| Author |
Message |
Cathy
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Monday, 08 March, 2004 - 01:04 am: | |
In recent weeks I've been approached regularly outside Forest Hill station by various people asking for money. Although this activity has gone on for some time in the area, it seems to be becoming more frequent, and more persistent in nature. Has anyone else noticed this? Sunday is the worst day for it I've found.
I know Westminster Council has introduced stringent anti-begging measures and I'm wondering if this is driving the activity further out of central London. |
Brian
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Monday, 08 March, 2004 - 12:30 pm: | |
Cathy
I agree. I have been stopped on many occasions , the usual story is they need money for bus or train fare to get home.Very anoying. |
Ernie
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Monday, 08 March, 2004 - 05:09 pm: | |
Voice your concerns to your local coucillors |
Forest HillBilly.
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Wednesday, 10 March, 2004 - 10:37 pm: | |
There's one woman, in particular, who wanders up and down platform one asking for change to get to hospital on an almost daily basis. It pains me to see people sifting through their pockets, for they never seem to notice that as the train pulls into the station she retreats inside the station, waiting for it to pull away again. Calling her drug dealer 'the hospital' is a fairly imaginative move though. I'll give her that much! |
Brian
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Thursday, 11 March, 2004 - 01:23 pm: | |
I usually refuse but have once or twice given to people outside the station.
If there were porters as in the olden days the staion would be more secure |
Cathy
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 12 March, 2004 - 12:16 am: | |
Hi, yes in answer to Forest Hillbilly's mail, I think I know the woman you're talking about.
She's absolutely relentless when she's in hot pursuit and I've known her to follow me almost the entire length of the platform and back again! |
Brian
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 12 March, 2004 - 11:18 am: | |
Perhaps someone should alert the Rail Authority at the Station so she can be arrested or at least warned of |
matt
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Friday, 12 March, 2004 - 11:48 am: | |
has it occured to anyone that she might need help, and perhaps social services should be contacted? |
Forest HillBilly
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Saturday, 13 March, 2004 - 11:57 am: | |
Matt,
Respect that what you wrote was written in good faith, but taken to it's logcal conclusion one might argue that anyone who is begging needs help.It's simply not the case,at least not the kind of help they are purporting to ask for, eg: for food, shelter. travel expenses etc. The overwhelming number of beggars are looking for their next fix and asking you to pay for it. Whether you choose to so or not is a personal choice, of course. |
Cathy
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Saturday, 13 March, 2004 - 03:14 pm: | |
thanks for your message Forest Hillbilly.
I am not lacking in compassion for people genuinely in need, but surely I, like others, have a basic inalienable right not to be harrassed or followed? Shouldn't my safety and freedom to travel around in peace be respected too?
I have seen this woman on several occasions with her boyfriend in Sainsbury's loading up their basket with cans of beer and fags. This is not the behaviour of people desperate for survival. Having just come back from Sri Lanka, I do know hungry and desperate people when I seem them. And she is not one of them. |
Antonov
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Saturday, 13 March, 2004 - 04:01 pm: | |
Hi Cathy,
I agree with you totally. It seems to me that many of these beggars are very agressive towards those who they feel they can intimidate. I know FH station well and have never been bothered by the local beggars. However a very dear friend of mine who happens to be a woman, a touch shorter than I am, and looks less likely to hit someone is often pursued in the most unpleasent way.
To suggest it is the role of the victim of intimidation to inform social services of the 'plight' of their harrasser strikes me as absurd. The only people that should be notified are the police.. not that they can ever do anything. At least the railway staff should have the right to clear these people well away from the station.
We have social responsibility. We also have the right to be left alone, in peace, and safe. Matt... maybe if you were more of a stature to be threatened by the actions of beggars you would take a different standpoint? It is easy to have a bleeding heart when your hide is safe. |
Forest HillBilly
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Saturday, 13 March, 2004 - 05:11 pm: | |
Cathy,
Perhaps i didn't make my point clearly enough, but I am in agreement with you. The question of 'help' is the issue here, as I believe most people on this site to be community spirited.It is my argument and the argument of many who, like me, work professionally with the homeless, that giving beggars money, however well intentioned, is not helping their welfare at all. It is merely funding their drug habits and discouraging them from addressing the issues which have created their problems in the first place. Constructive help might be to point anyone begging locally in the following directions:
1. St Giles Trust, 64-68 Camberwell Church St,Camberwell ( ph- 020-7703-7000). Anyone in housing need, particularly rough sleepers, should use this as a first port of call locally. Likely to be more productive than visiting Lewisham Homeless Persons Unit (HPU)ph -020-8695-6000, ask for HPU- as St Giles Trust have on-site SPOT workers who can assess needs and have referral priorities to many more hostels all over London.
2. For anyone with drugs issues, though you'll appreciate that most people who are drugs dependent don't announce this as their gambit when begging, point them to the CDP, Community Drugs Project, 55 Dartmouth Road, Forest Hill. (ph- 020-8291-1414). Chances are they'll know about it anyhow.
I hope this is of some use to anyone seeking to help, or indeed, to anyone who might be looking to help themselves or someone close. Again, I would urge people not to give beggars money. You may be easing your conscience by doing so, but in the long run, you are not, I would respectfully suggest, assisting them. |
Cathy
Joined N/A
| | Posted on Saturday, 13 March, 2004 - 05:22 pm: | |
Hi Forest Hillbilly
thanks for your message.
The rest of my mail was in response to Matt's comments. Sorry if it seemed I thought you were disagreeing with me. |
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