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Michael Meacher: Is Brown serious about social housing? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

outstanding historic debt on council housing, now amounting to some £12bn, has already been paid off more than three times over. Government receipts from right-to-buy sales have yielded altogether around £45bn, of which only a quarter has been recycled into improving public housing. In addition, stock transfer has produced a further £6bn, making a net total of £40bn extracted from the council housing estate. So why should council tenants still have to clear any remaining historic debt? In effect some of the very poorest people in the country are having to subsidise the exchequer, whose public expenditure has been shown in regular surveys to disproportionately benefit the middle classes.

Michael Meacher: Is Brown serious about social housing? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

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40 per cent fewer homeless young people in bed and breakfast

40 per cent fewer homeless young people in bed and breakfast
National figures released today show that the number of vulnerable young 16 and 17 year olds being housed in bed and breakfast accommodation has fallen by 40 per cent over the last year.The number of 16 and 17 year olds living alone in bed and breakfast accommodation fell from 550 to 330 during 2008 as a result of a range of measures the Government has introduced, including a new national supported lodgings scheme and improved access to family mediation for young people at risk of homelessness to help them stay at home with their families where possible.Where staying in the family home is no longer an option, Government funding has created of a new national supported lodgings development scheme to provide accommodation, advice and mediation services for young people to get their lives back on track.Homelessness Minister Iain Wright said:"Young people at risk of becoming homeless are some of the most vulnerable in society and simply parking these young people in bed and breakfast accommodation without ensuring they have the skills or confidence for independent living just isn't good enough."That is why we have committed to ending the long term use of bed and breakfast for 16 and 17 year olds by 2010, replacing it with supported lodgings and high quality emergency accommodation, with skilled staff and family mediation."But most importantly, we're providing young people and their families with support to prevent young people becoming homeless in the first place - giving them the chance to lead independent and successful lives."Statistics also released today show the number of households in temporary accommodation has fallen for the 13th consecutive quarter, down to 67,480 - the lowest level since 2000. Homeless acceptances have also dropped, by 21per cent compared to the same period last year, and by 62per cent compared to 2003, to a low of 12,070.Notes to editors1. The statistics on homelessness, released today can be found at:http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/homelessnessq420082. On 14 November 2006 the Government announced a package of measures to tackle youth homelessness, included in this was a commitment to end, by 2010, the use of bed and breakfast accommodation by local housing authorities in discharging their homelessness duty to secure suitable accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds3. Details on current measures to tackle youth homelessness can be found at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/homelessness/youth/Media Enquiries: 020 7944 3049News Releases: http://www.communities.gov.uk/newsroomClient ref 052COI ref 171672P

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Controversy over one-shot drug to save addicts who overdose after leaving prison | Society | The Guardian

A quick fix
'At-risk' prisoners are being issued with a take-home pack of a drug to help them recover if they overdose. Will this trial scheme save lives or could it encourage risky behaviour among addicts?

Mark Gould reports * Mark Gould * The Guardian, Wednesday 18 March 2009 * Article historyKylie Reed, a doctor, trains drug users at St Mungo's homeless hostel to use naloxoneDoctor Kylie Reed works with drug users at St Mungo's homeless hostel, including training them in using the injector packs. Photograph: Teri PengilleyThe bleak statistics show that around 3,000 deaths every year in the UK are due to drug overdose, with 1,058 death certificates in 2007 giving the cause of death as injecting heroin or morphine. And the most at-risk group are newly released prisoners with a history of injecting. In the first four weeks of freedom, they are seven times more likely to die of an overdose than other heroin users.In an attempt to address the problem, 5,600 prisoners with a history of injecting will take part next month in a £1m trial in which, come their release date, half of them will be issued with "take-home" packs containing one-shot injectors of naloxone. Giving addicts free access to naloxone - a cheap antidote to heroin that is almost free of side-effects and is regularly administered by paramedics and in accident and emergency units - could lead to a significant reduction in overdose deaths and become part of national drug treatment policy.After promising trials, the homelessness charity St Mungo's also wants to offer naloxone to injecting users in its hostels and on the streets.However, there are concerns that giving addicts what they might regard as an insurance policy against an overdose could simply reinforce addictive behaviour, and could therefore increase the death toll.The "take-home" trial hopes to answer these questions and cut overdose deaths by 28% in the first 12 weeks after release. The ultimate aim would be a reduction of between 150 and 200 deaths a year.Chemical receptorsNaloxone, injected into arm or leg muscle, blocks the chemical receptors in the brain of the person who has overdosed, quickly restoring consciousness. If the dose wasn't big enough the user would simply fall back into unconsciousness. Depending on the dose, the effect lasts for around 20 minutes, so the trial stresses that an ambulance must be called immediately, as dragging someone back into consciousness and instant, chemically induced cold turkey can make them distressed, agitated and, potentially, violent.While it must be prescribed by a doctor for a named patient, naloxone is one of the few drugs classed as "exempt", meaning that, in an emergency, anyone - a carer, or member of the family or fellow user - could give a life-saving injection, or the named patient could give the injection to someone else who has overdosed.The trial, funded by the Medical Research Council, is being run from 25 prisons in England and Scotland. On release, prisoners will receive a pouch containing a pre-loaded syringe of naloxone hydrochloride, information illustrating injection sites, and a pre-paid reply card about their drug use. Families and carers will also receive training in overdose awareness and how to administer the drug.In the control group, prisoners and families will receive all the same information about harm and overdose awareness, but no naloxone. This group will model in effect what is current best practice in some, but not all, prisons.Naloxone is non-addictive and usually does no harm even when given in error, so it seems a "no-brainer", according to Max Parmar, who is running the MRC trial. He says: "It looks very promising, but it's not as simple as that, especially when you are talking about changing behaviours of injecting drug users."He adds: "It's entirely possible that we will save lives, but it may be that we do nothing except waste NHS and prison service time and money. Signing up to the scheme means lots of people need to be involved."We could do more harm than good. What if a peer or carer isn't there to give the injection, or doesn't feel comfortable doing it? What if [users], having a failsafe to protect from overdose, get into more risky behaviour?"If the trial is successful, and gets approval from the Department of Health (DH), the prison service and the Ministry of Justice, it could become part of UK release procedure for some 56,000 at-risk inmates."Take-home" kits have been used with apparent success by several community drug teams in England and Scotland. The DH welcomed the MRC trial, but added that its own, independent reviews of such community schemes, concludes that effectiveness is "largely anecdotal".Last year, St Mungo's issued naloxone to residents of one of its hostels in London. The drug was used six times and there were no overdose deaths. However, there are no reliable figures to compare the situation before the trial.Gayle Jones, one of St Mungo's managers, says: "Naloxone gives addicts more control over their habit, and it can become part of treatment and aid recovery."She wants to extend the scheme to all hostels, and to its outreach and needle exchange schemes to target the many thousands who are not aware there is an antidote to an overdose.But Parmar cautions: "To see the benefits in the community, you would need to study thousands of people to see if it saved one life, as there isn't that same level of risk of [fatal] overdose as in the weeks just after release from prison."Ettore is 51 and has injected heroin for more than 20 years. He looks emaciated and says he has kidney disease, diabetes and circulation problems. He knows all about overdose and the effects of naloxone, as someone who has used it both on himself and to save a friend. He has lived in St Mungo's hostel in south London for two years and has been revived from overdose twice - once a couple of months ago.The right doseHe says: "OD is like having a heart attack. You feel hot, you feel cold, your arms and face tingle." After the naloxone, he says, "you wake up and feel like a normal person, only like you are speeding. It [the amount of naloxone needed to revive a person] depends on how much heroin you had and what it was cut with, and also on the dose of naloxone. Paramedics give you a big dose, but the dose here is smaller, so you might need two or three."When he revived his friend, it took under a minute. "We had a hit together," he recalls. "My friend was lying on the bed and I saw his face had turned purple. I got him up and put his arm over my shoulder and started walking him around to try to wake him up. It didn't work, so I injected him in the arm. He woke up in 40 seconds. I never fix on the street, always with a friend. That way they can help you."With a small bag of heroin costing £10 and offers of three for £25, Ettore explains that dealers maximise profits by adding other substances that can dilute or even negate the effects of naloxone. The latest trend is for adding tranquillisers or buprenorphine, a morphine substitute used in treatment. Naloxone is not an antidote to these drugs, so it adds to the complexity of treating an unconscious patient.Ettore believes that naloxone should be freely available, especially to newly released prisoners. "You come out of jail and your body is not used to heroin, so a little fix will knock you over," he says.But he also provides ammunition for those who say that making it freely available will encourage drug use. "Why not take it before you have a fix?" he asks. "But you would need a lot, because some people in here have seven fixes a day."Emily Finch, an addiction psychiatrist from South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust, who prescribes to St Mungo's residents, is confident that naloxone is safe and hopes the MRC trial saves lives.She would like to see all 4,000 or so injecting users in treatment on her patch carrying naloxone, and for it to be prescribed to families so that they are part of the treatment process. She says: "I'd like to see it become as normal as one of those kits that kids who are allergic to peanuts carry around."

Controversy over one-shot drug to save addicts who overdose after leaving prison | Society | The Guardian

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