Safe as houses? (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Safe as houses?

11:16am Wednesday 17th February 2010

• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

Having just written a short article about rough sleepers using an Ilford bus route as a place to sleep, a thought occurs.

I have sincere doubts about Boris's plan to eradicate homelessness by 2012, so I have come up with an idea. It's probably not an original idea - I find I'm often beaten to it when I think I've had a "eureka!" moment - but it is an idea nonetheless.

If homeless people are using a bus route for temporary accommodation, why not set up a special bus service specifically for the purpose? You could have, say, four bus services covering north, south, east and west London, picking people up and letting them sleep in the warm, free of charge.

I imagine it would be costly to set up in the first instance - stops would have to be designated, routes worked out and there would have to be some way of letting people know about it - and would rely heavily on the kind-heartedness of those able to drive buses, but it could be a useful interim solution. As I understand it, overnight accommodation fills up pretty quickly in London and this would at least give people a bit of time out of the cold.

Perhaps I'm being utterly naive, but as I say - it's just an idea.

In other news, there has been another violent attack in Wanstead, just two days after a man was stabbed as he tried to buy a car.

This time, the victim was attacked on his own doorstep, had his car keys nicked and lost his BMW.

The worrying thing about these attacks - or one of the worrying things about them - is that they both happened in fairly quiet, residential streets. It seems to suggest that Wanstead, which is one of the most affluent parts of the borough, is now attracting more crime.

Perhaps this is because of its affluence, perhaps because of a general upward trend in crime, I don't know - but it seems Wanstead's streets aren't as safe as they were or indeed as safe as people might think.

There is no longer any such thing as "safe as houses".