This Big Issue action plan beggars belief

I WRITE regarding the setting up of an Edinburgh initiative called BEST, which proposes to promote the selling of the Big Issue and the public buying vouchers to give to street beggars rather than cash donation, with a view to ending street begging (News, December 27).

I am the addictions team leader of the Homeless Outreach Project (HOP), a long-established organisation; with the most experienced and professional full-time street outreach specialists in central Edinburgh.

We are now dealing with the initial reactions to this article, with clients (street beggars) coming to our office making some astute but mostly unprintable statements about this "initiative".

HOP staff work seven days a week with street beggars helping with the complexity of issues (not only drugs) they endure. Had HOP been consulted perhaps this ill-informed initiative could have been fully thought through.

The main thrust of clients' feedback, if this "initiative" goes ahead, is that they would have to revert to other forms of begging, for example "hand tapping" – begging on the move; stopping people with general requests for money or saying they need bus fares, pressured begging with the targeting of tourists and shoppers from out of town. Addicted street beggars also fear that because of this initiative they may have to revert to more aggressive means of obtaining money through various forms of theft and robbery and realise that they would inevitably be having "more jail time".

Let's not get confused here – drug and alcohol-addicted clients need money and will continue to get it, one way or another, until they either receive effective interventions, treatment and support or die.

If this initiative is the BEST that Edinburgh can do, pity help us to achieve anywhere near the 2012 goal of ending homelessness.

Government and councils need to act on the fact that the way to combat drug and alcohol addiction and the subsequent by-products, like homelessness and begging, is to stopping wasting time and money on a tiresome charade of petty schemes and tackle the big issue, ie a huge investment of time and dedicated organisation to effective early intervention drug and alcohol treatment facilities along with specialist interventions and support for addicts, their families and to tackle society's prevailing attitude that alcohol misuse is part of our cultural heritage and somewhat acceptable.

Addiction (and poverty in the case of Eastern Europeans) is the true root of the problem and needs treatment, not to be hidden by brushing the beggar off the street to find the needed money by alternative means.

Steve Amos, HOP Addictions Team Leader, Homeless Outreach Project, Grindlay Street Court, Edinburgh


Here's your ticket to ID cards for OAPs

I NOTE that in your piece about the new ticket machines to be installed on the Lothian Buses fleet you refer to the new free national pensioner' cards as "concessionary travel cards" (News, January 4).

This is quite untrue. The cards are also not "bus passes", as commonly referred to by pensioners. In reality they are multi-purpose entitlement cards, which in other countries would be referred to as "identity cards".

The truth is that Scottish pensioners have been issued with identity cards, but remain totally unaware of it.

Dr John Welford, NO2ID Edinburgh, Boat Green, Canonmills


Empty promises in New Year message

I NOTE in her New Year message that Jenny Dawe (Mouthpiece, January 3) states the Lib Dem/SNP coalition will continue the "existing programme of school building" which was set in motion by the previous administration.

That, of course, will not include the new schools planned for Boroughmuir, James Gillespie's and Portobello by the previous Labour administration.

Though these replacements are desperately needed, they will not go ahead because the SNP Government has withdrawn support for PPP funding without putting anything else in its place.

How many more New Year messages will pass before those in power get their act together and arrange funding for these schools? How much longer will pupils, parents and teachers have to wait for the SNP Government and the Lib Dem/SNP council to deliver on their promises?

Henry Philip, Grange Loan, Edinburgh


Thinking big isn't always for the best

GRAHAM BIRSE, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce's deputy chief executive, has recently raised the requirement for the growth of Edinburgh, and once again I shudder at the idea that our city must continually grow in order to survive. Is there no end to this concept?

We now face the prospect of thousands of new homes in the docks area along with a major development at Haymarket and to cap it all the likely construction of some huge building at Leith Walk/Picardy Place to help finance our tram system.

What benefit does all this development confer on the citizens of Edinburgh? Little if any, I would venture to say.

However, if Mr Birse means growth by way of offering better and more effective use of existing facilities and the raising of the standard of living of all our citizens then I will go along with that. Much can be done to attract visitors either from near or far and to make the life of Edinburghers more pleasant but without increasing the population of the city. An ever increasing population means the loss of the facets that make Edinburgh a great place to live.

Edinburgh's uniqueness is already here – embrace it. Do not be greedy and try to make it bigger because that will be irreversible and fatal for our town.

Ian Ross, Eden Lane, Edinburgh