People end up on the streets for a variety of reasons, some families have been evicted, others have fled abuse or have addictions and other people don’t have the life skills or money to live alone, according to a Yorkshire homeless charity.
CEO of Homeless Street Angels Becky Joyce has said that the government's proposals to reintroduce an archaic act which gives police the powers to prosecute people who are rough sleeping or begging.
CEO of Homeless Street Angels Becky Joyce has said that the government's proposals to reintroduce an archaic act which gives police the powers to prosecute people who are rough sleeping or begging.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi there, so my name's Becky Joyce from Homeless Street Angels and today we're just discussing
00:05 about the Vagrancy Act of 1824. The ministers are trying to take it back and trying to reintroduce
00:13 it onto the streets for homeless people and rough sleepers where they will get fined and
00:20 prosecuted for rough sleeping and as far as to the fact that if they smell bad which is
00:25 absolutely disgusting. So they'll be given, they'll be asked to leave the spot and they'll
00:29 be given a court date for a fine either arrested or just handed a piece of paper where they
00:35 have to attend court which obviously a lot of our guys have got chaotic lifestyles, they've
00:42 got drugs and alcohol problems, they're not knowing where they're staying from one minute
00:49 to the next, probably no phone so they don't know the times and dates of things and they're
00:55 just mental health issues as well so it's just, it's not going to happen. What is your
01:01 first reaction to that? I think it's absolutely disgusting, our guys on the streets have got
01:07 enough to cope with as it is, it's scary on the streets and they get abused, they get
01:12 urinated on, some of the girls get raped and you know they've got to fight for their lives
01:18 living on the streets and to be prosecuted for having a lifestyle like that it's disgusting.
01:24 What would you say to people in power, what would you say the solution is? I just think
01:30 everyone should have a heart, these guys are not a number, they're a person with a past,
01:34 with a story and a reason why they're there and we need to look into that, into each person
01:39 separately and work from there to get them off the streets and into a lifestyle that
01:44 they can keep themselves. What are some of the diversity of reasons why people might
01:49 have ended up homeless? We've got a lot of reasons, especially during lockdown, there's
01:54 family breakdown, people started drinking, we've got drugs misuse, there's children,
02:04 kids we've got on the streets as well with families that can't afford to pay the rent,
02:09 especially after lockdown, they had provisions during lockdown where they couldn't be thrown
02:14 out or evicted and as soon as lockdown was over then they all got eviction notices and
02:20 a lot of families became homeless. What would you like to see happen? I just think more
02:26 should be put into keeping the people off the streets, more should be done about when
02:31 they get the properties to keep them in the properties because they just put them in a
02:35 property and leave them to it and that is not the answer, they should learn how to look
02:38 after themselves, they should be taught life skills, they should have all the different
02:44 complex needs addressed and just keep them in there and work from there.