Homelessness

(asked on 25th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of public spaces protection orders and other anti-social behaviour measures to prevent homeless people from sleeping in public open spaces, or to fine and criminalise them; and whether they consider the use of those measures appropriate.


Answered by
Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
This question was answered on 8th April 2019

The Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy. This sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.


Public Spaces Protection Orders and other anti-social behaviour measures should be used proportionately to tackle anti-social behaviour, and not to target specific groups such as homeless people. We refreshed the statutory guidance for frontline professionals on use of the powers in the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2014 in December 2017 to make absolutely clear that these orders should not be used to target people based solely on the fact that they are homeless or sleeping in public open spaces.

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