Maidstone Borough Council 5 YOUR KINDNESS COULD KILL
Maidstone Borough Council is urging residents not to give their spare change to beggars in the town centre. The message is part of the ‘Your Kindness Could Kill’ campaign which aims to encourage shoppers to donate their spare change to homeless charities instead.
A significant number of beggars in the town are not homeless and the money they are given is often used to buy alcohol or drugs which could ultimately kill them. Hard hitting posters are just one of the ways the borough council is using to get the message across and this forms part of a wider campaign aimed at supporting homeless people to get them off the streets.
If you give a beggar money today, they’ll probably be there tomorrow, next week, next month and probably next year.
If you give money to a homeless charity they may be housed in a couple of months with their issues being addressed.
Chair of the Communities, Housing and Environment Committee Councillor Marion Ring says “This campaign is about getting people to support the homeless in a different way. Giving money to street beggars does not unfortunately help them or their situation in the long term. The way we can help is to work with many organisations, often charities, who offer support with addiction or providing assistance with accommodation and support. It is them who would benefit immensely from people’s kindness with the money going towards positive action to reduce homelessness.”
Maidstone council’s Head of Housing and Community Services, John Littlemore, said: “It can be difficult for people to know whether a person who is begging is genuinely homeless. This campaign will hopefully highlight to people how they can be part of making a change for the better without wasting their efforts. We work very closely with a number of organisations such as Porchlight, Maidstone Day Centre, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust and the Kenward Trust to make people realise that if they give money to beggars they are keeping them in their way of life. It’s important we help genuine homeless people with their underlying problems and get them off the streets.”
www.porchlight.org.uk www.homelessinmaidstone.org.uk www.maidstoneshelter.org.uk
If you would like to donate to local homeless charities, visit
www.porchlight.org.uk or
www.homelessinmaidstone.org.uk. By gift aiding your donations, you can increase the amount received by these charities.
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