Reply to Oxford City Council's response

Thank you to Oxford City Council for taking the time to write a response. However, while I’m sure that was an answer to some question about homelessness, it wasn’t an answer to ours – and I must say I do not think any of those who have signed (or are yet to sign) will find it a satisfactory response. For clarity’s sake, I will restate the driving concern behind the petition: there is a crisis on the streets of Oxford and too many have died here already this Winter. Our concern is for the lives that will be lost under current policy, that may yet be saved. You have told us that ‘there is no legal requirement [for the council] to operate the SWEP’ and open emergency shelters. This is irrelevant. More must be done. You have told us that doing more will entail ‘significantly increasing the cost’. But you have said nothing of the human cost of not doing more: those numbers are a lot lower but each one represents a human life lost on our streets. You have also told us that ‘no one was turned away [from emergency shelter] because of a lack of space’ on the nights when SWEP has been active so far. But this is not true. Even on the coldest night of December (the 11th, when temperatures dipped to nine below zero), people were turned away from emergency shelter for lack of space. I know; I was there. I can provide names, times, locations – in fact I already have done so. I understand that the City Council does a lot of good work on homelessness. But – and I don’t know how many times needs repeating – people are dying. People are dying. There is a crisis on the streets of Oxford, and people are dying. Much of the problem stems, of course, from failure at a national and a county level. But failure on the part of others does not license inaction: it makes inaction inexcusable. Our demands remain the same: Oxford City Council, do the right thing and open up the emergency shelters this Winter on every night of sub-zero temperatures or other unsafe weather conditions. We don't have the time to wait for the next person to die.