![]() ![]() The majority of those arrested aren't actually homeless. Swain doesn't buy the line that austerity has spawned a new type of beggar, desperate only for food. They are the ones who have to deal with the consequences, handling the harder cases, directing them to rehab, hoping not to have to fish a corpse out of a hostel's bath. Campaigns to stop it are needed, argues Swain, "because of the incontrovertible evidence that the vast majority of people begging on the streets are doing so in order to purchase hard drugs". "In fact, to be candid, I am frequently left incredulous at the justification given for dropping money into the cap next to the sign that says 'hungry and homeless'."įor 10 years Thames Reach and others have been trying to persuade us that handing loose change to sad, dishevelled, beseeching suitors on high streets does more harm than good. Jeremy Swain, chief executive of the London homelessness charity Thames Reach, has lately made the case again under the stark heading Killing with kindness."I am fascinated by the impulses that lead us to give money to people begging on the street," he writes. The argument for what at first glance can seem like hard-heartedness is not new but worth repeating. ![]() That is, you shouldn't give beggars money. What is to be done? It's easier to say what shouldn't – easier, at least, as in clearer. But amid the organic veg mounds and coffee fetishists one feature of neighbourhood life remains the same – the daily presence of beggars on the streets. Gentrification, sweeping eastwards across London towards the Olympic Park, is transforming the landscape. Every few days it seems a new restaurant opens its doors, a laptop cafe pops up, or a stripped-down vintage shop appears. A mazing change is taking place in my neck of the woods. ![]()
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