Eighty per cent of Manchester’s street beggars are not homeless and they are heading here because Mancunians are generous.
That’s according to council leader Sir Richard Leese, writing on his blog.
“The evidence we have suggests that 80% of street beggars are not homeless. Manchester people are a generous lot and so many are more than willing to put something into an empty cup. So generous that we’ve had at least one example of somebody commuting from London to beg on our streets.”
According to Sir Richard, while we generous people might like to believe that the money is going on food and accommodation, it’s more likely to end up in the tills of the off license, or the pockets of drug dealers or the “mysterious people seem dropping these people off in the morning.”
He urged people to donate to homeless organisations and charities rather than “individual drug and alcohol habits”.
Leese though does acknowledge the growing seriousness of the problem
Lack of affordable housing, welfare cuts, and cuts to support services have all fuelled this growth and it is an issue the Council takes very seriously. People are homeless for a range of reasons, relationship breakdown, estrangement from parents, loss of job included
but he adds in a reference to this year’s homeless protests:
“Plonking tents in the city centre is not a way of dealing with homelessness – although in reality many of the tent occupiers are not homeless.”
