Ending homelessness

 In those most desperate of weeks that crossed Christmas and the New Year I was getting daily updates on the Somali couple living rough outside TK Maxx on a busy south London street.  A mother and son both with severe and enduring mental health problems, exhibiting delusional behaviour and severe self-neglect. They had been there for months, resisting all offers of accommodation or hospital treatment.  Engagement with mental health specialists, our outreach workers, the police and members of the Somali community had all been in vain.  Over the months their belongings blossomed around them. Carrier bags within carrier bags, suitcases, bedding, food cartons: the detritus of the destitute.  Around the corner and out of sight of passers-by stood buckets in which they defecated. With Christmas approaching and the temperature falling the plight of the Somali couple became a shared obsession.  Multi-agency case conferences took place to consider their me...

I’m often told that the number of women sleeping rough is underestimated because women feel especially vulnerable on the street and hide themselves away in places where they will be difficult to find. The certainty with which this is stated is in stark contrast to the hesitancy that follows when you ask for some evidence of where these women rough sleepers might be. Despite outreach teams scouring not only the familiar rough sleeping areas but also housing estates, woodland and even riding the night buses to find rough sleepers, the number of women sleeping rough in London as a proportion of the overall homeless population stands at just 12%. Far from facing a problem of being hidden, I am concerned that women rough sleepers have a disadvantage that arises from their very visibility and prominence. There has always been a danger that we romanticise rough sleeping, viewing it as a form of rugged individualism, a lifestyle choice adopted by impressively eccentric characters making a s...

In Temple Gardens with the Thames close by she sits on a bench this homeless women, slumped forward, face pressed into a mound of belongings that she has stacked on her trolley with intricate care.   Her face is pressed hard into the dirty clothing on top of her assortment of bags. Is she smothering herself?   I stop and watch, but her breathing is deep and regular; the sleep of the constantly exhausted. And, along with the Temple Court barristers and office workers, I walk on by. She is a local character, part of the scene. The outreach teams working with the homeless will certainly know her.   I might ask about her when I get back to the office, but I’ve convinced myself.   And then, with a flush of guilt, I remember Peggy. For four years in the 1980s I was an outreach worker covering a patch stretching across most of central London from Kings Cross station down to Victoria at a time when the number of rough sleepers was vastly greater than today. Under...

There is a ‘fact’ doing the rounds on twitter which juxtaposes the information that Madonna has, allegedly, eight mansions in London with the number of homeless people in the capital, the implicit proposition being that homelessness could be ended if only the ostentatious wealth of the celebrated performer were redirected for the social purpose of housing the homeless. I found the image of hundreds of homeless people living in communal nirvana in Madonna’s mansions entertainingly surreal. This injustice ‘fact’ has been re-tweeted with gusto, so presumably there really are people who think that solving homelessness is a matter of matching people with accommodation, whether it be a mansion or a bedsit and that’s it – job done.   The truth is that homeless people, especially those living on the streets or close to it in hostels, squats and bed and breakfast hotels, have a complex mix of needs including poor mental health, substance misuse problems, poor literacy skills and l...

Last week Ian Austin, the Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Minister responsible for homelessness, came out on an evening shift with Thames Reach’s street outreach teams. Together we walked the dank streets of central London, Ian still in his suit and tie having raced over following a late night debate in the House. Even though he was only two miles from Westminster, he must have felt that he had entered a parallel universe. One of the tasks that evening was to seek out a former rough sleeper who is now in a wheel-chair after his prone body, hidden under cardboard and blankets, was run over one morning by a refuge truck, crushing both his ankles. Ian was appalled, shaking his head in horror. He listened attentively, asking thoughtful questions of the rough sleepers he met and the outreach workers sharing the evening with him. We liked him, and having accompanied dozens of politicians on street shifts over the years, I know that close ...