Sir.–I wonder whether your correspondent Mr Burton (Letters, November 13) has ever tried to discover who the so-called “vagrants”

he wants to have “eradicated” really are?

Most are local people who are rough sleepers or housed in conditions that neither you nor I would tolerate.

They have mental, emotional or physical health problems which make employment impossible. Except for four hours, twice a week at the Camrose Centre, they have nowhere warm, dry or welcoming to go. They get bored and listless and some resort to drink or drugs to deaden the pain and rejection they feel.

However, I feel more intimidated by some of the comfortably homed, hard-drinking people who frequent the Top of The Town venues in the evenings, than these so-called “undesirables”.

Without adequate housing and support services, homelessness is a big problem – too big for charities like Camrose to solve alone.

Individual citizens should try and engage with these people and treat them like human beings, not call for them to be “got rid of once and for all”.

They should also be urging county and local councillors to make adequate provision for all citizens, not just those who can choose to shop and spend their leisure time in any part of our town.

Perhaps Mr Burton would like to arrange to meet Camrose and its clients face to face? –Mike Browning, Volunteer, The Camrose Centre, Basingstoke.

 

Sir.–I would like to respond to Mr Burton’s Victorian era attitude of calling homeless people “undesirables” (letters, November 13).

I have just moved to Basingstoke from Andover where I lived for seven years. After leaving full-time employment a year ago, I decided to volunteer and work for a homeless charity based in Portsmouth called Two Saints, who also have a hostel in Andover.

People of both genders and of all ages can become homeless for all sorts of reasons, whether it be ostracisation by family due to sexuality, substance abuse, financial hardship or the struggle to return to civilian life after being in the army and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Homelessness is a symptom of an increasingly unfair economic system, just like food banks and pay day loan companies.

Simply trying to move people away because it doesn’t look good for the town’s image won’t solve the problem. What we need to do is educate ourselves and try to figure out ways to create a fairer society.

In the meantime, I would like to suggest that if Mr Burton passes a homeless person selling The Big Issue that he makes the effort to buy a copy. These magazine sellers are self-employed business people who sell them so they can earn a living. They also happen to be very good magazines and worth reading. –David Bowman, Dorset Crescent, Basingstoke.