We welcome that Labour supports our call that more needs to be done to tackle rough sleeping and help people to a life away from the streets.
In his speech at the meeting of Westminster City Council on Wednesday 15 November, Cllr Ed Pitt Ford highlighted the shocking statistics of homelessness amongst the LGBTQ community.
Ed emphasised in his speech that
"Homosexuality, bisexuality and gender dysphoria are not mental illnesses or lifestyle choices. They are part of the wonderful diversity of human beings on this planet and we should strive to make these people feel valued and included.”
Ed went on to highlight some practical steps that could be taken to improve signposting to council services for vulnerable people arriving in Westminster from around the United Kingdom. The Council voted unanimously in favour of the motion moved by the Conservative Group to strengthen actions to help those living on the streets.
You can read Ed's speech in full, below.
"Thank you, Lord Mayor. The figures for homelessness among the LGBT community are shocking. According to a Stonewall Survey, 25% of trans people, 24% of non-binary people and 18% of LGBT people have found themselves homeless at one point in their lives. Homosexuality, bisexuality and gender dysphoria are not mental illnesses or lifestyle choices.
They are part of the wonderful diversity of human beings on this planet. And we should strive to make these people feel valued and included. I and many of my friends waited until they had a place of their own before coming out to our families. I had a friend two years below me in school, thrown out of his house on telling his father that he was gay.
But the story I wanted to tell you tonight is about another friend of mine from Wales. I'll call him Rhys to protect his Identity. From an early age, his father would come home drunk and beat him. His older brother developed a drug habit and took after his father and beat his younger brother. Rhys didn’t feel he could go to the police because he feared the fallout if he reported on his own family.
Rhys had told his mother he was gay. But they both knew that they couldn't tell his father because the outcome could be life-threatening. Nonetheless, this boy got himself through college, but when he was 18, he received such a severe beating that holding back the tears, he packed a bag with a couple of shirts and a toothbrush and got a bus into the city and then a coach to London.
When Rhys arrived into Victoria Coach Station late one night, his face still swelling up from the punches he had received, he was all alone in this big city. He had nowhere to stay and didn't know where to find help. He used Grindr, a gay sex app, to find a man to sleep with. He slept with this man despite not being romantically involved just to have a roof over his head.
He got lucky, and the man let him stay for a while and helped him get his life sorted. He managed to secure a place at university and is now travelling the world with work. Unfortunately, much less nice versions of this story continue to play out in our city. I was talking to Rhys about what could have helped in that moment to stop him having to use Grindr to get a place to sleep.
I asked about whether an office in the station might help, and he said that would have been too embarrassing to enter. But information about the help available on the coach itself would have helped. A sign on the back of the seats showing the options available or with a link to a website. So I'd like to call on the council to work with the coach companies and the train companies to signpost support services on public transport arriving into Westminster.
Following this request, please could the Cabinet Member for Housing write to me to explain what actions have been taken by March 2024. Thank you, Lord Mayor."
