The Insider : Get Tough Wth The Homeless

I thought that life in general was already pretty tough on the homeless...that's why they are homeless. John Bird and others have done a lot to try to help them but it is surely a subject that defies a simple "Do this and all will be well" solution. There have always been those who prefer to live their lives a different way, those who are dead unlucky and those who simply can't look after themselves properly. I suppose the trick is deciding which is which and doing what we can to help those want to be helped, and keeping an eye on those who prefer to exist outside the norm. Locking them up sounds ridiculous to me. Or am I being too simplistic...I probably am!

"John Bird and others have done a lot to try to help them but it is surely a subject that defies a simple "Do this and all will be well" solution." Simple, radical solutions are so good at getting people to engage with a subject though, especially if they seem misguided. Like Missi says, I think it's a deliberate shock tactic to get people to tune in.

From the listing I've read, I think what John Bird is suggesting is more along the lines of compulsory treatment for homeless people who have particular mental health or drugs problems. If so, on the one hand, he's absolutely right that tackling the factors that lead to and perpetuate people's homeless would be much better for all concerned than continuing to spend the huge amounts of money that the homelessness industry currently spends on keeping people in desperate and hopeless states. There's two obvious problems, though. One is that providing worthwhile treatment for complex mental health conditions and drugs addictions is very expensive - and the state currently struggles to provide adequate help for people who do want it, let alone people who don't. The other is the question of 'what do you do once it hasn't worked?'. It isn't easy to just change the circumstances of people who've been living with multiple difficulties in extreme situations for mant years. In some cases, the best that can be achieved is to limit the damage that people are doing to themselves.

Jail the homeless eah? If this guy is serious about it, he needs to be jailed, after burning his home down of course. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

he's a fucking pit. sorry, but I've been homeless and we're not scum or trash like these rich people seem to think we are. I may seem radical but people seemed to start believing that they can blame their problems on the homeless to shift it away from themselves. I do believe we need to start taking a greater step in helping the problem though.

Sphincter clenchingly funny scene from either The Fast Show or Chris Morris about the government's new scheme to tackle the homeless problem. Cut to several 'down and outs' sitting along a wall, all with wheel clamps on their legs. I've been homeless but I nearly cacked meself laughing.

John Bird was on the Radio 5 phone in this morning, discussing the stuff he's raising in this programme. He's not having a go at the homeless, he's pointing out - rightly in my opinion - that the services offered to many homeless people, at best, preserve them in a state of hopeless dependency. On the one hand it's expensive, on the other, it doesn't offer homeless people any real chance of improving their situation. The question is whether Bird's plan - of forcing homeless people into treatment for addiction and/or mental illness - would ultimately lead to significant improvements. Where Bird's theory is in danger of falling down for me was when he said that The Priory has 50%+ success rates so, if we paid for homeless people to have the same level of treatment as patients get at The Priory, we could help 50% out of dependency. I think it's probably a mistake to think you can have similar levels of impact on people who may have suffered years of abuse, had traumatic wartime experiences in the military and/or had to deal with a long-term addiction or mental health problem for 10 years or more as you can with celebrities and rich kids who've ended up with more money than they can handle and spent a bit too much of it on cocaine. That doesn't mean the general principle's wrong, though.

Forcing people into treatment is a waste of money, And forcing people in to a 12-step programme, such as is "offered" by The Priory is obscene. If you don't wanna go, you ain't gonna stop. And then to be faced with the idea you have a "disease", and all that prayers and Higher Power nonsense is an insult. You can't force that on people.

I was paraphrasing JB's own slightly unclear statement but I didn't mean to suggest that he actually wants homeless people to be treated at The Priory - or necessarily to have similar styles of treatment. What he's arguing for is the same level of resources and concentrated effort to be put into helping the homeless. That said, I think you're right about forcing people into treatment. But there's big question about whether it's right for the state and charities to be complicit in people killing themselves. Is it right for the hostel system to resign itself to making an existence based on alcoholism or drug abuse more comfortable?

This debate acted as an "Inspiration point" for me. I've had a go at writing a poem on the subject if anyone cares to read it. I called it "Homeless" and posted it on site a bit earlier.

It's a difficult call. It's not black and white, there must be a place on the spectrum for damage limitation, or "harm reduction" as the services call it, so that people with chaotic and damaging lives have that little longer to live and maybe come to that decision to turn it round rather than just be thrown to the wolves. It can be seen as being complicit, especially if you live next door to a hostel/needle exchange/drop-in centre.

Yeah, damage limitation's not a bad thing, the question is whether it's become the default option in too many cases. With particular reference to homelessness - which is multi-billion pound industry in the UK, which creates thousands of jobs for professionals - is the system geared up to contemplate any option other than damage limitation for most people caught up in it?