So, are government politicians and bureaucrats invariably duplicitous (as in: I say this all the time but I never really mean it)?
Or is government work a wonderful career opportunity for the slightly dim (as in: of course I say it because it looks fine in the media coverage, but I honestly don’t have a clue what I’m talking about)?
Inspired by the following news article, the answer to the question surely has to be one or the other.
The event that inspires the above question is a statement by a collection of the United Kingdom’s homeless charities. Their concern? The UK is going to miss its manifesto, issued in 2019, to end rough sleeping (a.k.a homelessness without a shelter bed or a friend’s indoor couch).
Surely, someone(s) who are either duplicitous or dim must have made such an off-the-cuff ‘promise.’
A temporary ‘everybody-in’ initiative rolled out for the COVID pandemic has turned out to be exactly that: temporary. All of its gains have been lost as hotel, motel, and other borrowed spaces have returned to the free market.
So where is the new shelter space — temporary or permanent, that is needed to rescue rough sleepers? Pretty much nowhere. Has it been for some reason deemed to be no longer needed, now that COVID has come and gone?
Here are some of the facts about the 2019 promise (reiterated in 2022) that rough sleeping would end by 2024. Read more in the Independent: Charities write to Sunak raising concerns about commitment to end rough sleeping by 2024
