4. Reconnection practice and practitioner perspectives
4.4 Rough sleeper responsiveness
Practitioner interviewees reported that the process of reconnection is relatively
‘straightforward’ in some cases, wherein rough sleepers willingly comply. That said, there was a general consensus that straightforward reconnection cases were generally greatly outnumbered by those wherein rough sleeps were less willing to comply.
“There’re some people who do agree to a supportive reconnection, or for us to facilitate them to return. If they’ve thrown a bit of a wobbly and ended up in London street homeless, and services are saying, ‘Well, actually we can pay for you to get back. We can make some phone calls to people that can probably give you a bit of support’ … A lot of people are very grateful for that … but that doesn’t actually happen that often.”
(Local key informant, London Borough)
“Some people get here and realise quite quickly that it’s all bad, and want to go back very quickly. Some people have come here for a bit of help, really, so they’ve got people taken over their lat. You’d be conident that that would work out, if you’ve done enough work with their tenancy support workers. Got the problem resolved, sent them back home. That sort of stuff works.”
(Frontline worker, London Borough) More often, practitioners explained, a process likened to a ‘game of chicken’ or ‘Mexican standoff’ eventuates, wherein both parties hold their ground until one or other capitulates. Rough sleepers will at some point generally either agree to comply, ‘disappear’ (that is, are no longer witnessed sleeping rough in that place), or will ‘dig their heels in’ and remain in the area (see Chapter 5). If however a rough sleeper’s health and wellbeing visibly deteriorates, service providers will almost always ‘give in’ and offer them access to local services.
“I used to always call it a game of chicken … you’re cutting people off from services, you’re watching them stay on the street … and you’re playing a game of chicken, will they go and can you encourage them to go faster than you crack … So it’s like a battle of wills … Then after a while you’re not going to watch that person just get ill on the street, you’re going to give in, put them in B&B or put them in the assessment centre. And then you’ll have another go at persuading them to go, then they’ll say no and then you put them in to your hostels and you accept them as one of your own…”
(National key informant)
“The reality is … when it becomes obvious he’s not going back, we’ll house him anyway. That’s the reality and once it becomes clear that every feasible approach has been tried with this person, we’ve tried to get him to go back, they’re still around a few months later, they’ll be in a hostel or linked into drugs services and we’ll take them on. That’s the reality of it. But initially, every effort will be made to try and reconnect them.”
(Frontline worker, London Borough) This standoff can, in some cases, last for a number of months. In the interim, access to local authority funded services is generally (but not always) disallowed, such that the only services accessible to rough sleepers who refuse reconnection are the (often faith-based) ‘non-interventionist’ (Johnsen, 2014) night shelters or day centres which operate an open-door policy (see Chapter 5). A number of frontline support workers responsible for developing single service offers reported that they refer rough sleepers who refuse reconnection to these projects so that they may access basic accommodation and sustenance. Other services assist these cases to access accommodation in the private rented sector.
“If it’s clear they’re not going to go, or you want to give them time to think about the offer ... you’ll refer to them [name of charity], so at least they can get basic shelter and food.”
(Frontline worker, London Borough) A number of practitioners commented that they often encounter less resistance from rough sleepers when employing diversion than reconnection, because whilst some rough sleepers refuse to return to the area they have come form on grounds of the need to avoid particular people, they may not object to ‘giving another area a go’ (see Chapter 5). That said, there was almost universal consensus that neither strategy was likely to be palatable to and/or ‘work’ with some individuals (see Chapter 6).
“Probably 99 per cent of the time, we don’t reconnect people back to where they have a local connection; it’s generally a waste of time half the time. So we try and divert them somewhere else that doesn’t have a local connection policy, that they may be willing to give a go to … A lot of people don’t actually want to go back to where they came from in the irst place, because if they did they’ll still be there.”
(Local key informant, Eastern City)
“We’ve got a chap at the moment who has just refused to leave [Northern City]. He’s a big problem on the streets. A big problem with antisocial behaviour and he has a local connection elsewhere but we’ve just had to accept, actually, he is not going to return. He’s been in [Northern City] now for so long he has become our problem and we need to help him.”
(Local key informant, Northern City) Stakeholders disagreed about the impact that reconnection had had on the prevalence of rough sleeping. A few noted that the approach had led to a reduction in levels of movement between local authority areas, and thereby believed that it must have at
least tempered, if not reduced, rough sleeper numbers. A greater number, however,
reported that it was almost impossible to ascertain with any degree of conidence what the impact had been, given dificulty disentangling the inluence of reconnection from other factors in a context where overall levels of rough sleeping were increasing.
“About eight/nine years ago, maybe even longer, it was a more transient thing. In [Northern City] we’re starting to apply local connection to rough sleeper services. Previous to that we wouldn’t have. Neither would [name of neighbouring city] neither would [name of neighbouring city] … Local connection started biting everywhere and actually it did settle down the picture … there are less people migrating into the city now than there was then.”
(Key informant, Northern City)
“Has it had an affect [on rough sleeper numbers]? I don’t know, it really is impossible to say. Numbers are going up again, and we’re still doing it [reconnection] as much as if not more than ever, so… There are all sorts of other things going on. Welfare reform, EU migration, all that. It’s really hard to separate out the effects of reconnection from all those other things.”
(Local key informant, London Borough) The following subsection provides greater detail regarding the challenges involved in reconnection, including but not limited to resistance from rough sleepers.
4. Reconnection practice and practitioner perspectives 37