Homeless families housed in Birmingham hotels driven away before CWG 2022

By: Express News ServiceUpdated: July 26, 2022 12:04:06 pm

During the pandemic hundreds of Birmingham’s homeless families were put up in city’s hotels and apartments, lying empty due to Covid-19, in a breakthrough deal with the city council. But now, with Commonwealth Games around the bend, the families have been reportedly turned out of those places. Similar scenes were witnessed in US during the World Athletic Championships.

“Surely this cannot be part of our Games legacy, to ship out and disrupt struggling families?” Eddie O’Hara, who runs campaigning charity All Birmingham’s Children, told Birmingham Live. “At a time when our home city is welcoming the Commonwealth family to celebrate the joys of fraternal games, we as a city are also excluding some of our most vulnerable families to the outskirts of our city.

“If I was a child I would be asking myself, ‘What did I do so wrong to deserve this?’ We as a city could and should do so much more for these children,” O’Hara said.

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Former city council chief executive Mark Rogers tweeted: “As we welcome the nations of the Commonwealth … so we say goodbye to our inconvenient residents.”

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A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council disputed the numbers and told BirminghamLive: “In total, this relates to less than 20 families being moved to Coventry. However, in recognition of the disruption and uncertainty that this will have on the families affected we have been liaising with them individually. We are grateful to the hotels concerned for working with us to provide alternative accommodation and extra support during this very busy period.”

In Eugene, in the state of Oregon in US where the World Championships were held, similar sights were reported by the local media. OregonLive reported that many unhoused people were “pushed out of sight” from encampments.

Pauline Krieger, 53, who is unhoused in Eugene, told OregonLive that the police told homeless people near the championships that they had to “move out of the parks to areas that visitors couldn’t see them.”

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Anya Dobrowolski, a member of Stop the Sweeps Eugene, corroborated that account to the website, citing more cases. The local media reported that some established encampment camps near the venue were removed and some people were even issued trespassing notices.

First published on: 26-07-2022 at 11:58:42 am Next Story

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