picture from www.lovingdalston.co.uk
Faced with the near doubling of homelessness in London since 2010, with a Tory government doing all it can to enrich private landlords and property developers, even if it means turfing families out onto the streets, how does a Labour council respond? By boycotting the inhumane benefit cuts? By facing down greedy landlords? By offering more support for rough sleepers?
Well Hackney Council has found a far more efficient solution to the problem of homelessness and poverty: ban it! Yes, unbelievable as it may sound, that is the logic of the new “Public Space Protection Orders” (PSPO) introduced in the fashionable parts of Hackney under a new law that gives authoritarian powers to councils to purge their patch of the homeless, the young, travellers, and anyone else they deem an inconvenience.
