Camden Council’s acting leader Councillor Pat Callaghan addresses the public meeting in St Michael’s Church in Camden Town

CAMDEN Council’s leader broke off from her maternity leave as Town Hall top brass came out to say sorry for the homeless tents clearance scandal.

But after Georgia Gould, her deputy Pat Callaghan and the council’s chief executive Jenny Rowlands faced the public on Thursday night at an open meeting organised by volunteer outreach group Streets Kitchen and the New Journal, there were still questions left unanswered and loud calls for more action to help people sleeping on the streets.

Last week, we reported how we had witnessed 12 tents, most filled with belongings, dumped into the back of a Veolia bin truck during the eviction of people experiencing homelessness from the rear of University College London Hospitals in Huntley Street.

The operation was ordered by the hospital but also involved police, waste contractors and the council. Camden said it had already organised an investigation into the sequence of events, but campaigners said this should be carried out by an independent body.

The tents behind UCLH being thrown in a rubbish truck earlier this month 

At a full council meeting on Monday, the leader of the opposition, Liberal Democrat councillor Tom Simon laid out questions this investigation had to answer.

“It must identify exactly what role the council played in this incident,” he said. “It must show who made that decision to involve council officers and Veolia. It must show who knew about these decisions – and who should have known. And further, it must explain what steps have been taken to address the wrong done.”

The council has said it will make the investigation public. Two men sleeping in the tents were given dispersal orders from the police due to “antisocial behaviour”, temporarily banning them from a large area in the borough. Others came back to the street to find their shelters had been destroyed.

UCLH has since erected fences around the cleared area.

The tent clearances triggered an angry public response and solidarity for those evicted; thousands of pounds have been donated to Streets Kitchen to pay for new tents. The pews were full at St Michael’s Church in Camden Town for our meeting as council chiefs said again that it should not have happened.

Jon Glackin, founder of Streets Kitchen, told the audience: “Camden certainly dropped the ball. UCH certainly dropped the ball, and the Metropolitan Police certainly dropped the ball. All three groups were culpable. Who in their consciousness sees tents and people’s possessions and throws them in a skip? That’s totally horrible.”

Elodie Berland, also from Streets Kitchen, added: “It’s been so many years of trying to fight what is going on in Camden. And witnessing what we had to witness on Friday is something we witness every time we go on outreach. Every time we go out there and we see the way our friends are being treated and not being heard by anyone.”

Cllr Gould, who is pictured on page 1 with her baby in a sling as she spoke, said it was “completely unaccept­able” that there was no one from Camden there on the day of the eviction. “I want to be here to say, unequivocally, that this is not Camden’s values and it should not have happened,” she said. “To the people here who were moved on, I’m deeply sorry. I want to hear from you as part of that investigation and from Streets Kitchen to learn from what hap­pened and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Jodie Beck, policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, said at the meeting: “I was on Grafton Way on Friday. And it was genuinely shocking – totally devoid of any sense of care, support, dignity and the upholding of basic human rights. “It was particularly shocking to see how multiple agencies came together to take people sleeping rough away from any connections and means of accessing support that they’ve built up.”

Jodie Beck, a policy and campaigns officer at Liberty

She added: “Sleeping rough isn’t antisocial behaviour. Being homeless isn’t antisocial behaviour, but we see this term constantly wheeled out as a way to criminalise people who need support.

”A member of the audience called Bill who is “in and out of home­lessness” said: “These kinds of things are going on all the time. I can’t even sleep discreetly in a park without some council officer coming along, pouring cold water over your head at two o’clock in the morning and telling you to disperse. “We’re constantly being told ‘go over to the next borough and the next borough will look after you’. You are con­stantly being dispersed from pillar to post.”

Nobody from Routes Off The Streets (RTS), the council’s commissioned homelessness service run by Change Grow Live, took up the invitation to appear at the meeting.

Phil Cowan, a Streets Kitchen volunteer, said: “I find that very strange that no one’s showed up from [RTS] seeing as they are promoted to be the place where the public can primarily alert people to people sleeping rough. “I’ve dealt with Routes Off The Streets for many years now on behalf of individuals, and I almost always come up with an unsatisfactory result.”

Mr Glackin said: “If RTS aren’t fit for purpose, commission somebody else to do the job better. I have a lot of love for the RTS workers. I think they’re doing some great stuff but a lot of them are banging their heads against the wall saying they don’t have this, they don’t have that.”

He added in the 10 years the group has been operating in Camden, they have never heard from Holborn and St Pancras MP Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader.

Georgia Gould breaks off from her maternity leave to speak at the meeting

He said last week that he had been “very concerned” by the incident and welcomed an investigation.

Cllr Callaghan, the acting leader of the council during Cllr Gould’s leave, said cuts from the government over the past 13 years has meant the council is “stymied on the financial front” and “could do a whole lot more if the government paid local authorities the way they should”.

Cancelling the Right to Buy policy is not in Labour’s list of policies for the next general election but Cllr Callaghan also blamed this for depleting social housing stocks.

Cllr Gould added: “Very few of the people who are sleeping on the streets of Camden have a connection to the council. And there is very little funding that we get or no funding that we get to support those people.”

But another speaker from the audience, a Camden resident called Rachel who is a UCLH patient, said: “I know the council has no money. But how much does it cost you to chuck these tents in the bin?

“It doesn’t cost you anything to leave people in peace. I don’t believe you’re shocked; I think you’re shocked you got caught.”

Council promises to help but the evicted say they are still waiting

IT’S coming up to two weeks since the camp of rough sleepers outside University College London Hospitals were evicted in such shocking circumstances, writes Frankie Lister-Fell.

The council has admitted it was wrong to be involved and has promised to help.

At the public meeting in St Michael’s Church on Thursday, Jon Glackin from Streets Kitchen said about the council’s homelessness teams: “We need answers, that’s good, but we need actions. We need things to happen.”

Camden has said it will offer compensation and accommodation to those whose tents and possessions were thrown away by its waste operators, and urged anyone affected to stay behind after the meeting. A member of the audience asked why help was not offered sooner.

At a full council meeting on Monday, acting leader Labour councillor Pat Callaghan told members: “These actions are the opposite of everything we stand for as an organisation. It was a very dark day. We were horrified but we have acted quickly.

“Six of the eight people we knew have been offered accommodation. The remaining two we have not been able to reach but we will provide extensive support to those individuals. “They will be compensated for their property. But quite a bit of their property was saved.”

She added: “I think most of them attended [the public meeting Thursday] and discussed with us their feelings. I think Jenny [Rowlands] will attest to that. It was a very difficult meeting for us but it was a good meeting because we showed we want to learn from that and we want to work with them.” Two people who were evicted from outside the hospital attended the meeting on Thursday.

The New Journal spoke to three of the men who were removed from outside UCLH. They each said only one person was offered accommodation.

One man lost all of his possessions including his tent during the eviction. He attended our meeting last week but asked not to be named.

He said: “Which people are [the council] talking to? It’s not me, it’s not Anthony. I don’t know anybody that they are talking to. It’s all lies. Last Friday I was in a terrible place. All my belongings of 23 years have gone

. “I was better off before. At least I had my clothing. I was not ok but I was all right. Now everything has been taken away and I’ve gone from bad to worse.

“There were so many sentimental things like my Grandad’s watch. I had it for God knows how long. I lost my phone, my clothes. I didn’t think I’d be in this situation where I don’t even have clean underwear. Every day I remember the things I lost and I get sad.”

Tonight he will be sleeping in a single layer summer tent on a street corner, he said. After the meeting on Thursday someone from the council took his name and date of birth, and took the mobile number of Anthony, the other person affected.

No one has contacted them so far, however.

Lib Dem councillor Tom Simon

Liberal Democrat Councillor Tom Simon, the leader of the opposition, said in the council chamber: “Despite the comments made just now we believe this response is a weak response, particularly when you consider that everything that members of this council have learned about the leadership’s intentions before tonight we’ve learned from the local press.

“There was not a word or an email in the 10 days after those events to members of this council.”

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We are working hard to provide accommodation and support services to the people who were sleeping rough at UCLH, as well as those rough sleeping in other areas of the borough.

“We have accommodation available for the eight people who were sleeping rough at UCLH and have so far placed three people into accommodation. “ We want to help as many people as we can and are trying to get in contact with the remaining people to provide support and get them into safe accommodation as soon as possible.

“Our teams are doing everything possible to support those who are sleeping rough in Camden. If you need help or see someone sleeping rough, please get in touch with us by calling 0808 800 0005, using the Camden Streetsafe app or emailing streetsafe@cgl.org.uk.”

Streets Kitchen called for an independent investigation into what happened outside UCLH. A spokesperson from the organisation said: “We meet regularly with a lot of the people who were displaced and their version of what the council are doing since differs entirely from what is claimed. These people have been left with nothing as we enter a very harsh winter.

“It is totally unacceptable that these events may be investigated by the very people who carried out these cruel actions. There must be an independent review and action must be taken immediately.”

Veolia has previously said that it works under instruction of Camden Council under the terms of its contract, while police and UCLH said the operation had been organised in response to anti-social behaviour reports, concern for public health and that of the patients using the hospital.