Now that apparently these will cease to be online, I’m publishing them here.
The Story of One of the Hundreds of Homeless Deaths in the UK
In the last 18 months, 796 people have died homeless in the UK; Kristain Olsteins was one of them.
By Samir Jeraj
14 March 2019, 9:00am
Kristain Olsteins left Lithuania at 19 with dreams of becoming a musician. After heading first to Ireland, where he had relatives, he soon moved on to England with the intention of staying with his sister in Northampton. But things quickly went wrong.
Within days of arriving in the Midlands town, he lost his passport and with it the job he’d lined up. Not long after, his sister moved away and Kristian found himself homeless.
“The first time I met him he was sleeping in a shop doorway without any blankets, or even a coat,” says Jeff Collinson, a friend of Kristian’s. “I went home, picked up a jacket and took it to him.”
That was three years ago, when Kristian first started sleeping rough, but the two stayed in touch and Jeff helped him when he could. He says they had a weird connection and would spend a lot of time just talking.
“He’d tell me about his childhood back home,” says Collinson. “He lived with his grandparents but was one of seven children. He used to go out stealing strawberries and told me he was once chased by a man on a motorbike; he just dropped the fruit and ran. We’d laugh and cry together.”
Despite living on the streets, Kristian was rarely seen without his guitar. He believed that if he could just get his new passport sorted he’d still have a chance of pursuing a career in music. But a fear of deportation prevented him from accessing the support that could have helped.
“He believed that if he came into contact with anybody official he would be returned to Lithuania,” says Stan Robertson, the founder of Project 16:15, a Northampton-based group that provides support to local rough sleepers.
This fear meant he spent the whole of last winter sleeping on the streets. He even refused to enter the emergency cold weather shelter that opens when temperatures drop below zero.
“He wouldn’t go in,” says Robertson. “He’d been led to believe that he would be deported; his fear of being thrown out of the country was so great that he just wouldn’t go in.”
Hayley (not her real name) has slept rough in Northampton for just over a year. When she met Kristian he was sleeping in a garden shed. She says he would let her stay there with him and would often share his sleeping bag with her when the two later slept in the town centre together. On one occasion a passerby paid for them to sleep at a local Travelodge for the night.
“He filled the room with all these snacks for us, and then just walked up to me and Kristian and gave us the key,” Hayley says. “He’d paid for breakfast in the morning and everything. It was brilliant. We felt like a king and queen.”
But the longer Kristian slept outside, the worse his health became. He started using heroin, developed blood clots and had gangrene in his toes that was so bad doctors thought he would need to have them amputated. Then a scan revealed that he needed heart surgery. Collinson regularly visited him while he recovered in hospital after the operation.
“He seemed to be getting better, and I told him that he could stay with me for a while when he got out,” says Collinson. “I’d ring him every day at 11AM, just to check how he was and let him know what time I’d be visiting. Then, one morning, I don’t why, I called him a little earlier and there was no answer. I thought he was maybe with the doctor so couldn’t talk, but a few minutes later a nurse called me and said he’d passed away.”
Kristian was just 22. He is one of 796 people who have died homeless in the UK in the last 18 months, according to new data released by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism – the first such statistical data of its kind in the UK. Like Kristian, around 27 percent were under 40 when they died (where an age could be recorded).
Research by University College London has also revealed that hundreds of homeless people are dying from preventable or treatable conditions. Academics looked at the medical records of 600 people who died while homeless in England between 2013 and 2017. They found that a fifth of the deaths were cancer-related and another fifth were from digestive issues such as intestinal obstruction or pancreatitis.
On Friday, campaigners will hold a vigil outside Downing Street to remember those who have died homeless. Similar events are being held in other parts of the country, including in Northampton, just yards from the spot where Kristian would often bed down. There will also be a memorial service for him at the end of the month.
Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said: “No one is meant to spend their lives on the streets, or without a home to call their own. Every death on our streets is too many and it is simply unacceptable to see lives cut short this way. That’s why we are investing £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness, and have bold plans backed by £100 million to end rough sleeping in its entirety. Councils have used this funding to create an additional 1,750 beds and 50 rough sleeping support staff – and figures published last month show this investment is already starting to have an effect.
“I am also committed to ensuring independent reviews into the deaths of rough sleepers are conducted, where appropriate – and I will be holding local authorities to account in doing just that. And to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place, we’ve changed the law to require councils to provide early support for those at risk of being left with nowhere left to go; are boosting access to affordable housing; and making renting more secure.”
“To me, there can be no justification from any government source for why people are being allowed to die on the streets,” says Robertson. “It shouldn’t be happening. You can’t justify it. You can’t excuse it.”
One Town, One Year, 11 Homeless Deaths
As the number of rough sleeper deaths is counted for the first time, Northampton offers a snapshot of the UK’s deadly homelessness crisis.
By Samir Jeraj
11 October 2018, 1:54pm
TENTS PITCHED UP IN A LOCAL GRAVEYARD(PHOTOS BY NATALIE BLOOMER)
Graham, Richard and Jacek are just three of the names engraved on to stones in a memorial garden outside the Northampton Hope Centre. Since October last year, this day centre for homeless and vulnerable people has seen 11 of its service users die. They range from a 37 year old woman to a 61 year old man. Some were sleeping rough at the time of their deaths, others were in temporary accommodation.
“The causes of deaths are broad,” explains Robin Burgess, CEO of the Hope Centre, where the garden was created. “[They range] from drowning in a river or lake whilst washing, to being drunk and wandering in the road or over a railway line, to having suffered an overdose or some other reaction to substances [as a] result of heavy use. It rarely involves dying from the cold, but it is a death caused by homelessness and the homeless lifestyle, and as such is preventable.”
Northampton is proof, if it was needed, that homelessness is at a crisis point in the UK. Until now no official body has kept count of the number of people dying while homeless, but new research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in collaboration with charities and groups, and writers such as ourselves, is changing that.
A report published by the project this week revealed that at least 449 homeless people have died in Britain in the last 12 months, a statistic that Polly Neate, the CEO of the charity Shelter, described as a “national disgrace”. As a result, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has announced that they will be producing their own estimates on homeless deaths in England and Wales.
“It is utterly unforgivable that so many homeless people are dying unnoticed and unaccounted for,” said Neate. “Unstable and expensive private renting, crippling welfare cuts and a severe lack of social housing have created this crisis. At Shelter we see first-hand the suffering it causes, from families trapped in cramped and dingy B&Bs, to those forced to endure the dangers of sleeping rough.”
Like most towns and cities across the UK, homelessness has become far more visible in Northampton in recent years. Tents are pitched up in graveyards and on unused bits of land, with sleeping bags a regular sight in the town centre.
STONES ENGRAVED WITH THE NAMES OF HOMELESS PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIED ARE LAY IN A MEMORIAL GARDEN IN NORTHAMPTON
At a recent remembrance service for a man who was murdered in June, the names of all the local homeless people who have died in recent years were read out. The list was long but every person on it was remembered and spoken about by someone in the room. People laughed and cried together as they swapped stories about friends and relatives they had lost. As we filtered outside, one of the rough sleepers asked why there weren’t protests over the deaths.
“We should be doing something,” he said. “I’m going to do something, I know you wouldn’t think it but I know about politics, I used to be really into it. I’m going to get us all protesting. This shouldn’t be happening.”
He and the other homeless people at the service went straight from there to a stall that is set up nearby to provide hot food to those in need. They joined a long queue of people and waited for their dinner. Losing so many people over such a short period time has clearly hit their community hard.
“Even if they didn’t know them well, every death that happens reminds them of the risks they face every day and the fear that it could have been them,” Burgess says. “For those who work with them it is equally sad, including for those who have previously been homeless and now, having overcome those issues, work in the sector and ruefully think back that again, this could have been them.”
Stan Robertson, who delivers breakfasts to rough sleepers in the town, says the deaths have also had an impact on him. “It’s hard, these people are my friends, some of them call themselves my second family. I’ve had grown men crying in my arms but there is no grief counselling for them or anything like that, they just feel like they’ve got to get on with it.”
In the city, homeless people and those who work with them are bracing themselves for another winter. Five of the deaths in the town over the last year happened between Christmas and March when temperatures plummeted.
Local charities and individuals have already started collecting coats and blankets to begin handing out in the coming days and weeks and Robertson says some of the people he speaks to are already finding it hard to stay warm during the night.
“They know the dangers,” he says. “And many of them don’t think they’ll survive another winter.”
Samir Jeraj and Natalie Bloomer have partnered with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on the project Dying Homeless to investigate when, where and how people die homeless in the UK
UK MPs Called an Immigration Hotline 151 Times During the Pandemic
A VICE World News investigation raises questions over whether MPs are reporting their own constituents to the Home Office.
By Samir Jeraj
02 February 2021, 5:47pm
UK MPs have been using an official tips line to report people for immigration enforcement in greater numbers than ever before.
More than 150 tip-offs were made to a Home Office immigration hotline by MPs since the start of the COVID pandemic, a freedom of information request by VICE World News showed.
The new figures prompt questions over whether MPs could be sharing information about their own constituents who may have asked for help over their immigration status. Charities say they are concerned that vulnerable constituents could be deterred from seeking help for fear of being detained.
“Immigration issues” are listed on parliament’s website on a list of matters about which MPs can be contacted for advice.
The Home Office has a dedicated webpage and phone number where immigration tip-offs can be made. Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron said in a 2011 speech that he wanted “everyone in the country to help including by reporting suspected illegal immigrants”. In August 2013, the Home Office introduced an online reporting form that allows reports to tip-offs to be routed automatically onto their information recording system.
The issue of MPs reporting constituents to the Home Office in this way was first revealed by Politics.co.uk in 2017 when the Home Office confirmed it had received 482 tip-offs between 2014 and 2016.
A cross-party group of more than 100 MPs signed a pledge in 2018 committing to not report constituents to the Home Office for immigration enforcement. However, the number of tip-offs from MPs has only increased since then.
Now VICE World News can reveal that in the ten months from March to December 2020, 151 tip-offs were made by MPs. This is a rise from the annual figures of 70 in 2017 and 101 in 2018.
Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, who signed the original pledge, expressed shock at the latest figures.
“My first response to this was shock and then despair,” he said.
“It makes me question how these MPs are perceiving people. It’s inhuman that during a pandemic when people are already in desperate situations that an MP could break their trust in this way. It calls into question whether members of parliament are buying into dehumanising rhetoric about immigrants.
“I class anyone who resides in my constituency as my constituent and I will fight for them in whatever way I can, but that isn’t the case for all politicians. There are clearly some who believe that some lives are more valuable than others.”
Joanna Cherry MP, the SNP’s former justice and home affairs spokesperson at Westminster, said that everybody should feel safe when they seek help from a MP.
“MPs are not border guards,” she said.
“Everyone should feel safe approaching their MP for help to regularise their immigration status. It is the job of MPs to help people, not to report them. The public should not be in fear of contacting their MP for support.”
Minnie Rahman, public affairs and campaigns manager at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said everyone should have the right to seek safe and confidential help from their local MP.
“It is disgraceful that, during a pandemic, greater numbers of MPs have betrayed the trust of their constituents instead of helping them to get the support they need,” she said.
“This is an expansion of the Hostile Environment, which puts migrants who come forward at risk, and drives vulnerable people further underground and away from vital support services.
“It’s this climate of hostility which was key to the Windrush scandal – it’s about time MPs learnt the lessons from it, and ensured support is given to all who need it, regardless of their immigration status.”
Campaigners point to other areas of life where people have been deterred from seeking help from public services, for fear of having their immigration details passed on the Home Office. This includes sick patients and victims of crime.
The British Medical Journal found that the government’s Hostile Environment immigration policy prevents women from accessing maternal care, and in 2018 it was reported that an undocumented woman died because she was too frightened to access healthcare.
In 2017 a woman who reported being kidnapped and raped to the police was later detained for immigration reasons while inside a sexual assault clinic where she had been taken to be checked over.
Figures previously obtained by Labour MP David Lammy showed that a roughly equal number of MPs from the leading two parties used the hotline. In 2018, 34 calls were from Conservatives and 32 were from Labour MPs. There was also one from a Democratic Unionist party MP and one from a Liberal Democrat.
At the time, charities rallied MPs to signed a pledge stating they would “not report on anyone who seeks my advice to the Home Office for immigration enforcement”
“Everybody living in Britain should be represented by our political institutions”, Brian Dikoff, legal organiser at Migrants Organise commented. “If democracy means anything, it is that MPs work to serve and represent their constituents, not report migrants who seek their support into the Home Office for immigration enforcement.”
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“I work with many families and individuals who, often in desperate need, contact their MPs for support. We know full well about the Home Office’s dysfunctional practices, which led to the Windrush scandal and destroys thousands of lives. For those same MPs to betray this trust is shocking and unconscionable.
“This practice needs to end, as does the Hostile Environment in all areas of public life.”
VICE World News contacted a number of MPs looking for one who would defend the practice or offer an alternative view in light of the new figures, but none responded.
A number of Conservative MPs previously refused to sign the pledge promising not inform on constituents, saying in a joint statement that, “Like any member of the public, an MP may decide to contact the Home Office to report suspected immigration offences just as he or she would be expected by most constituents to report any suspected illegal activity, not least because that is an obligation we all have.”
Tory MP Christopher Chope previously admitted to using the Home Office tip-off line, in order to report “cases of immigration crime on behalf of constituents who have felt their neighbours are engaged in illegal working when they shouldn’t have been in the country”. Speaking on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme, Mr Chope said that, “Home Office policy is very much to ensure that, as far as possible, life is made uncomfortable for those one million illegals, so that they will be encouraged to go back to where they came from rather than be a burden on our public services here.”
The Home Office initially said these reports were not from MPs reporting on their own constituents but from them passing on concerns that have been flagged to them by other people. When asked to confirm how this was measured they did not provide an answer. However, a spokesperson said: “MPs commonly report concerns raised by their constituents with their consent and at their request, and like any member of the public an MP may decide to contact the Home Office to report suspected immigration offences.
“We are determined to stop people illegally entering the United Kingdom, or remaining where they have no right to do so. If an individual has entered illegally, they should expect to be removed, and if they have overstayed their visa they should urgently take steps to regularise their status.”
Samir Jeraj - Freelance Journalist 