Homeless in the City
Sergeant Rick Longden of the City of London Police is responsible
for dealing with the homeless, begging and people sleeping rough on
the streets, as well as people with mental health issues.
Homelessness, begging and rough sleeping are regularly raised as
community issues and regularly appear as priority issues for the
Safer Wards Team to focus on. Rick works closely with the City of
London Corporation social services, other local London boroughs,
the Broadway Homeless and Support charity
(www.broadwaylondon.org),
Ex HM Armed Forces Homeless charity: Veterans Aid
(http://www.veterans-aid.net/), local primary
healthcare trusts, Metropolitan Police Service, The Royal British
Legion (http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/) to
assist ex services rough sleepers and other agencies to assist
rough sleepers in the City to access specialist services and
accommodation. The government has set all local authorities the
target of reducing rough sleeping in their areas to zero by 2012
and the City of London Police partnership are working together to
meet this challenging target.
Assisted by five Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), Rick
regularly patrols areas where the community have identified people
sleeping rough or begging. Welfare is the key issue for the police
team as it is acknowledged that people sleeping on the street are
twice as likely to be the victim of violence coupled with a reduced
life expectancy. The key to engagement is to help people access the
specialist support they need, whether that be detoxification
programmes, assistance to access accommodation or training.
There are also obvious links between rough sleeping and minor
crimes and anti-social behaviour which does have a significant
impact on the community, particularly when trying to access open
space areas and alleyways. Urination, violence, criminal damage,
theft and drunkeness are all issues which are regularly raised by
the community and associated to rough sleeping. Therefore Rick and
his team work in partnership with Broadway and the City of London
Corporation to regularly visit rough sleepers, check on welfare,
offer acces to specialist services and cleanse general sleeping
areas where appropriate.
We would encourage the community to report the location of any
rough sleeper or anyone begging to the City of London Police. The
rough sleeper community are very transient and it is essential that
the police can identify rough sleeper locations at the earliest
opportunity to enable us to put in place a coordinated support
programme. If you wish to report the location of a rough sleeper or
person begging please contact Rick via email on
community@cityoflondon.police.uk
or telephone 020 7601 2452.