Buying the Big Issue magazine is never an act of charity. Its content is well worth the cover price, especially when John Bird, its founder, writes on social issues. His cover story this week is an open letter to Gordon Brown (not online, buy the mag!).
It exposes how Labour sees homelessness as a financial problem which needs a redistributionist solution. The result? Bird gives a case study…
As Bird regularly argues, homelessness is not primarily a “lack of cash” issue or a “cost of housing” issue: if it was, how could thousands of virtually penniless immigrants successfully settle here each week? Studies show about half of homeless people have severe mental health problems – and yet we have just 13 psychiatric hospitals in Britain now, down from 130 in 1975. The culprit is the “inclusion” agenda (which has also meant the slow destruction of special needs education) which was kept alive in the Thatcher years. It’s time for Cameron to tackle all this head on – in a way that the last Tory government failed to. If he wants a break with the policies of the Old Tories, let it be on this.“Mick was an alcoholic from his mid-20s to his mid-40s. He used drugs, smashed up his council flat, robbed supermarkets, attacked people and was a general pain. His rent was paid. He was given a weekly payment. He was maintained. Apart from the odd run-in with the police, he was maintained in dependency and illness for 20 years. He probably cost about £1 million to run. Then he died. We spent £1 million keeping him in dependency. Of course, no one did anything to sort out his mental illness because we have Care in the Community. Prime Minister, we spend billions keeping people poor.”
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