clients.
The Centre for Social Justice, formed and headed by my colleague Iain Duncan Smith, has quickly forged an excellent reputation in their field, and one of the best things they do is to organise placements for MPs who want to see at first hand some of the great challenges local communities face.
As somebody who has always believed that the people who know best about any issue in any walk of life are the people who are doing it on the frontline day in and day out, I jumped at the opportunity they arranged for me to spend some time working with people on the frontline at St George's Crypt, a faith based charity in Leeds with a long standing track record of helping some of the most vulnerable and deprived people in our local community.
The Crypt has 4 major strands to their operation:
- a drop in centre for homeless people which operates throughout the day providing food for homeless people but also housing advice and support and has 15 beds available each night for people who need one;
- a wet hostel (Regent Terrace) which provides housing and support for 10 people who are alcoholics with a view to helping them lead a more independent life;
- Faith Lodge which provides a home for 15 people who have had an alcohol or drug addiction, who have overcome their addiction and who are helped to get qualifications to help them secure a job and support to move into their own properties when ready;
- and a new social enterprise called Create which will employ many service users to given them an opportunity to get work experience to help them move on into other mainstream employment in time.
I am incredibly grateful to all of the staff and the service users at the Crypt who made me incredibly welcome throughout my 4 days there and who allowed me to get involved with every aspect of their work from cleaning the tables to sitting in on one to one sessions with the service users.
I was able to get a tremendous insight into the issues of homelessness and addiction and below are 10 recommendations/issues which I believe if addressed would make a material difference in tackling these problems, would be better for the people who need help and would be better for our society as a whole.
TEN RECOMMENDATIONS TO TACKLE HOMELESSNESS
1. The Voluntary Sector is Better than Statutory Sector
I quickly became aware that the voluntary sector is far better placed than the statutory sector in delivering this kind of support and service to homeless people for 3 main reasons.
First, the voluntary sector by definition is involved in this field because it wants to do so and because it has a passion for the issue, whereas by definition the statutory sector does because it has to do it. That is not to say that people who work in the statutory sector do not care, but the driving motivation for the organisation does make a difference.
Second, the service users see the statutory sector as "the opposition" whereas they clearly could see that the people at the Crypt were trying to do their best for them.
Finally, the voluntary sector is much more flexible in delivering an individually tailored service to people who use their system rather than the statutory sector which tends to have hard and fast rules which are followed whether they are what the service user wants or not.
When I worked for ASDA, if a customer came to use with a complaint we were able to find out what that particular customer wanted to resolve it for them and we could do that. Likewise the voluntary sector has a similar approach whereas organisations like local authorities never seem able to show the same level of flexibility. Indeed I got the impression that the local authority suggested homeless people contacted the Crypt for help when in theory the relationship should be the other way round.
Whilst it is right that the Statutory Sector has a role to play in providing funding for the work carried out at St George's Crypt, that certainly does not mean that the statutory sector has to run the service as well, and we should be encouraging more voluntary organisations to take on roles normally run by the Statutory sector.
However I would also like to see less reliance on public funding and much more could be done by the Government to encourage tax breaks for philanthropy to good causes like St George's Crypt. It is much more efficient for money to be given direct from individuals to the good cause than to pay money through the tax system (some of which is swallowed up in the Government's bureaucracy) before a far lower amount is finally given to the organisation on the ground. Distributing money via the tax system is much less efficient than giving tax breaks for direct giving.
2. Treat people as individuals
This follows on from the recommendation above. Far too many Government funding streams and outcomes they expect are too prescriptive and do not necessarily meet the needs of the individuals they are designed to help. A prime example of this is Supporting People, a funding stream which the Crypt uses in order to help people with alcoholic addiction in their hostel move towards independent living. They have to do this as this is what the funding demands. However the people I met at the "wet hostel" were people who had clearly become homeless due to their alcohol addiction and moving them out to live independently would almost certainly lead them to go round the circuit and become homeless again. The vast majority of people there were clearly better off staying where they were where they were safe and their drinking could at least be controlled. However because the funding demands it, some of these people will be moved out to live independently simply because the funding demands it and because it helps the Government to reach their target. It is absolutely essential that each person is treated as an individual, and that the help and support they are given is tailored to meet their individual needs, and not to hit artificial and arbitrary government targets.
3. Bottom up funding; not top down
I got the impression that charities like the Crypt have to try to fit their activities around the funding streams the Government set up even if it is not really what is the right thing to do or what needs to be done. It would be far better if voluntary organisations like the Crypt did what was needed by their service users in their local areas and invited Government departments or the local authority to look at what it does and then decide if it was worth funding. A bottom up approach to funding rather than a top down approach would lead to a higher level of service and a more appropriate service being delivered.
4. Treatment for people with dual problems
A high proportion of homeless people appear to have either mental health problems or alcoholism. Although insufficient, there are places where people can be helped if they have either of these problems. However a considerable number of homeless people appear to have mental health problems AND an alcohol addiction, and there is no statutory body who will help these people which is a main cause of their homelessness. We really need to do much more to help people who are in this position; it cannot be right that they slip through the net and are abandoned. Proper support for these people may well prevent a large number of them becoming homeless in the first place.
5. Homeless People without other problems
As I have mentioned earlier there are a considerable number of homeless people who have either a mental health illness and/or an alcohol addiction - although it is difficult to know whether the homelessness came before the alcohol addiction or afterwards. However there were a number of people who came to the Crypt who through a relationship breakdown or job loss found themselves homeless. However it appeared that local authorities gave a priority to people who had an alcohol or drug addiction on the basis that they were more vulnerable. Although understandable I believe this is misguided. It is absolutelyessential that the people who come along without any addictions are found appropriate housing quickly or it is quite possible that they will get involved in the downward spiral of alcoholism or drug addiction. Giving people with addiction priority in housing allocation also provides a rather perverse incentive to people. However well meaning, telling somebody "we would provide you with some accommodation if you were an alcohol or drug addict, but as you are not we are unable to do so" cannot be right.
I was struck by one person who was homeless, who had no addictions or mental health problems and had not spent time looking for accommodation through the local authority as he had spent all of his time looking for work as he believed that getting a job would be the best way to be able to afford accommodation. However he was advised to claim jobseekers allowance and housing benefit and it struck me that a chap who was merely looking for a bit of help for a few days to get on his feet was being dragged into the benefits system and may find it incredibly hard to get out of it ever again. That cannot be in anybody's best interests and more focus should be given to providing flexible help to such people to allow them to get on their feet quickly and restore their independence.
6. Tackling Benefits Culture
One of the most striking observations I made during my time there was the extent of a benefits culture and a lack of any form of work ethic. There were many people whose aspiration went no further than getting the maximum amount of benefits they could. Indeed one of the service users used as his trump card when trying to chat up a woman that he "was now on full DLA, the works". This is the type of culture we must overturn. Once they have those benefits it is almost impossible for them ever to earn enough money working to make it worth their while to get off benefits. We have to look at imaginitive ways to help people afford to get into work for their benefits and for the wider benefit of society. It is particularly in their benefit as it would help many of the people concerned to fully end their addictions.
I believe that the service users at the Crypt are people who have been most failed by the minimum wage. If an employer has to pay everyone at a certain level whoever they employ it makes it extremely difficult to persuade an employer to take a chance on someone who has recently had an addiction. If they could pay them less for a few months until they proved themselves it would open up far more opportunities for some of the service users at the Crypt to get a foot on the job ladder.
Benefits should not be stopped as soon as people start working either. A scrapping of the minimum wage for these people, along with a tapering off of their benefits would be more likely to give them the opportunity of a job and also make it worth their while to get a job.It may also help to give businesses tax breaks and incentives to givepeople such as service users from the Crypt achance to prove themselves in a job.
It is essential to instill a work ethic in the service users at the Crypt. People working there are seeing a 3rd or 4th generation of families who have never worked and think it is normal not to work. We cannot allow that to continue, and by taking action to encourage people into work outlined above would see more of the service users in work and off their addictions.
7. Promoting Abstinence
One of the most heartwarming aspects of the Crypt is to see people working there who were once service users, and Colette was one of the most inspiring people to speak to. She had overcome an alcohol addiction and is now working at the Crypt on a programme called Spacious Places which has been set up to help people to kick their addiction.
I learned two specific things about the issue of addiction in my time at the Crypt. First, the only people who can deal with the addiction are the addicts themselves; it is only when they are determined that they will come off their addiction will they have a chance of so doing. Second, the only way to get people off their addiction is through abstinence.
Too much Government policy is geared towards controlling addiction (eg through the use of methadone) and see addiction solely as a crime issue. This means that many people are left to remain as addicts and if this issue is seen only in terms of crime the logical extension would be to give addicts free drugs so that they would never need to commit a crime to feed their addiction. Given the misery an addiction brings to individuals and their families, surely the promotion of abstinence is the only sensible approach.
8. Price of Alcohol
There are many people who believe that an increase in the price of alcohol would help with alcohol addiction; and it is reasonable to believe that a price increase for alcohol may help to prevent children from indulging in binge drinking given their limited resources, although this is by no means certain. However I did meet a number of people at the Crypt with experience in this area who feltthat (at least for existing alcoholics) cheap alcohol was a good thing rather than a bad thing. Their view was that alcoholics would make sure they got their alcohol whatever the price, even through stealing if that was their only option. However if the price was sufficiently low they would not commit crime and they would not have to do without any heating in their flat or without food which they would do if the price was higher. I therefore think we should think very carefully before trying to impose higher alcohol prices.
9. Cold Night Protocol
When the temperature falls below a certain threshold (zero) the local authority implements a cold weather protocol which allows hostels to take in extra homeless people so that they are not left on the streets. Whilst I appreciate the financial pressures on local authorities, it seems to me that this cold weather protocol is unsatisfactory. It is an arbitrary cut off point, and I am sure that it feels virtually as cold on the streets at a temperature of plus one as it is when it is minus one. If hostels have the room to take people in when the temperature is below freezing then surely they have the room to take them in when the temperature is above freezing. This seems to be the perversion of bureaucracy.
10. Vagrancy Act
Despite the best efforts of the Crypt, due to a shortage of beds and hostels, there is occasionally no option but for people to have to sleep on the streets, and the Crypt provide those people with blankets in order to allow them as much warmth as possible whilst they are out there. It therefore cannot be right that those people who have sought shelter and not found it through no fault of their own should be charged with Vagrancy by the Police when they are sleeping on the streets. The Vagrancy Act should take into account the efforts that people have made to find shelter and are sleeping on the streets as a last resort, and people who are out there through no fault of their own should be treated differently to the small number of people who are out on the streets through choice.
