Walking the streets of central London in the late evening chill I was struck by the extraordinary changes to the profile of the rough sleeping population in the capital. This particular evening in question I spoke with dozens of people busy wrapping up tightly against the cold. Individual human beings showing different emotions: the anxious, the paranoid, the sinister, the confused, the phlegmatic, the desperate, the bewildered. In some respects there has been no change to the rough sleeping profile. Most of the people I spoke to sleeping rough that night were male, white and aged from 25 to 45. This has been the profile for a number of years. Research published recently by Heriot Watt University [1] into homelessness and social exclusion provides strong evidence that it is males in this age range who suffer from the most significant levels of social exclusion and particularly men in their 30’s, who are referred to by the researchers as ‘the forgotten middle’. The reasons why...
From 1999-2018 I was CEO of homelessness charity Thames Reach. From 2018-20 I worked at MHCLG to deliver rough sleeping and homelessness programmes. This blog seeks to bring to life the complexities, dilemmas, set-backs and triumphs that are part of trying to help people escape homelessness. It aims to tell the stories of the inspirational people I have met in my work, many of whom have faced homelessness and from whom I have learnt a lot.