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Begging and homelessness seem to have impinged on the consciousness of the national press somewhat in recent weeks. You would think that there would be enough to exercise most journalists, what with ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Hutton enquiry and, for those of a less cerebral nature, temperatures that have soared way above our usual pitiful national average.

However, the media must have found themselves at a loose end, as some enterprising hack brought Simon Milton, the Leader of Westminster Council out into the sunlight to explain how there is a ‘hardcore’ of homeless people who need to be forced to ‘come in from the cold’. Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, he hopes to wash all this scum off the streets by proposing £500 fines for those sleeping rough in Westminster’s’ scenic areas such as St James Park and the Square at Westminster Cathedral. Cllr Milton has said ‘we need to make street life as uncomfortable as we can in order to persuade the most entrenched rough sleepers to accept the help we offer them’.

Whilst I would hope that most readers of N16 are of a more kindly and liberal nature than Cllr Milton, and probably realise that street life is just about as uncomfortable as it can get, many people don’t realise how difficult it can be for rough sleepers who do choose to come off the streets.

I work with the North London Tenancy Sustainment Team based in Hackney, which was set up by the Rough Sleepers Unit in conjunction with New Islington & Hackney Housing Association, Providence Row, Broadway and Connection at St Martins. We provide support for former rough sleepers who have been rehoused into permanent tenancies in the North London area. Many of the people we work with find moving into a flat throws up all kinds of challenges that they may not have experienced before.

Many homeless people have not had a tenancy before and have never had to contact utility companies to get services connected. This is no easy matter if you don’t have a phone, don’t know which of the 57 varieties of energy companies provides your gas or electricity and then you have to negotiate with an electronic answering service for the best part of an hour before you get to speak to a real person.

Finding your way around the benefits system is another experience to test the patience of a saint. If you have not claimed benefits before and are faced with a system that is less than helpful, you can feel defeated at the first hurdle. These factors, coupled with the fact that a person who has no money may be given just one week’s notice to move from a hostel into a completely unfurnished flat, mean that the experience of being rehoused may not be as happy as you would think, and probably wouldn’t suit Cllr Milton much either.

Of course, there are a high proportion of mental health and substance abuse problems amongst homeless people and these don’t automatically go away once someone is housed. It’s not easy to get help, with people waiting up to six months to access services. However, one of the main problems affecting people who are rehoused from the streets is social isolation. Imagine if you lived in a community of people with your friends around you, who shared food and looked after you when you weren’t doing too well.

Imagine if you were then taken away from there to live in an unfamiliar area where you didn’t know anyone. This can frequently be the experience of being rehoused – many people are used to living communally on the streets and in hostels and the isolation of living alone can be quite overwhelming.

The good news is that the overwhelming majority of clients that the Tenancy Sustainment Team work with successfully manage their tenancies, go on to study or find work and become completely settled in their new homes. The Tenancy Sustainment Team has run a series of residential trips for clients to try to break the social isolation. Many of the people who have been on these trips have kept in touch with each other and meet up on a regular basis. Jim, who has recently been rehoused in Hackney, came on a residential trip to an isolated farm in Wales. His verdict was ‘The thing I liked was bumping into new people and finding out that the workers was ok coz before the trip I reckoned they was a right bunch o stiffs, but they’re not, they’re OK. I’d go again on any of their trips. The trip was a break from London and I needed one.’

Everyone should have the right to a decent roof over his or her head and I applaud moves to end homelessness. However, what is needed is not political point scoring around the issue of homelessness but an acknowledgement that the problems of homeless people don’t end as soon as they get rehoused. Some people need a lot of help to undo the damage that years on the street may have inflicted but with a bit of help and support most people can get there in the end.

Some useful numbers:

Shelter 24 hour helpline: 0808 800 4444 (freephone)
Hackney Housing Advice & Homeless Centre: 020 8356 5843
North London Action for the Homeless: 020 8802 1600
St John at Hackney Community Space Centre: 020 8985 6707
North London Tenancy Sustainment Team: 020 7690 7690