Poverty Debate

Indirect Access

At some expense, that I would guess is considerable, my borough has a new service for what they call rough sleepers and we call the street homeless.  It consists of a direct access hostel and a ‘street rescue’ service. 

I was invited to meet the manager of the scheme who kindly explained that my understanding of ‘direct access’ and theirs are somewhat different.  In my simplicity (and doubtless misled by the name) I had assumed that the hostel would be directly accessed by street homeless people, perhaps with a referral from organisations like ourselves.  I welcomed the provision in the service agreement for that reason.  The manager was kind enough to explain that that was not their understanding of the term ‘direct access’ but I was at a loss to understand exactly what definition they were using; unless it was ‘on-referral-by-the-organisation’s-own-staff-after-some-time-on-a-waiting-list access hostel,’ but I will admit that lacks a little something in the brevity department.

In fact the only way we, as a long established homelessness organisation in the borough, can help street homeless people to access the hostel is to tell them to go back to where they are sleeping out, and telephone an 0870 number or fill in an online referral form about them.  Then they are supposed to be visited by ‘street rescue’ and ‘verified.’ 

Ever the optimist, I went along with this, and one night at about 11pm reported where four people were sleeping in the hope that they would be visited.  I was told that the person I was speaking to was just going off shift, and I had better call tomorrow.

With less geniality I called the next day and reported these people and their sleeping positions, hopeful that that night they would be taken in  to the hostel but no, they were all ‘in the system’ but there were no spaces for them, and two had not been ‘verified:’ seen in the same place by ‘street rescue’ several nights running.

One was a lady who walks around with a shopping trolley filled with her possessions.  She cannot be ‘verified’ at all because she doesn’t sleep rough in one place, she stays on the move.  She told me her medication keeps her active, and she is frightened to stop anywhere at night.  Well, that just makes her unverifiable, despite her being the most clearly visible homeless person in the borough.

It looks like this expensive government initiative could get tied up in its own red tape.  A few years down the line when a junior government minister is called upon to explain why street homelessness was not effectively tackled as the government had promised, he will explain that some people just don’t want to be helped, and reject the professional services available to them.  I can give a testimony that all four I spoke to that night wanted to be helped, and had there been a directly accessible hostel for them, they would have been in there and in a position to be assessed and helped by professionals for their problems.