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the Pavement
the Pavement is the free magazine for the UK's homeless people
We are committed to publishing objective reportage, tailored to a homeless readership, and to publicising the complete range of services available to homeless people, to reduce hardship amongst our readers and to enable them to guide their future.
We believe that drives to produce homogenous services for homeless people are misguided, and that a range of service types and sizes are the only way to cater successfully for our diverse readership.
We believe that sleeping rough is physically and mentally harmful; however, we do not preach to those who chosen to, nor do we believe that all options to get off the streets are necessarily beneficial to long-term health and happiness.
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Your rights
The Rights Guide for Rough Sleepers outlines your rights around arrest, stop and search, answering police questions, move-ons, no-drinking zones, sleeping rough, taking a pee in public and highway obstruction. It was put together by the Pavement, Housing Justice, Liberty and Zacchaeus 2000.
If your benefits have been sanctioned (cut off or reduced) and you feel this is unfair, you can appeal. Print this letter and hand it in at the office where you sign on. If you feel you need more advice about sanctions, contact Zacchaeus 2000 or your nearest Citizen’s Advice Bureau. And let us know contact@thepavement.org.uk at the Pavement!
VOLUNTEER
If you are a journalist with some free time to research and write stories for the magazine, please contact us web@thepavement.org.uk. For other volunteering opportunities, please approach organisations listed on our Services pages or your local volunteer centre
IN THE LATEST ISSUE

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Journalist Meet Up ~ 2020
An opportunity for London-based pavement volunteers to get together and discuss ideas for future content for upcoming magazines.
Tuesday 7 Jan 6.30-7.30pm
Tuesday 4 Feb 6-7pm
Tuesday 3 Mar 6-7pm
Tuesday 7 Apr 6-7pm
Will you use your admin ninja skills to help a unique small charity working to support homeless people?
Do you want to use your fundraising skills to support a unique small charity working to support homeless people?
Will you donate your a journalism or photography skills to help the homeless people we work to support?
LATEST STORIES
Doorways:
This poem was
written by Peter Gregory
and David Gough after
their third time made
homeless. The pair also
write short stories inspired
by their experiences. If
you’d like to be published
in the Pavement please
send your ideas, words
or photos to the editor,
nicola@thepavement.org.uk In our first 2020 issue
we’re focusing on street
food.
©Gregory & Gough
Shut eye:
We spend a third of our life asleep: where are you sleeping tonight?
Outside? Inside? On cardboard? On a mat on the floor? Have you tried the night
shelter camp beds?
Is there a pillow?
This picture was
inspired by a story
from our friends
at the Museum of
Homelessness
during the Shock to
the System event
to mark World
Homeless Day.
©Pavement
Priced out:
Hackney
had the highest
increase in property
prices in the UK over
the past 20 years – up
by 472%. Last year the
total cost of temporary
accommodation in
Hackney increased
from £7.2 million to
£9.3 million.
©Pavement
Starting Universal Credit?
For a short time, Citizens Advice
Bureau will help anyone make an
initial application for UC until they
get their first payment writes Ian
Kalman. This ends in April 2020.
CAB is at some job centres for a few
hours, so either check in your job
centre or go to your nearest CAB.
Or you can try CAB’s Help to Claim
phone line. England tel: 0800 144
8444, Scotland tel: 0800 023 2581.
Also see www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/universal-credit/
Made my own:
Dean from the
999 Club in Deptford Broadway
working on an upcycled chair
created from an old wardrobe
door with help from mentor
Ellen Svenningsen. Dean’s
finished chair went on show
at the V&A for the London
Design Festival’s final day in
September to showcase design
solutions to the climate crisis.
Dean’s chair makes good use
of waste products, gives him
the skills to make furniture for
temporary accommodation
and pride knowing that it will be
donated to the People’s Kitchen
based at the Royal Docks.
©999 Club / V&A
Things I've learnt:
Connection at St
Martin-in-the-Fields has set up a Living
Library where instead of taking out a
book, librarians introduce you to a real
life person – with opinions. Then the two
of you have a chat and share stories over
a cup of tea. ©Connection
News in Brief 123: Nov-Dec 2019
01 November 2019Grim record
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates 726 homeless people died in England and Wales in 2018, the most in a single year on record. The grim figures represent a 22% rise on the number of deaths in 2017. This is also the biggest annual increase since data started being collected in 2013.
Drug related deaths increased by 55% from 2017 to 2018, by far the biggest increase among causes. Overall there were 294 deaths associated with drug abuse, with 131 of those attributed to opiate poisoning. In Birmingham 23 people died – this was the highest number of deaths recorded by a local authority.
Pavement says: Living on the streets can be fatal. With a million people on council house waiting lists where are the homes that people need? That’s why there’s a growing call for the Government to start house building again. In Scotland Housing First has just passed its first milestone (see p6). While TV presenter George Clarke – who fronted C4’s Council House Scandal - is campaigning for 100,000 new council houses to be built every year for the next 30 years.
Sign the petition on:
• www.councilhousescandal.co.uk
Bad photo
Parliament has apologised to a group of people sleeping rough close to the Palace of Westminster in September, for taking individual photos of them while they were asleep. The photos were taken by a cleaning contractor employed by the parliamentary estate, according to the Guardian. A House of Commons spokesperson refused to explain why the pictures were being taken, although they did apologise for “any distress caused” adding that the practice “has been immediately stopped.”
Tooth care: November is Mouth Cancer Awareness Month. Visit a dentist if
you have an ulcer that hasn’t healed after two weeks or you see a red/white
patch in your mouth or you have pain/difficulty when swallowing.
© Gettysburgsmiles.com
Housing firsts
In Scotland, 120 previously homeless people have now been housed under the groundbreaking Housing First program begun in 2018 writes Jack Hanington. The pathfinder policy aims to provide stable housing as a first step, rather than a last step, in the process of overcoming homelessness. The Scottish Government, working with Social Bite, local authorities, third sector and housing providers, is trying to make Scotland the third country to attempt a nationwide roll out of the Housing First program. Currently it is run in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling. By 2021, Housing First aims to provide 830 people with their own home.
• https://social-bite.co.uk/housing-first-qas/
No UC evictions
Living Rent, Scotland’s Tenants
Union, is launching a new Glasgow
city-wide campaign calling on
Housing Associations (HAs) to halt
evictions arising from Universal
Credit (UC) writes Jack Hanington.
Following the Tenants Union’s
summer actions against Serco
and Mears Group in solidarity with
300 eviction-threatened asylum
seekers and refugees, Living Rent will
organise across Glasgow to pressure
HAs to commit to a No UC Evictions
policy. Research from the National
Housing Federation showed last year
that nearly three-quarters (73%)
of tenants on UC are in debt. In
2018/19, evictions of UC claimants
from council houses in the UK
reached an all-time high.
• www.livingrent.org
Landlords' excuses
Readers of the Pavement will be all too familiar with the difficulties of accessing affordable housing. Our July/August 2019 issue noted Shelter’s report on the rift between councils and social landlords, who weren’t taking on homeless people as prospective tenants. Then in September the Chartered Institute of Housing released a report confirming that social landlords don’t want homeless people as tenants. The study reveals social landlords routinely exclude homeless people from accommodation due to fears over the reliability of universal credit, unmet support needs and a presumption that prospective tenants would find themselves in rent arrears.
New Hackney hostel
Dalston, London, is set to welcome
a new hostel for homeless families.
Blue Chip Trading Ltd and property
developer Hezi Zakai have had plans
for the purpose-built 292-room
hostel approved and work will start
imminently. The hostel looks set to
house more than 600 people, and
offer 24-hour security, as well as free
wi-fi and a launderette. Rooms will
come fitted with workstations too,
according to the Hackney Citizen.
The plan has its detractors, with
some councillors arguing this is not
‘temporary’ accommodation as
tenants may stay for years in housing
not fit for permanent residence.
Hackney council will manage the site
once work is complete.
News in brief 122 : September-October 2019
01 September 2019The Conservative Mayor of the
West Midlands, Andy Street, has
admonished his government’s
homelessness policy. Street says the
government has directly increased
the number of people being made
homeless, by freezing housing
benefits.
Vagrancy act
As the Pavement went to press, the Government was still reviewing the archaic, draconian Vagrancy Act of 1824. Woefully outdated and clearly unfit for purpose, successive governments had ignored the act, which makes it a criminal offence to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. A campaign to repeal the act, supported by a group of charities headed by Crisis, has gained crossparty support among MPs and at the time of writing it was hopeful the law will soon be dumped.
Pension problem
A devastating report produced by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Housing and Care for the Elderly predicts the Pavement’s readership is set to skyrocket (although they didn’t report it quite like that). Rental Housing For An Ageing Population, predicts more than 600,000 members of the millennial generation in the UK (people born in the early 1980s to mid 1990s) will struggle to avoid homelessness when they become pensioners.
Shock increase
In late June the Combined
Homelessness and Information
Network (CHAIN) released its annual
report 2018–19 on rough sleeping in
London revealing a jump of 24% on
last year’s figures.
• Find CHAIN annual reports
at http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports
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