ACCORDING to A P Cox, Matthew Laverack and D M Deamer (Letters, July 21 and 22), I and the other 5,487 signatories to our petition should be opening up our homes to provide shelter for rough sleepers.

Apart from the fact that many rough sleepers don’t necessarily want to sleep in someone else’s house or even a hostel, this entirely misses the point.

If I advocate that the NHS should treat someone injured in a car accident, can I only say this if I am a nurse or doctor? If I advocate all children deserve a good and rounded education, can I only say this if I am a teacher?

What the anti-homeless bar petition in essence is asking for is a welfare state which we all pay into and which spreads the risks of life’s perils over our life course.

Charity should be applauded. Indeed there is a project in Leeds where volunteers offer to house asylum-seekers and refugees who have nowhere to go on a short-term basis. However, charity is no substitute for justice.

So while I won’t be opening my home to rough sleepers, that doesn’t mean I won’t campaign for a compassionate, caring welfare state, which might make the lives of some of York’s most vulnerable residents a little more bearable.

Richard Bridge, Holgate Road, York

 

AFTER scoring drugs and a skinful of special brew into the early hours, “vulnerable” people are desperately in need of somewhere to crash out because the hostels built specifically to accommodate them will not allow intoxicants or the intoxicated into their premises.

“Vulnerable” people therefore need somewhere out of the wind and rain, convenient and completely free, to sleep it off.

But next morning it is impossible for “vulnerable” people to get a good kip because of all these selfish pensioners and pregnant women complaining that they want to sit down while waiting for a bus.

Anyone would think that these shelters were intended for passengers on public transport.

John Jones, Sand Hutton, York