Cardiff rough sleepers speak out
The rough sleepers of Cardiff that Suella Braverman says don't need to be there, in their own words.
Wales Online joined a walkaround in Cardiff city centre with volunteers from Helping Our Homeless Wales. The non-profit homelessness charity, whose hub is in Builth Wells, conducts weekly street walks in Cardiff to provide food, clothes and essential items to rough sleepers. In just the last six months, the number of people the charity feeds in the capital every week has almost tripled from 30 to around 80.
Along with many other charities across the UK, Helping Our Homeless Wales has vehemently condemned Home Secretary Suella Braverman's comments on social media last weekend. She said that while British people will "always support those who are genuinely homeless...we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice."
Sarah Mason, the founder of Helping Our Homeless Wales, said she was "lost for words" by Braverman's comments. "[Homelessness is] absolutely not a lifestyle choice. Not a lifestyle choice at all. There are so many reasons someone might become homeless...We've had [a] young man who had to give up work because his wife got terminal cancer...his mental health was all over the place, and he ended up on the street.
"We've got a cost of living crisis, private rents are probably at the highest level they have ever been, evictions are still going ahead and rising, we have no idea where we're going to be in another year's time with mortgages because the rates have gone up...As charities and as humans, we've been living for decades with our government’s failings.”
