Angiebaby

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  • in reply to: Open letter to Hugh Jones #137202

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    Thank you Matt!

    in reply to: Open letter to Hugh Jones #137194

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    It was an awful display – I have no words for how it made me feel.
    Tories in charge of homelessness, Tories in charge of poverty.
    They might as well set up a department for manslaughter.

    in reply to: Wrexham Council #137147

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    Not in exact figures
    There are some individuals who have homes but use the camp as a social hub. These are in the minority. Most are roofless.
    The majority have a history of conviction for petty crime, mostly stealing food and alcohol.
    There are a range of addiction and substance use issues on the camp – these are increasing as users share information and fixes.
    You ask the question if I’d be happy to have them next door to my grandparents. I have no grandparents, but I’m a grandmother myself. I’m happy to walk and to sit among them.
    I ask you now – what if it was one of your children, or grandchildren that had made a wrong choice? What then? Would you be so quick to condemn?
    A long term solution is imperative – I understand that people are sceptical and dismissive of these individuals.
    That makes me sad. Each one is a living human being, and a person in their own right.
    Last night, during 70mph winds and battered by torrential rain, they had no shelter save for a tent.
    If the council had left dogs in the dog pound in those conditions, the town would be up in arms.

    in reply to: Wrexham Council #137134

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    Please see my open letter to Hugh Jones below

    Open letter to councillor Hugh Jones, Deputy Leader WCBC
    12 September 2017

    Councillor Hugh Jones – we need to talk.
    We need to talk about homelessness in Wrexham. We need to talk about the Groves school. We need to talk about the people who are living in the grounds. We need to talk about homelessness generally. We need to talk about the scale of the problem. We need to talk about the impact of the problem. We need to talk about what actions are currently being taken, and how effective they are. We need to talk about what your plans are for the homeless in the future, and we need to talk about how you will measure how effective those plans are in reducing the problems.
    Councillor Jones, we’ve tried. We’ve rang your office. We’ve sent you emails. Now nearly 600 of us, including the shadow chancellor, have signed a petition asking you to talk. You haven’t answered us. We don’t believe that you want to talk about it, but we do. We know that this issue isn’t going to be resolved without talking.

    We’ve tried to make you talk. We used existing democratic process to submit our questions to you, and the other members of the executive committee, so that they could be asked at your executive meeting today. Our options were limited by process to a maximum of 5 questions. We thought long and hard and put them to you. 4 of these questions were hand delivered, by us, last Wednesday at 11.30am. Two of those questions were also submitted by email on Wednesday morning.

    Councillor Jones, that’s within the parameters of your protocol.
    Your officer replied in writing to one of us, explaining that the question was received too late. We emailed back with proof that it wasn’t. Your officer acknowledged that it was received in time. Councillor Jones, 4 of the questions were delivered at the same time. The receipt says 4 letters. It’s timed at 11.29.
    Your officer emailed a response to one of us. He acknowledged that it was received in time.

    For the record, these were the questions submitted.

    Could this council please advise how many individuals who were previously sleeping rough or living in insecure accommodation have been rehoused in secure long term social housing accommodation by this council over the past 3 years?

    Could this council please advise. How many individuals are currently sleeping rough and/or using night shelters, bed and breakfasts or any other insecure accommodation within the Wrexham County Borough?

    Could this council please advise what is the allocated budget to tackle homelessness for the year 2017/18, how that compares per homeless individual to previous years and how many estimated homeless individuals will be rehoused in long term accommodation by using this budget?

    Can this council please outline the services and initiatives in place to tackle the issue of homelessness moving forward, and what outcome measures will be used to ascertain the success of these initiatives? ie how will this council judge how effective the measures taken are?

    Could this council please advise how many individuals with no fixed abode, or who were sleeping in insecure accommodation (to include shelters, bed and breakfast etc) have died of any cause over the past 3 years?

    Councillor Jones, at commencement of the executive committee meeting this morning, you were sat next to councillor Mark Pritchard. You will have heard him say, as we did, roughly 1 minute into the meeting, that no public nor member questions had been submitted. This is a lie councillor Jones. Did he know he was lying? Did you? Was this a deliberate attempt to shut down the debate?

    We tried to raise our objections – tried to stand up and challenge the lie. Councillor Jones, the chair ruled out of order and silenced us.

    Councillor Jones, those aren’t our only questions. We thought long and hard before deciding on our 5 questions – we wanted to be sure we addressed our main concerns, but those aren’t all our concerns. We have others.
    We have many others. Like ‘why are there no services available to supply food between Thursday morning and Friday evening?’ or ‘how will this council fill the void left when the salvation army are no longer able to provide shelter?’ and ‘why are the old county court buildings, which this council owns, lying 90% empty when they could easily be converted to sleeping accommodation and an integrated service hub in line with the council’s expressed philosophy?’
    But after this morning maybe the pertinent questions are why has this council expended so much energy to divert the democratic process? And what has this council got to hide?

    Councillor Jones, we were then subjected to the spectacle of the chair closing down questions of councillor Dana Davies and Councillor Carrie Harper.
    In a flagrant display of arrogance and misogyny we watched the chair close off any reference to the Groves school by these two councillors, claiming that discussion around the Groves would ‘lower the tone of the debate’. This, despite the fact, obvious to all present, that the lead officer Councillor Phil Wynn, had not been prevented from discussing the Groves.

    Councillor Jones, we left the public gallery in disgust. Disgust that what is clearly the matter of most pressing public interest at this time was disregarded so blatantly. Disgust that the chair had manipulated the agenda in order to avoid difficult issues and difficult questions.

    Councillor Jones, you have our petition. We need to talk, because winter is coming and these issues aren’t going away.
    And neither are we.
    Signed
    Angie Hammons
    Nick Claffey
    Tracey Jones
    Nicola Price
    Laura Seddon
    On behalf of Help Wrexham’s Homeless

    in reply to: Public Questions to the Council #137131

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    Even when questions are submitted in time, they are ignored by the council – please see my open letter below
    Open letter to councillor Hugh Jones, Deputy Leader WCBC
    12 September 2017

    Councillor Hugh Jones – we need to talk.
    We need to talk about homelessness in Wrexham. We need to talk about the Groves school. We need to talk about the people who are living in the grounds. We need to talk about homelessness generally. We need to talk about the scale of the problem. We need to talk about the impact of the problem. We need to talk about what actions are currently being taken, and how effective they are. We need to talk about what your plans are for the homeless in the future, and we need to talk about how you will measure how effective those plans are in reducing the problems.
    Councillor Jones, we’ve tried. We’ve rang your office. We’ve sent you emails. Now nearly 600 of us, including the shadow chancellor, have signed a petition asking you to talk. You haven’t answered us. We don’t believe that you want to talk about it, but we do. We know that this issue isn’t going to be resolved without talking.

    We’ve tried to make you talk. We used existing democratic process to submit our questions to you, and the other members of the executive committee, so that they could be asked at your executive meeting today. Our options were limited by process to a maximum of 5 questions. We thought long and hard and put them to you. 4 of these questions were hand delivered, by us, last Wednesday at 11.30am. Two of those questions were also submitted by email on Wednesday morning.

    Councillor Jones, that’s within the parameters of your protocol.
    Your officer replied in writing to one of us, explaining that the question was received too late. We emailed back with proof that it wasn’t. Your officer acknowledged that it was received in time. Councillor Jones, 4 of the questions were delivered at the same time. The receipt says 4 letters. It’s timed at 11.29.
    Your officer emailed a response to one of us. He acknowledged that it was received in time.

    For the record, these were the questions submitted.

    Could this council please advise how many individuals who were previously sleeping rough or living in insecure accommodation have been rehoused in secure long term social housing accommodation by this council over the past 3 years?

    Could this council please advise. How many individuals are currently sleeping rough and/or using night shelters, bed and breakfasts or any other insecure accommodation within the Wrexham County Borough?

    Could this council please advise what is the allocated budget to tackle homelessness for the year 2017/18, how that compares per homeless individual to previous years and how many estimated homeless individuals will be rehoused in long term accommodation by using this budget?

    Can this council please outline the services and initiatives in place to tackle the issue of homelessness moving forward, and what outcome measures will be used to ascertain the success of these initiatives? ie how will this council judge how effective the measures taken are?

    Could this council please advise how many individuals with no fixed abode, or who were sleeping in insecure accommodation (to include shelters, bed and breakfast etc) have died of any cause over the past 3 years?

    Councillor Jones, at commencement of the executive committee meeting this morning, you were sat next to councillor Mark Pritchard. You will have heard him say, as we did, roughly 1 minute into the meeting, that no public nor member questions had been submitted. This is a lie councillor Jones. Did he know he was lying? Did you? Was this a deliberate attempt to shut down the debate?

    We tried to raise our objections – tried to stand up and challenge the lie. Councillor Jones, the chair ruled out of order and silenced us.

    Councillor Jones, those aren’t our only questions. We thought long and hard before deciding on our 5 questions – we wanted to be sure we addressed our main concerns, but those aren’t all our concerns. We have others.
    We have many others. Like ‘why are there no services available to supply food between Thursday morning and Friday evening?’ or ‘how will this council fill the void left when the salvation army are no longer able to provide shelter?’ and ‘why are the old county court buildings, which this council owns, lying 90% empty when they could easily be converted to sleeping accommodation and an integrated service hub in line with the council’s expressed philosophy?’
    But after this morning maybe the pertinent questions are why has this council expended so much energy to divert the democratic process? And what has this council got to hide?

    Councillor Jones, we were then subjected to the spectacle of the chair closing down questions of councillor Dana Davies and Councillor Carrie Harper.
    In a flagrant display of arrogance and misogyny we watched the chair close off any reference to the Groves school by these two councillors, claiming that discussion around the Groves would ‘lower the tone of the debate’. This, despite the fact, obvious to all present, that the lead officer Councillor Phil Wynn, had not been prevented from discussing the Groves.

    Councillor Jones, we left the public gallery in disgust. Disgust that what is clearly the matter of most pressing public interest at this time was disregarded so blatantly. Disgust that the chair had manipulated the agenda in order to avoid difficult issues and difficult questions.

    Councillor Jones, you have our petition. We need to talk, because winter is coming and these issues aren’t going away.
    And neither are we.
    Signed
    Angie Hammons
    Nick Claffey
    Tracey Jones
    Nicola Price
    Laura Seddon
    On behalf of Help Wrexham’s Homeless

    in reply to: New Executive Board #132407

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    I couldn’t agree more – the issue is further compounded by cuts to frontline services in all aspects of social care. The policy makers refer to these complications as ‘unintended consequences’ bit they’re not really unintended, more like undisclosed.
    The council fail to perform proper impact assessments when formulating budget cuts and certainly don’t include these in the public consultation documents.
    There have been very real human costs to the fiscal strategies employed by the council and they sit back and hope that the public can’t join the dots.
    Sadly, this is true as can be seen by the fact that the majority of the administration have been returned to their seats.
    And btw – you’re very welcome.

    in reply to: New Executive Board #132207

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    We’ve had 7 years of Tory cuts and a Tory government.
    We’ve had a Labour council for 2 out of the last 12 years.
    Your statement doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, though I can understand why you said it.
    The problem is in Wrexham, independents aren’t really independent, they should call themselves the co dependents

    in reply to: New Executive Board #132007

    Angiebaby
    Participant

    Disgraceful
    Cabinet approach to local government doesn’t allow people a voice.
    The executive board make all the decisions and freeze out plaid and labour.
    The people of Wrexham deserve better than toothless representation because of a hierarchical model of governance.
    The board should be in line with proportional representation.

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