The Council's plans to convert these two buildings into 100 bed hostels for homeless people are a major threat to the currently stable, peaceful and secure lives of residents in Honor Oak Rd, the streets off it and the surrounding area.

Of course, some people become homeless for no fault of their own and deserve help but that doesn't mean that have to be located in densely packed accommodation in SE23. There is already a 125 bed homeless hostel in Dartmouth Road, now the Council wants to add another 100 places.

Is SE23 going to become the homelessness centre of London?

Not an appealing prospect, for there is no getting away from the fact that some homeless people are not the best neighbours. The Council itself admits that:

# Many of the homeless people it deals with have 'high support needs'. This could be drug and alcohol abuse, criminality, domestic violence and anti-social behaviour.

# In a recent survey of its existing hostels the Council found that there were reports of anti-social behaviour involving 20% of homeless tenants.

Nearby residents already had to put up with the behaviour of tenants at 118 Canonbie, which has been a homelessness hostel for some time. They hoped the Council would close it down. Instead they are keeping it and want to make matters worse by converting Hamilton Lodge into a hostel too.

Tenants will be admitted to these hostels on an emergency basis. They will be short stay. This means that there will be a constant turnover of the 100 places with people flowing in and out every few days. In the course of a year there could be 200, 500, 800, who knows how many. And each will be bringing their problems to our neighbourhood and placing extra demands on our already overstretched local services.

The Council says that it's cheaper to provide accommodation for homeless people themselves than to place them in B&B, but they have not produced any evidence to prove it. Are they really doing it to save money or to get around the earnings cap which means that people on benefits should not receive more than people who are working for their living?

Homeless people have to live somewhere and deserve compassion but it doesn't follow that helping them should be at the cost of destroying settled neighbourhoods like ours by packing them into what are, in effect, high density homelessness warehouses. Instead, they should be distributed around in much smaller units.

It will take a fight to stop this happening. Councillors, political parties, our MP, local associations, nearby residents and others who care about our neighbourhood need to be mobilised soon if we are going to stand up to the Council.