Short-stay homeless hostels face ruinous polltax assessments

by Peter Stanford
SHORT—stay hostels run by the churches face a massive poll tax bill unless the Government acts to exempt them from the provisions of their controversial bill, currently under scrutiny in the House of Lords.
As the draft legislation stands at the moment, shelters offering a roof to the homeless face "ruinous" bills according to Pam Hutchense, director of Providence Row which stands in the shadow of Westminster Cathedral.
The church-sponsored hostel will be assessed for a "collective community charge", and will then have to collect the money from residents to make up that total if the Government's plans go ahead. However, Ms Hutchense said that it would be Providence Row and its supporters who would end up footing the bill because "we will not get the money back from the residents". The 43 beds are filled by homeless people living on state benefits with "no spare cash for a poll tax".
During the heated debate in the House of Lords on Tuesday, when rebel peers failed to amend the legislation to introduce the concept of levying on the basis of ability to pay, Lord Glenarthur, a government minister, pledged that the issue of the hostels would be looked in to.
His promise followed pressure from the Salvation Army, which like Providence Row, offers a home for residents of London's "cardboard city", a scene of deprivation that recently caused Mother Teresa to attack the
Government's inactivity. General Eva Burrows pointed out in a letter to the Times that to ask the Salvation Army and other caring organisations to collect a state tax from the homeless would have "a subtle but damaging effect on our relationship with those who come to us for assistance, which is at the best of times a delicate one".
Fr Mark Elvins, who runs four short-stay residential homes for young homeless and drug addicts in Brighton, said that to meet a poll tax bill on the 20 or so residents currently in his care would mean "fund raising all the more fiercely". Small organisations like his own St Thomas' Fund had "no huge assets". He urged the Government to change its mind.
Almost six months after giving an undertaking to exempt nuns and monks from the poll tax, the Government on Wednesday in the Lords unveiled their plans. Some 5,000 religious will not pay the charge. The grounds for qualification for exemption will be principal occupation in prayer, contemplation, the relief of suffering or education.
Local Community Charge Registration Officers will consider such applications. The Catholic-educated Labour MP, Bernie Grant, has already questioned if religious groups such as the Rastafarians will be treated in the same way as Christian monastic communities. A Department of the Environment spokesman told the Catholic Herald that such decisions would be up to local officials, although appeals could be made through the courts.