I recently spent an evening helping out at St George’s Crypt, which has been supporting homeless people in Leeds for around 80 years.

Leeds has, of late, built a good reputation for reducing homelessness and the Council was even given the ‘Homeless Champion’ award by the Government in 2005 for its part in this.

It was interesting seeing the range of people coming through the doors in the evening. There was a gentleman who looked like a retired accountant in smart trousers and a shirt, people with addiction problems and many with noticeable mental illness. Most were very polite and grateful for the food but some, quite amazingly, seemed utterly ungrateful.

From the 1950’s onwards successive governments aimed to reform mental health care to stop people becoming institutionalised in asylums and to get them to live as normal a life as possible. It was the 1950’s when ‘community care’ came into common parlance. The number of beds in mental institutions halved between the mid-1950s and 1975. Of course the thing everyone remembers is the 1983 Mental Health Act which gave rights to people admitted to mental hospitals to appeal against committal. This led to the closures of more institutions, more ‘care in the community’ and a couple of high-profile, terrible events and bad press that followed.

That Thursday evening at St George’s Crypt I saw a number of people who seemed desperately in need of support owing to their mental health problems. They lived a chaotic existence involving rough sleeping and fending for themselves through whatever means they could. It brought it home that whilst statistically the proportion of rough sleepers in Leeds may be around 0.002% of our population, these are still individual people and not statistics.

There is another side to this to consider, though. Years ago my fiancée, Amy, used to work in Thornton’s when she was a student and was regularly abused by a number drug addicts who were living on the street. She was even spat at when she challenged their shoplifting and once had to lock herself in a back room for protection, which is utterly despicable. These particular individuals were on a revolving door of crime and in pure financial terms were a huge burden to the police, court system and prisons. That’s before you even take into account how threatening those individuals were to law abiding people and the cost of theft to the businesses. Before I receive letters of complaint, I must clearly stress that this is not the behaviour of all homeless people.

I can’t help but think that even in financial terms it must be better to have intense and possibly compulsory programs which cover end-to-end drug rehabilitation, settling people into accommodation and work experience. In the USA there are studies showing the cost to the state of people living on the street is up to $60,000 per person, per year. If it is anything like this cost over here we should take stock of how we deal with the problem. I want to make it clear, I do not know the answer. However, in 21^st century Britain we need a fresh look at how as a society we can support these people in getting out of chaotic, dangerous and in some cases criminal existences, into lives where they can contribute positively to society.

All the best

Matthew Lobley

Roundhay Ward Conservative Councillor

PS: If you wish to support the excellent work of St George’s Crypt you can donate via their website or send cheques payable to “St Georges Crypt”, Great George St, LS1 3BR