Shedding light on Cameron’s favourite Council leader's bizarre comments about homelessness and poverty

By Stephen Cowan

David Cameron clearly believes he can have it both ways. This week he argued he wants to tackle poverty. However, back in June, he was in Hammersmith and Fulham to tell Tory councillors how “proud” he is of their agenda - which involves cutting services and introducing new stealth taxes for some of that borough’s poorest citizens. So John Denham was right to call Cameron out on this obvious discrepancy.

Yesterday, the story moved on when H&F’s Council Leader, Stephen Greenhalgh, set out his defence on Conservative Home. Tellingly, he did not dispute John Denham’s report that his Administration is making pensioners poorer, closing youth centres or shutting advice services. Instead, he wanted to defend his decision to sell off a majority of the borough’s homeless hostels.

Greenhalgh began by asking “what is the real intention of Hammersmith and Fulham Council towards the homeless?” The answer is that they intend to only do the bare minimum and have brought forward a variety of policies which exclude this vulnerable group.

Consider the comments made by the Borough’s Cabinet Member for Crime and Street Scene in December 2007. Greg Smith explained that the homeless are a “law and order issue” while setting out his rationale for turning down a request from the BBC and Crisis (the charity) to run a temporary homeless shelter over the Christmas period. Smith said that he did not want the shelter in the borough because the hot food and warm bed would only attract more of that particular clientèle.

H&F Conservatives have also tightened acceptance criteria. The Council’s latest figures show it only agrees to provide shelter for around half the number of homeless people compared to the number accepted under Labour back in 2006. This is an astonishing cut - especially considering that we’re in the middle of a global recession when there are sadly many more homeless people in need of assistance.

But all of this doesn’t explain the reason for the hostel sell offs, which is set out on page 3 of these committee papers: the hostels are situated in a borough that has the fourth highest land values in the country; they are being sold as part of a programme that prioritises gaining “capital receipts” from a “continuous rationalisation of property portfolios.” It's a strategy copied from the Tory playbook in Wandsworth.

Misleadingly, Greenhalgh tries to argue the hostel disposals are benign. He asserts that he is only implementing the Labour Government’s policy to place homeless people in real homes and this, combined with an initiative from the last Labour administration to provide dedicated hostels for teenagers (which, not for the first time, he falsely claims credit for) has ended the need for hostels.

This is obvious nonsense. The specialised hostels for teenagers do not lessen the requirement for hostels, it just changes their use. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are actually cutting the numbers of temporary homes; selling off council houses on residential streets and gaining national notoriety by opening talks to demolish 3,500 council homes, many of which would have housed homeless people under the previous administration.

The message from these Conservatives is very clear: the homeless are not welcome in Hammersmith and Fulham.

So, Cameron’s soft words about fighting poverty sound more than a little hollow when you consider his favourite Council’s heartless approach to homelessness. But, just for the record, let’s also consider how David Cameron failed to do anything after I wrote to him about hikes in meals on wheels charges that have now been increased by £547 a year; that council officers say the elderly, sick and disabled have been “put at risk” by the Conservatives’ new £12.41 hourly charge for home care; or that they use sharp practices to deter seriously ill people from using vital services.

David Cameron clearly hopes that the public will ignore all this and that his PR approach to politics will be enough to send him through the doors of Number 10. But Cameron’s Councils tell a different story - one that offers a much darker future for our country’s poorest people.

Stephen Cowan is the Leader of the Opposition in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.