Policy is ‘huge step backwards’ that will prevent vulnerable people from seeking help, charities say
Foreign rough sleepers face being deported from Britain under draconian immigration laws to be introduced when the Brexit transition period ends.
Under the immigration rules to be laid before parliament and due to come into force on 1 January, rough sleeping will become grounds for refusal of, or cancellation of, permission to be in the UK.
Continue reading...Far-right harassment of asylum seekers and refugees in emergency accommodation comes as Home Office gears up for mass evictions
Thousands of asylum seekers and refugees temporarily housed in emergency accommodation across the UK are being “unfairly and inaccurately” blamed for the national housing crisis, according to a coalition of more than 100 housing organisations.
Charities including Shelter, Homeless Link and the Big Issue say the housing emergency is the fault of the government, not those who have fled trafficking, violence and conflict.
Continue reading...Professional mediators report a surge in requests for help as community tensions boil over
A couple are having raucous parties in flagrant breach of the “rule of six”. An elderly woman with symptoms faces the fury of other residents by touching a communal door. A music teacher is imposing her students’ discordant notes on the flat downstairs. And a small child following an exercise routine has prompted a neighbour to declare: “I want to kill Joe Wicks.”
Over six months of the coronavirus crisis, community relations have been strained to the point that one concerned retiree in the south-west told the Guardian: “It’s like the English civil war.”
Continue reading...As the pandemic wreaks havoc on existing structures, we look at some visions for post-Covid cities – and how they hold up
There is a huge, looming, unanswerable question that overshadows our cities, like an elephant squatting in the central square. Will a Covid-19 vaccine or herd immunity return us to “normal”, or will we need to redesign our cities to accommodate a world in which close proximity to other people can kill you?
After an anxious summer in the northern hemisphere, during which those of us who were able to safely do so mimicked a kind of normality with limited socialising on patios and in gardens, winter is coming – and it will test the limits of our urban design. Regardless of whether we “solve” this latest coronavirus, humanity now knows how vulnerable we are to pandemics.
Can we mitigate the effects of the next great disease before it happens? And has the colossal disruption to the way we work and travel created a renewed impetus to organise cities in a more sustainable, more pleasant way?
We asked four architecture firms to share their visions of what cities should do, now, to better design everything from offices to streets to transport – and we have analysed each one – to help inoculate our cities against a disease that is proving so difficult to inoculate against in our bodies.
Some say the young are flouting the rules, others doubt the statistics. Most are anxious about what a lockdown will bring
If news that Birmingham was facing a local lockdown troubled drinkers around the Gas Street basin on Thursday afternoon, they were determined to forget it.
“This is the first time I’ve got dressed up and come to town,” said Pam, who didn’t want to give her full name, as she fluffed her pink hair. “I know what’s going on, I’ve worked in Covid wards. I’m not worried being here, but it does feel weird.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: from schools to policing, 50 people share their experiences of growing up in the UK
Following the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK and across the world, the Guardian interviewed 50 young black Britons, many of whom have been at the heart of the recent anti-racism protests, to ask what changes they would like to see in their lifetime.
Three demands came up repeatedly: decolonising the curriculum; divesting funds away from police forces in favour of a public health-focused approach to crime; and better representation of black Britons across a wider section of society.
Continue reading...Wakaliwood’s Isaac Nabwana swapped directing shootouts to parody music videos to support rural projects hit by Covid-19
The helicopter and the bling are made of cardboard and the dollar bills carefully drawn on paper by local children. But the people are very real and the music is totally authentic.
A new video from Ugandan film director Isaac Nabwana is a move away from his previous output – movies heavy on blood and gore and ultra-low on budgets – which is gaining him an international cult following. And he says the pandemic’s impact in pushing film online, with the trend towards all-digital film festivals, has helped.
Continue reading...There is a schism between older African migrants – who think Australia is ‘the greatest country in the world’ – and those who came here young or grew up here
This is the fourth in a six-part series on life inside Melbourne’s high-rise public housing. Read the third part here.
Nor Shanino would get into big debates with his father, Idris, an Eritrean refugee, about the police and the country.
Continue reading...Report warns of reoffending risk as 3,713 ex-prisoners in England lack safe housing
Thousands of high-risk convicted criminals, including those classed as violent and sexual offenders, were being released from prison in England into homelessness, increasing the likelihood of their reoffending, inspectors warned.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) said in a report that it was “particularly disturbed” to find that at least 3,713 people supervised by the National Probation Service, which is responsible for high-risk offenders, had left prison and become homeless from 2018 to 2019.
Continue reading...Green campaigners and housing experts warn Boris Johnson’s recovery plan could swiftly become a liability
Boris Johnson’s plan to build tens of thousands of new homes risks locking in high carbon emissions for decades to come, if they are built to today’s poor efficiency standards instead of being designed for net zero carbon.
The prime minister’s plans to “build, build, build” form the centrepiece of his “new deal” to lift Britain’s economy out of the coronavirus recession. About £12bn will go to building 180,000 new homes to relieve the housing crisis, while new hospitals and schools will be constructed to improve degraded public services.
Continue reading...Despite funding challenges, community aims to increase biodiversity at Langholm Moor making it resistant to climate change
A small community in the rolling uplands of southern Scotland hopes to create a major new nature reserve, straddling more than 10,000 acres of heather moorland home to hen harriers, black grouse and curlew.
The 2,300 villagers of Langholm, a small settlement a few miles north of the English border, hope to buy one of the UK’s most famous grouse moors, owned by one of the UK’s most powerful hereditary landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch.
Continue reading...Carbon emissions, crime and air pollution all fell but are now starting to rebound
In a sudden realisation of what climate campaigners have been urging for years, flights were cancelled, vehicle use plummeted and the oil industry found itself in turmoil as lockdown restrictions took hold.
Continue reading...In the coronavirus pandemic, everyone is trying to create new rules by constantly, volubly judging each other. Better to realise we don’t know the pressures others are under
Before we went into lockdown, I was trying to persuade my mother to reduce her contact circle to five. It seems absurd, now that everyone of advanced age and comorbidities has been told to see no one at all, but way back then (three weeks ago), this seemed reasonable. She immediately bartered the number up to six. It was like negotiating with Tony Soprano: there was no way she was coming out of the deal without the upper hand. Then I asked her how she planned to tell the rest of her associates that they weren’t on the list, and she said: “Good heavens, I’m not going to tell them. That would be so rude!”
Then the list was reduced to zero, but mysteriously, one of the original six went round anyway to fix her letterbox. I asked what was the point of fixing her letterbox, when the only important letter she was going to get would be from the government, telling her not to have anyone round, irrespective of whether or not she had a defective letterbox. She said she would prefer to have less advice, and be given a lethal injection. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said, graciously. “I”m not sure whether the main impediment to euthanasia is whether or not you mind,” I observed, extremely calmly and not at all sarcastically.
Continue reading...Majority of forces in England and Wales adopt online form allowing people to report others
New police tools that encourage the public to report people they suspect of breaching coronavirus restrictions risk fuelling “social mistrust and division”, a barrister has warned, as the majority of the UK’s forces adopt the scheme.
Twenty-six of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have launched dedicated online forms allowing people to report suspected breaches of the lockdown, such as large gatherings in parks.
Continue reading...The dance community helped reunify East and West Germany in the 1990s, but gentrification is slowly killing it
I was in bed when my friend Alfonso called me. “It’s the last party at Griessmuehle,” he said. “It’s the last Cocktail there. Throw on some clothes. We’re going.”
Cocktail d’Amore is one of a handful of landmark Berlin parties that have made the German capital a centre of LGBTQ+ youth culture over the past two decades. It took place in a venue called Griessmuehle, an old East German grain mill that people enjoyed because one moment you might be kissing on shower tiles, the next dancing in a silo. Sadly, it is to be demolished this spring to make space for a resort hotel. It certainly wasn’t an architectural jewel like the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall or Museum Island – but clubs, along with cheap studio space and vibrant subcultures, are what made Berlin the city so many love today.
Continue reading...It has been two years since the government apologised for the scandal and promised to rectify the injustices. Yet those affected are still being failed by the Home Office - with some still destitute
It requires a military level of discipline to live most of your life in Heathrow airport. Gbolagade Ibukun-Oluwa, 59, has been homeless since 2008 and for the past five years has developed a routine that sees him spending several nights a week in the cafes just outside the departures area. He arrives between 11pm and 1am, as day staff are replaced by the night shift, rotating between a Caffè Nero in Terminal 4 and a Costa coffee shop in Terminal 5, where the workers know him and offer him a cup of hot water. If flights have been cancelled and the cafes are very busy, he takes a bus to a 24-hour McDonald’s on the airport slip road, and waits there until dawn, occasionally managing to sleep for an hour or two in his wheelchair.
In the past, Heathrow security have been hostile, calling the police, who would put him in a van and drive him beyond the airport perimeter, where they would drop him and tell him: “If we ever see you there again, you’re in big trouble.” But that aggressive approach has stopped, and mostly he is ignored by passengers and staff; at a glance he looks like any other traveller, his belongings tidily packed into a few bags. “I have a routine to arrive as late as possible and to move on as early as possible,” he says. “They don’t bother me. They’re used to people waiting all night for a flight.” For all the hassle, the airport is at least warm and safe.
Continue reading...Owner of a home that measures just 8m by 3m wins high profile three-year legal battle with government over rates and regulations
Yachts and caravans have all served as home for Alan Dall but it is his tiny house in Canterbury that has finally claimed his heart and where he’s firmly put down roots after 25 years of transient living.
Measuring just eight metres long and three metres wide, Dall’s tiny home has become something of an inspiration for the movement, with his fight to retain its status potentially having lasting ramifications around the country.
Continue reading...How list is compiled also to be reviewed amid claims it blights life chances and is discriminatory
Hundreds of young people have been removed from a controversial police list of alleged gang members after claims that it is discriminatory and blighted their life chances, the Guardian has learned.
The Metropolitan police’s gangs matrix, which the force says is a vital tool in tackling violence in London, has been found to be breaking data laws.
Continue reading...Housing officers are using their local knowledge to spot abuse and exploitation, particularly ‘cuckooing’ of vulnerable residents by drug gangs
Housing associations are playing a growing role in tackling county lines crimes, using their knowledge of local communities to spot early signs of abuse and exploitation.
In the north west of England, the exploitation of young people by drug gangs – known as “county lines” crime – is a serious problem, not just in poorer areas but in York, Harrogate and places with good transport links. Now lawyers, housing associations and police are building networks of support to try and provide innovative solutions to the crisis.
Continue reading...The Senakw development aims to ease the city’s chronic housing crisis – and to challenge the mindset that indigeneity and urbanity are incompatible
The scrubby, vacant patch beneath the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver looks at first glance like a typical example of the type of derelict nook common to all cities: 11.7 acres of former railway lands, over which tens of thousands of people drive every day.
This is not any old swath of underused space, however. It’s one of Canada’s smallest First Nations reserves, where dozens of Squamish families once lived. The village was destroyed by provincial authorities more than a century ago.
Continue reading...