Homelessness In Bristol

I put up a piece earlier this week on Rachael Kiddey’s presentation on the archaeology of homelessness in Bristol, along with links and videos on the archaeology of homelessness in Indianapolis, under Dr Larry Zimmerman and Dr Welch, and York back here in the UK, also led by Kiddey. Since I put it up, there was a report on the local BBC news evening news programme, Points West about homelessness in the city. It’s doubled over the last year.

Well, as the American comedian Bill Hicks used to say, ‘Well, pull me up a chair!’

Some of this will be due to the Coalition’s cuts and destruction of the welfare state. Some of it is also no doubt due to budget cuts by Bristol council itself. The city is now governed by George Ferguson, its elected mayor. Nominally independent, he was previously a Lib Dem and seems to have ditched his formal party membership in order to get elected. As part of his image, he strides across Bristol and the world clad in red trousers, though for funerals these are claret, rather than the shade he usually adopts. Under him, this situation will get worse. Just before Christmas he announced his plans for another £90 million worth of cuts, though told the press that ‘people shouldn’t be afraid of it’. As more services are cut, so more people will find it difficult to cope, with some eventually ending up on the streets.

I’ve found a couple of videos on Youtube on homelessness in Bristol.

In this video below by Jake Dix, the producer and director talks to the manager of one of the homeless shelters, a spokesman for the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, and a group of squatters. The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft is a co-operative, that has a number of subsidiary firms. One of these produces pottery from the fragments of old crockery. It has a policy of employing recovering drug addicts. As for the squatters, these have been occupying a building that was derelict for forty years.

This video on Bristol City Homelessness Advice Centre in Phoenix Court by ‘PublicEnquiry’ in itself isn’t really very interesting. It’s just footage of people coming and going in the office, set to a modern jazz soundtrack. I am, however, reblogging it on here because of its producer’s comments about the very commercial attitude of the Council and their attempts to remove it.

Here’s the video:

‘Despite their statutory duty to house the homeless Bristol’s local authority do virtually nothing nowadays to house the majority of homeless people. The council is being run as if it was a business and they can’t make any money out of the poor and mentally ill. They have even tried to get this video removed despite the fact that it is a public place and does not infringe anyone’s privacy.’

Tags: Archaeology, Bristol, George Ferguson, Homelessness, Indianapolis, Larry Zimmerman, Lib-Dems, Poeple's Republic of Stokes Croft, Rachael Kiddey, Welch, York