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Uniformed guards are making our town centre more hostile

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CROYDON COMMENTARY: Stopping for a morning coffee overlooking North End on Monday, community worker EMMA GARDINER did not much like the events unfolding before her

Mass turn-out: over-reaction to a single individual sitting outside Centrale, as at least six shopping centre security and Jason Perry’s new force of bounty hunters gathered

Sitting in the window of the lovely new coffee shop on North End gives you a unique view of the outside of Centrale shopping centre, which on Monday this week became a battleground for the biggest, bravest defenders of the peace, Centrale’s security guards and Croydon Council’s new Community Patrol, protecting this great country from… erm… people sitting outside.

From that window, I noticed a gentleman sitting on his sleeping bag, outside Next, minding his own business. Not noisy, not begging, not behaving in any “anti-social” way. Just sitting. The next time I looked up from my laptop, two Centrale security guards were standing over him, gesturing with escalating enthusiasm.

I work at the South Norwood Community Kitchen, which provides an open access space five days a week, hot meals and housing advice, so I went over to see if I could help.

The reception I received shocked me to the core. Given what I already knew about Croydon Council’s approach to homelessness, anti-social behaviour, and the sterile beautification of the town centre, I shouldn’t have been.

I introduced myself, talked about the Kitchen and what I might be able to help with, attempted to provide some understanding and context for why it’s a bit mental to tell someone they cannot sit on this bit of pavement, but that they can sit on this one. There were four of them, all in a police-like uniform, and one of me. They were angry, tense. All because someone was quietly sitting on their boss’s bit of the pavement.

The situation escalated rapidly, as does 99% of interactions with mobs in the enforcement industry.

One of the more reasonable officers tried to reassure me that our friend’s options were very reasonable: he could (a) come back at 6.30pm or (b) actually come inside the shopping centre. He just could not, under any circumstances whatsoever, sit there.

No-go zone: security staff at Centrale on North End now spend their time moving people along who are midning their own business

No, readers, you’re not losing your grip on reality. This is what investment in Croydon town centre looks like. A total of seven security guards, some of them paid for out of public money from a government grant, tasked with moving one man from one bit of the pavement to another.

Like characters from Pokemon, the various enforcement staff who are allowed to patrol Croydon seem to evolve every time I see them – one month they have new, more militaristic-looking uniforms, the next they’ve got a car which they happily drive down a pedestrianised area, the next, they’ve doubled in numbers. What I’d like to know is, why is Croydon Council’s Community Patrol helping Centrale remove homeless people off its private property?

One particular officer, a tall man with zero interest in anything other than getting rid of me as well as the homeless guy, spoke to me as if I was causing a problem, trying to push me to accept that he and his colleagues were being reasonable in enforcing an unreasonable policy, gunning for an argument, taking every opportunity to escalate instead of de-escalate. I did tell them that maybe, just maybe, people feel uncomfortable being confronted by them, given that they’re dressed like cops. I was shown the tiny Centrale logo on the sleeve of their cop jackets. Now that made all the difference.

Once I managed to speak to our friend sitting outside Next, getting down to his level to talk, it was quite hard to concentrate on what he was saying what with four black-clothed militaristic security guards looming over us.

I asked them to move back a bit. A couple of them inched away ever so slightly. My big bully friend didn’t like me asking that and didn’t move. Fucked, isn’t it?

Your money’s paying for this: instead of extra, fully trained police, Mayor Perry has hired these guys

To be honest, I don’t even blame the security guards. Working with rough sleepers is tough. People can be rude. Sometimes you snap, sometimes you forget yourself. I know I have in the past. It can take a lot to hold grace, show compassion, be patient. Given how bad the housing crisis in Croydon is, those guys might not be so far away from our friend outside Next as they would like. Or any of us. Their employment in this job might be what separates them.

And no wonder they’re pissed off – they’re being asked to carry out literally meaningless bullshit for a job.

The thing that sticks in my throat most is: I was there to help. I can literally help them, as well as this guy. But our understanding of “help” in this context is worlds apart. I want to help get a fellow human off the streets. They want to help remove something unsightly from the pavement. And by association, that also means me.

Institutions of power are asking decent people to carry out acts that defy sense, logic, and – most dangerously – compassion. If you can get people to enforce a nonsensical, unethical and unnecessary rule unquestioningly, you can probably get them to do anything.

And we all know how the rest of that story goes.

The council wants to convince us that corporate incentives can be protected alongside supporting people’s needs. It’s bollocks. Market incentives are creating an ever more hostile town centre, and Centrale’s bullies have one to-do list, and that contains whatever Centrale tells them to do, and they will do it at any cost. That’s the policy, right?

Ten minutes later, I heard a helicopter. I honestly believed that it might be for the poor guy commiting the audacious crime of sitting on the ground.

Here’s Mayor Perry’s big success, folks. The dystopian, fascistic cleansing of our streets.

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