# Solidarity Sleep Out (7-9pm Brixton Police Station Tuesday 25th)



## Gramsci (Feb 23, 2014)

The Met have announced plans to make 'rough sleeping' a crime in 6 London boroughs... Operation Encompass will be in effect in Camden, Islington, Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster, alongside Croydon....

We are opposed to this latest attack on Homeless people and will protest at City Hall to tell Boris Johnson and the GLA to call off this hideous campaign criminalising some of the most vulnerable people in our city... Already there have been arrests of people whose only crime is to be homeless due to the lack of Shelter spaces and suitable accomodation...

We ask people to support our opposition by attending and circulating the information amongst their networks and groups...

The biggest crime of all is the fact that people are homeless today...

Housing activists in Brixton are sleeping out outside Brixton police station the evening before the protest at the GLA. Bring your sleeping bags. All welcome.

https://www.facebook.com/events/714164025295447/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular


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## Gramsci (Feb 23, 2014)

Thread on this here


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## Gramsci (Feb 23, 2014)

Sorry meant to put Tuesday *25th* February.

Cannot edit title.


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## Gramsci (Feb 23, 2014)

*The press release by the Met police states*

*“The Metropolitan Police Service has joined forces on Thursday 30 January 2014 with Camden, Croydon, Islington, Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster together with UK Border Force, local authorities and other partner agencies to combat begging and rough sleeping across the six London boroughs.*

*Under the banner of Operation Encompass officers and council wardens are working in partnership targeting those who commit such behaviour by concentrating on engaging, disrupting and deterring rough sleeping and begging.”*

for full press release:

http://content.met.police.uk/News/T...nd-rough-sleeping/1400022279369/1257246745756

- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/protest/police-targeting-commit-rough-sleeping/#sthash.7Cmr1O11.dpuf

( from the thread linked on previous post.)


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## purenarcotic (Feb 23, 2014)

How do you 'disrupt' rough sleeping ffs, are they going to build a load of shelters and social housing? 

Good luck with the sleep out!


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 23, 2014)

purenarcotic said:


> How do you 'disrupt' rough sleeping ffs, are they going to build a load of shelters and social housing?



no, more nicks


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## quimcunx (Feb 23, 2014)

This weaselly use of the word 'commit' is really fucking me off. People only really use it in this sense for a crime.  Not having a bed for the night is not a crime, but use the word commit before rough sleeping and it will make it seem like a crime. Also 'commit such behaviour'. Who the fuck says that. They're changing the language to associate being poor with being a crime.  The useage actually just really jars. 'commit rough sleeping' just sounds weird. It's a pretty clumsy attempt at manipulation. 

Might see if I can get to this.


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## Gramsci (Feb 25, 2014)

Piece here on Lambeth Housing Activists website.



> One of our activists met a homeless person on a Unite Community stall recently. She described her experience as follows
> 
> I met a guy coming out of Lambeth Housing office today who had nowhere to sleep tonight and the Council had said there was nothing they could do for him because he is 25 and has no children so is not ‘vulnerable’. They gave him a number for the safer streets team but he had no credit to phone the 0207 number… so i rang for him and this is roughly what they told me – “get him to ring us when he knows where he is going to be sleeping tonight and we will try get to him in the morning. And then he can tell us where he is sleeping the next night and we’ll try to get to him again. Then we’ll see if we can find him somewhere”. So i say “you can’t be serious. He doesn’t want to sleep on the street he needs a hostel”. They say “very sorry that’s how it is”. So when somebody says to you that people are ‘choosing’ to sleep on the streets tell them it is bullshit. You HAVE to sleep on the streets or they won’t help you. That is the OFFICIAL POLICY
> 
> ...


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## Dan U (Feb 25, 2014)

purenarcotic said:


> How do you 'disrupt' rough sleeping ffs, are they going to build a load of shelters and social housing?
> 
> Good luck with the sleep out!



i remember reading a post on here about the practice of 'hot washing' carried out by Westminster in the past. I *think* it was by ViolentPanda but apologies to him if it wasn't. iirc they disrupted homeless people by spraying the places the slept in with water. cunts basically.


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## editor (Feb 25, 2014)

*Tweeted


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## ViolentPanda (Feb 25, 2014)

Dan U said:


> i remember reading a post on here about the practice of 'hot washing' carried out by Westminster in the past. I *think* it was by ViolentPanda but apologies to him if it wasn't. iirc they disrupted homeless people by spraying the places the slept in with water. cunts basically.



Several of us mentioned it, as I recall. My foster-dad worked for a couple of years for Westminster's "street-cleansing" dept way back in the late '70s-early '80s, and refused to work might-shifts because they were expected to hose down rough sleepers - they weren't contractually-obligated, obviously, but management made things difficult for crews who didn't give rough sleepers an incentive to move on.
This has been going on, on and off, for nigh on 40 years in Westminster alone.


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