With up to one million additional tourists expected to attend the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Kellie Sadler, a reporter for Birmingham Eastside, looks at housing issues in the city to see how tourism will affect the homeless community.
The issue of homelessness in Birmingham is increasing year on year, with a rising figure of 57 rough sleepers in the city, which has increased by 714% since 2011.
2016/17 statistics obtained from a Freedom Of Information request, show that housing those who are homeless in Birmingham in temporary accommodation would cost 17.2 million.
As 25 million pounds is being spent on fees and development work to host the Games, some people question why it couldn’t have gone towards wider issues in Birmingham.
Samantha Brown from ‘Helping Birmingham Homeless’ charity said: “Just as we can find money for war, we can always find money for an event such as this one and its money that we are told we do not have for issues such as homelessness, but when the opportunity to host an event like this arise, suddenly the money appears.”
The money from the Commonwealth Games potentially would have been able to temporarily house every single person in the city, which would have made a huge difference to the issue of homelessness in Birmingham.
Samantha Brown said: “Clearly, it would be fantastic if that amount of money were available to help the homeless people and there would be benefits to Birmingham if that were to happen, just as there will be benefits from hosting the Games here, but that amount of money would never be made available for such an issue.
“The homeless community may feel neglected that the money has been spent on hosting the games rather than providing more mental health services, rehab services and accommodation.”
Despite the money going towards hosting the Commonwealth Games, Samantha speaks about both the benefits and drawbacks the event will have on the homeless community.
“As accommodation for the athletes will need to be built, this could be used for special housing after the event. Those who are homeless may also be looking forward to the increased number of people on the streets as they may give them money for food, toiletries or a hostel for the night.
“However, the increased number of tourists may actually make it more difficult for rough sleepers to get into a hostel or b&b.”
Samantha hopes that the Games will actually push the Government to act on the issue of homelessness in preparation for the event: “I wonder if they may push to accommodate more rough sleepers coming up to and during the Games so that there are not as many visible homeless people as there are at the moment.”