latest news
August 2008
The office has moved:
Unit 5,
30-34 Aire Street,
LEEDS LS1 4HT
(telephone and email remain unchanged:
The Trustees are:
Mr Ian McKenzie
Michele Miller
Mr Andrew Gilliland
Ms Helen Barraclough
Kingston Terrace Partnership Launch, 12 Sep 2007
The weather was kind for the launch. Bill Kilgallon did the honours in the presence of some 40 well-wishers and supporters. In his speech he commended the Partnership as an excellent example of how the voluntary sector can produce creative co-operation at a time when the dominant public sector philosophy is of competition and contestability. Our hosts, the Religious Sisters of Charity, are the lead-partner. The other partners are Leeds Irish Health & Homes and Catholic Care, besides Leeds Simon Community. Bill Kilgallon concluded by speaking of the inspirational life led by the late Sr Eileen Carroll, to whom more than anyone else this partnership is owed. With his generous words he spoke for us all.
New
Director, 18 April 2006
As
of today Clive Sandle takes up post as Director.
November rough
sleeper headcount (23/11/2005):
18 people were discovered
sleeping rough; 15 within the city-centre and 3 in nearby suburbs.
(The official figure from 2 weeks previously was 5 within the city.)
May headcount (04/05/2005):
15 people were discovered sleeping rough; 8 within the city and
7 just outside.
(The official
figure from 6 weeks previously was 2 within the city.)
In November 2004, 19 rough sleepers were found — 12 in the city centre and 7 in Headingley.
August 2005:
We are moving office at the end of this month.
For a variety of reasons the Management Committee has decided to terminate the lease on our Mabgate office and storage space.
As of 30th August, our correspondence address
will be:
c/o 2 Kingston Terrace, LEEDS, LS2 9BW.
Telephone number remains unchanged: 0113 243 8550.
This move will make no difference to our outreach, soup-run and support activities which will continue as before.
"Rough
sleeping, begging and a hard city"
A commentary by Leeds Simon Community
(Nov. 2004)
Summary
Leeds has had a significant problem with people sleeping on its streets in recent years, and alongside this, many people beg in the city centre. People who beg and sleep rough are some of the most vulnerable people in our city, usually with complex social and health problems.
Leeds Simon Community welcomes the ideas set out in Leeds City Council’s Homelessness Strategy 2003-2006 for helping street homeless people. Leeds Simon Community also supports Leeds Community Safety Partnership’s vision that “everyone in Leeds has the right to live their life without fear for their own or other people's safety.” We welcome the new impetus to help people get off the streets and into housing and treatment.
However, we are concerned that the response to street homelessness and begging in Leeds has become inextricably linked with the sort of enforcement measures used against all forms of anti-social behaviour, including vandals, nuisance neighbours, and joy-riders.
Research has shown that those who live and beg on the streets are desperate to move on but lack the appropriate support and services necessary to do so. Rough sleeping and begging is damaging and dangerous to those who are forced to engage in it. Homeless people regularly die on the streets of Leeds.
Leeds Simon Community believes that trying to enforce change by using arrests, fines, ASBOs and imprisonment against some of the most vulnerable people in our city is counter-productive when gaps in services and support still remain in Leeds.
- We are concerned that recent policies are displacing the problem of rough sleeping and begging into new areas of Leeds.
- We believe the new policies have unacceptably high human and financial costs.
- We take issue with the official statistics which are being used to justify the new policies.
- We make recommendations for improving ways of working with rough sleepers and beggars.
While welcoming the renewed focus on the issue of rough sleeping and begging, Leeds Simon Community feels that the root causes of this social problem need tackling more effectively.
Leeds still has some way to go in its approach to its most vulnerable citizens.