Receive email updates
24-hour Helpline0800 567 7699
We will be judged by future generations
December 6th, 2011 by Mike Barrett
Reading a recent edition of Inside Housing Magazine, Jeremy Swain, CEO at Thames Reach, a London- based charity helping the homeless, raises a very interesting point. Following a visit to a soup kitchen on The Strand he comes across an ex-tenant of theirs and assumes wrongly that he has lost the accommodation he secured some four years ago. It turns out that the man in question is simply passing the time with friends and using the soup kitchen as a social network. However, the main point I have taken from Jeremy’s article is his view that the picture painted by organisations working with the homeless, with the help of the media, can sometimes mislead the public.
Charities like Porchlight rely heavily on public support and we have always held firm to the mantra of telling the truth to the public and to those in power. We work hard to communicate to the public that the numbers of homeless people with no legal right to be housed is increasing as is the “stock” of people who can literally drop onto the street – those that are labelled by that now hackneyed phrase “sofa-surfers”. We even publish quarterly statistics on our website, broken down by age and gender, which show the numbers of people coming to us for help.
Whilst I fully appreciate the point of Jeremy’s article, what concerns me is that London-centric articles about rough sleeping and homelessness nearly always muddy the water for us folks in the sticks who don’t often find “a foreign national living in appalling conditions in a garage…”
“They struggle to maintain their dignity and often numb the pain by turning to chemicals either in the form of alcohol and/or drugs.”
November’s rough sleeping figures for Kent, compiled via intelligence-led work, are the most accurate yet. Even so, they hide the true scale of the problem. They also hide the scale of the human tragedy. People who sleep rough or sofa-surf are fighting a constant battle with their families, friends, local authorities and themselves. They struggle to maintain their dignity and often numb the pain by turning to chemicals either in the form of alcohol and/or drugs. Many are also fighting a losing battle against deteriorating mental health, which if untreated will plunge them further into a cycle of despair and self-destruction.
Christmas is a time for family and friends and, so we are told, a time to reflect on the human condition and hopefully find it within ourselves to show compassion. Perhaps we should also take the time to realise that the differences between those that find themselves destitute, frightened and hopeless and those of us more fortunate are wafer thin.
“The demand for our services continues to rise and our income is reducing.”
The government has made it very clear that this time of austerity will now continue for some years yet. So I ask the question, that many people in my position are asking: If the cuts to grants and reductions in income have dropped so dramatically and are set to drop further, how will we continue to deliver life changing and in some case lifesaving services into the future? The demand for our services continues to rise and our income is reducing. The facts herald major changes in how services will be delivered. It’s strange however that the one thing that has not reduced is the bureaucracy that goes with these reduced grants!
“…remember that the people we exist to help have no other safety net.”
If I have one hope for the coming New Year, it is that the politicians and those who make the big decisions about funding, remember that the people we exist to help have no other safety net. If nothing else it makes economic sense to help those in most need. We all need to remember that we are a civilised society and that we will be judged by future generations in relation to how we helped the poor and homeless in the 21st century.
About Mike
Mike joined the charity as Chief Executive in 1999. He has worked in housing and social care for nearly 30 years within local authorities, a national supported housing association and the charity sector. Mike has seen many changes to the sector over this time from the introduction of the Right to Buy scheme to a fundamental shift in the funding of supported housing in the 80’s and 90’s and the introduction of the Supporting People programme in 2003. He is a professionally qualified member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and a member of the UK Housing Panel. He is heavily involved in the supported housing and homelessness sectors regionally. Mike is also chair of the East Kent Homeless Forum.
Website by Grow
