London activists work to cover ‘anti-homeless’ spikes

After reports that so-called anti-homeless spikes are being installed in areas around London sparked international outrage, local activists took matters into their own hands, Vice News reported Thursday.

Dressed as construction workers, the activists — who identified themselves as the London Black Revolutionaries — poured concrete over metal spikes outside a Tesco store on Regent Street.

“These [spikes] are in places where people are trying to find a cozy, less wet place to put their head down,” one of the activists said. “These are places that the underclass rely on.”

The activists told Vice that they would continue destroying the spikes as they found more around the city, “If any others pop up, anywhere in London, we’re going to do the same thing to them.”

England’s government had been cutting funding to homeless shelters, one of the activists said, and because of that the number of people sleeping on the streets was increasing.

“It’s a really degrading way to treat human beings,” the activist said.

Though anti-homeless spikes have yet to be spotted in the U.S., there has been a landslide of laws enacted over recent years aimed at criminalizing homelessness.

Thirty-three cities have banned or are considering banning the practice of giving food to homeless people. Other cities have outlawed sleeping or storing one’s belongings in public, and some towns have made it illegal to sit down on sidewalks.

At least 600,000 Americans are homeless on any given night.