https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/rising-homelessness-tories-fault-not-lifestyle-choice

SUELLA BRAVERMAN’S attack on the homeless plumbs new depths from a minister already known for kicking downwards.

It combines a xenophobic jibe at foreigners with brazen victim-blaming, ludicrously terming rough sleeping a “lifestyle choice” when the rise in homelessness is demonstrably the fault of the Conservative government.

The Home Secretary knows that the homelessness crisis cannot be swept under the carpet.

Rough sleeping has risen by 74 per cent since 2010, according to the government’s own figures. The rapid provision of safe accommodation to thousands of homeless people during the pandemic showed rough sleeping can be ended almost overnight where there is the political will: but as soon as the lockdowns passed the will disappeared, and a 26 per cent rise in rough sleeping last year alone points to the devastating impact of the cost-of-living crisis. Homeless Link CEO Rick Henderson pointed to the causes at the start of the year: “A shortage of affordable housing, an often punitive welfare system and increasingly stretched health services.”

The results are visible everywhere. It is now rare to take a journey in one of our larger cities without encountering beggars. This is an indictment of 13 years of Tory rule.

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/rising-homelessness-tories-fault-not-lifestyle-choice