Forget Oxford's homeless problem - in New York, you'd be forgiven for thinking that being homeless is a crime, writes Georgina Pattinson.

The city's 40,000 homeless are being targeted this Christmas by the latest campaign of hard-line mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Police are arresting any homeless person found on the street who has refused to take refuge in one of the many public shelters.

And Mayor Giuliani has made it clear that City Hall will not tolerate the homeless on the streets.

"You do not have the right to sleep on the streets of New York City. It doesn't exist anywhere. The Founding Fathers never put that in the Constitution," he says. He has also announced that any able-bodied homeless person living in a state-run shelter who refuses to work on city improvement projects will be evicted.

The people of New York are outraged. A recent poll of the city showed that 77 per cent were opposed to the arrests - there have been more than 160 so far.

Last week, more than 1,000 people marched to the city's Union Square to protest at the measures, which they claimed criminalise the homeless. City Council Speaker Peter Vallone condemned the measures, saying: "We cannot tolerate this morally or legally. It is a throwback the days of Dickens."

They may not approve, but no one can accuse the city's administration of being skinflints; New York has spent £268m on the homelessness problem this year. But would a similar hard-line approach work in Britain, where we have a smaller but significant homelessness problem, as the Government acknowledges? The homeless charity Shelter believes that on any one night in England, Scotland and Wales there are 2,500 homeless people on the streets.

Louise Casey, head of the Government's Rough Sleepers Unit, believes such a policy would be a disaster.

"It will not work. I understand that there are more than 30,000 homeless in New York and even if that's the case, coercing people is not the first stage of tackling homelessness in any civilised society. We have targeted an amount of money and energy trying to understand why human beings are sleeping in doorways. It is a compassionate approach. "The tough approach is on us to deliver our target of at least two thirds of rough sleepers off the streets by 2002 and I think we can manage it."

Last month, she shocked charities by appearing to take a tough line on the homeless by saying that soup kitchens and sleeping bag handouts kept rough sleepers on the streets. Now she points out that the co-ordinated efforts outlined in a new Government report just launched by Tony Blair will help the homeless in the long term.

"This is a compassionate and caring country - and we expect people to help themselves and get jobs, training and an education. We are giving the homeless aspirations beyond a cardboard box."

The latest Government initiative aims to tackle the most vulnerable by providing 850 hostel beds and 4,000 beds nationwide, plus 1,000 new housing association homes in London. Sixty specialists will be brought in to help those with alcohol and drug problems. It is estimated that half the country's rough sleepers have alcohol problems, one in five are drug abusers and a third have spent time in care.

In total, the Government has earmarked £200m to tackle homelessness over the next two years.

Rachel O'Brien at Shelter agrees that the tough New York approach does not work. "There has been talk for over a year about the campaign of zero tolerance in New York. "One of the huge problems with either arresting or moving people on is that you are just shifting the problem.

"There was talk about people going underground to the train systems, so it literally becomes a hidden problem.

"It's not good to have hundreds of people on the streets but at least it reminds us we have a problem."

Story date: Wednesday 22 December

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