Homeless people in Leeds say police moved them on because it was Black Friday

Homeless people in Leeds have said Police asked them to move along because of Black Friday sales.

This comes after a recent protest in Central Village over how Leeds Council treats it’s homeless. It very much brings these issues into focus, especially as such an infamously expensive accommodation. In Leeds it’s hard to escape the conclusion that there’s just not enough being done.

Under UK law, begging is illegal.

A Big Issue seller outside HMV told The Tab: “A lot of the ‘redcoats’ were moving more homeless people, presumably because so many people were out on the streets to shop and not drop money into the disposable polystyrene cups of Leeds’ homeless.”

He said he’d tried to run a promotion by which he would be giving away free copies of the book “A Streetcat Named Bob”, as that’s the cover of this week’s Big Issue North, and one of the officers came and told him he wasn’t allowed to do that. He also told said: “I reckon if I wasn’t selling the big issue, I’d have been moved on ages ago.”

One man was staying at a bed and breakfast who’d lent him the room at a halved rate because he was homeless, and he begs all day to try and pay for it. He told me he’d tried begging in the city centre, which he’d been doing for a while, and been fined £120.

I asked him how on earth he’d been expected to pay that and he said: “That’s what my (state assigned) solicitor said”. Not only is this meaning it’s impossible for the homeless to make any kind of living at all, but when we were out on a run specifically designed to try and help the homeless it was nigh on impossible to find anyone.

On a day when everyone was out to buy and spend, but only in aid of themselves, our Big Issue salesman was complaining that he’d had a horrible morning of sales, and some Oxfam charity workers on the other side of the street complained of the same thing. The fact is that in a world where we elect a billionaire in the supposed name of the people, is it any surprise that when people take to the streets to celebrate consumerism, they mentally sweep those in need under the rug, as does our council physically.

I approached Leeds city council chair, Judith Blake, for a comment. At time of publication no such comment has been received.