Vol 4/5
June
1999

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Special Report
What makes a good city?

It is estimated that over 100,000 people living in London are 'homeless'.

Many are in hostels and unsuitable temporary accommodation. But 400 people sleep rough on London's streets every night. One in fifty has active TB; one in four is likely to be an ex-serviceman; one in three will be an ex-offender (Social exclusion Unit 1998).

The physical and emotional conditions they experience place them at far greater risk of developing a wide range of health problems and despite high levels of need they encounter severe difficulties in getting healthcare and welfare benefits.

They also face the 'Catch 22' situation of no fixed address, therefore no access to help with housing therefore no hope of a home! No home address - therefore no employment prospects and so it goes on.

Housing stress in some parts of London has led local councils to encourage applicants to move out of London - as far as Hull, for example. "a good city knows itself to be a place of diversity and rejoices in the knowledge."

Racism on our streets

Late one night last November, Sanjay heard a noise outside his house.

A circle of rowdy teenagers were throwing small stones at the door and window of his house where he lives with his mother and two sisters.

"Go back to your own country," one shouted. "Get out and don't come back." The other things they said were too awful to repeat, said 20-year-old Sanjay - not his real name.

Sanjay lives in a council house in Greenwich, south-east London, just a few miles from where Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993. While most racial incidents don't end in murder there are dozens like this every week in Britain's cities.

Anti-racism campaigners in Greenwich say they have received about 1,000 reports of racial incidents annually - since 1991.

"A lot of people spend a lot of their lives living under a state of siege," said Sir Herman Ouseley, who worships in this Diocese and is chairman of the Commission of Racial Equality. (Source BBC OnLine)

Timetable of three tragedies

17 April - just before 5.30pm a nail bomb explodes in Brixton, injuring 39 people, some seriously. Police say there was no warning. Among the victims is a 23-month-old boy who has 2cm of a nail in his brain.

19 April - A man purporting to be from right-wing terror group Combat 18 claims it was behind the bombing. Police receive an anonymous call from a telephone box in Eltham - close to where Stephen Lawrence was murdered by racist thugs in April 1993. Four days later three more extreme racist groups claim they carried out the Brixton attack.

24 April - Police stage a reconstruction of the Brixton attack to encourage more witnesses to come forward. But shortly before 6pm, across the Thames in Brick Lane, Shoreditch, centre of London's Bangladeshi community, six people are injured and buildings damaged by a second nail bomb. Police link the incidents and say they are treating them as racist attacks. Two hours after the attack, a 999 call is made by someone purporting to be from Combat 18 claiming to be behind that bomb too.

25 April - Detectives are examining threatening letters to prominent black and Asian politicians by a group calling itself The White Wolves - believed to be a splinter group of Combat 18.

29 April - Fearing further Saturday afternoon shopping attacks, police around Britain step up security, especially in areas of ethnic minority concentration. But at 6.37pm a device explodes in the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street, centre of London's gay community and much West End nightlife. Three people die and dozens are injured.

1 May - Police raid a house in Cove, Hampshire, and arrest a man for questioning. They seize equipment "that could be used to make bombs" including explosive materials.

2 May - Police charge engineer David Copeland, 22, with murder and three counts of causing an explosion.

Investment and Jobs

In the last 20 years, unemployment has trebled in London and between 1990 and 1997 over 450,000 firms in London went bust. On the other hand, Londoners "give" one month's salary to rest of UK each year. London's subsidy to the rest of the country may now stand as high as £14 billion per year, or a staggering £2000 per Londoner - amounting to the equivalent of one month's salary for the average resident A one-off reinvestment of one seventh of that - £2 billion - in London's infrastructure could produce 25,000 jobs.

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