LETTER: Homeless man's death is an example of how our town fail the vulnerable

As a group of friends who are residents in the Chesterfield area, we are both appalled and saddened to hear of a homeless man who froze to death on our streets in the new year.
A homeless person in a shop front. Picture: Andrew RoeA homeless person in a shop front. Picture: Andrew Roe
A homeless person in a shop front. Picture: Andrew Roe

We are not aware of the background story of this poor individual, but what we have heard is that he was desperate for help and, no matter what his background and circumstances, he most certainly deserved help as a human being sleeping rough on our local streets.

We would very like to hear what Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins has to say about this and if he could provide ‘reasons’ why local front line services failed this individual.

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Perhaps he should personally visit Chesterfield town centre late at night and speak to the homeless?

Also, where were the police? This man was known to be sleeping at the bottom of the escalators; clearly our police force has become so inept they no longer bother to patrol our streets any more.

Chesterfield has a local housing and homeless team and we have it on good authority that between 2,500 and 3,000 people are on the local council housing list - although there are only a few council properties that are available.

This is Chesterfield in January 2017 and we most certainly hope our front line services and our local MP take accountability for this.

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Perhaps more budget could be spent on building more local council houses and sheltered accommodation, instead of borrowing millions to spend on new leisure and shopping centres?

You can’t blame central government for those decisions, they were made at the local level.

What we really hope is that this poor man’s death should be an example of how our town fail the vulnerable and homeless.

Name and address supplied.

READ MORE: Council defends record on homelessness after man’s death

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