The Torn Traveller

UK readers will have seen the many pledges Andy Burnham has made since his term as prime minister kicked off on the 20^th July. The one that caught my eye was his promise to end homelessness by Christmas using 15% of his own salary (that’s a year’s salary on minimum wage by the way) and another £442 million of funding. Though this sounds like a hopeful and long-awaited change in attitude towards homelessness, many people affected by housing insecurity or working to solve it are sceptical.

We are all guilty of walking past homeless people on the streets. Of lying to them, pretending we don’t have any money to help them when we very clearly could spare at least one pound. This topic was particularly on my mind when I witnessed the overwhelming number of beggars in India, which you can read about here, but even now as I write from Norway, the 6^th wealthiest country in the world, I know there is a woman sat on the high street trying to sell her handmade art because she sleeps rough.

When did it become socially acceptable to literally turn away from people in need? We avert our eyes and feel ashamed because that’s how we have been taught to react to homelessness. The government installs angled benches and businesses block their doorways off at night, making the problem less visible and excluding homeless people from society. Sleeping on the streets is a last resort, yet we try to prevent people doing it without leaving them anywhere safer to go.

You may be reading this thinking, of course I don’t want to see homeless people on the streets; they scare me. Based on the things we associate with homelessness and our own experiences and interactions, this is an understandable way to feel. When the government makes these decisions to try and ‘clean up’ homelessness by moving people along instead of supporting them, it comes from the genuine intention of making everyone, by which of course we mean those with houses and money, feel safer. Some of the connotations homelessness brings up are mental health issues, substance abuse, crime and violence, which definitely don’t reassure us that we are safe to walk around the city at night, but how accurate are these perceptions?

Homelessness in the uk

Homeless Link reported that 72% of homeless people surveyed admitted to using drugs within the last year and there is a clear connection between housing insecurity and crime, so I won’t act like the public’s safety concerns around homelessness aren’t valid. However, the data shows that the struggles homeless people face are all cyclically interwoven.

Yes, lots of homeless people are under the influence of illegal substances, but 77% of people in the same survey also reported mental health conditions, with 49% saying they use alcohol or drugs to self-medicate, suggesting that with the right mental health support we may be able to help people overcome addictions and reduce the amount of drugs on our streets.

Yes, lots of homeless people have criminal records, but even after serving prison time, many don’t get the support they desperately need. According to the Ministry of Justice, around 16% of people released from prison across the year were sleeping rough or in unstable accommodation the night after their release, which is an increase from the previous year. This evident lack of support to transition back into society after leaving prison only increases the chance of that person turning to drugs or reoffending. In fact, two thirds of them likely will, and when prison provides a bed and food, can you really blame them?

You know the system’s broken when losing your freedom gives you more stability and a more comfortable life than trying to start over and play by the rules. I am absolutely not implying that we should worsen prison conditions, but I think in an ideal world we would be encouraging everyone’s personal growth and getting them the help they need to become mentally and physically well so that they can build a stable life.

I hope this snapshot of statistics has helped inform you of the situation in the UK, but as a traveller who has seen people sleeping rough in every single country I’ve visited, I’m curious to learn how homelessness compares around the world.

Comparing British and Nigerian Homelessness

Nigeria has the highest number of homeless people in the world due to its high birth rate, political instability and lack of education exacerbating extreme poverty along with other factors like conflict and natural disasters that destroy countless homes and leave families without a stable place to stay.

I don’t know about you, but I often picture homeless people as older men when in reality young people are also seriously affected by housing insecurity. In 2019, there were calculated to be 8.6 million homeless children in Nigeria, and even in the UK the number of youths affected is estimated to be 1 in 60. Transitioning into adulthood can be difficult and family or financial tensions can leave people in precarious housing situations. Centrepoint, a charity fighting to stop youth homelessness in the UK, report that two thirds of young people who reach out to them for support have had to leave home due to family conflicts.

Another high-risk group in both Nigeria and the UK is women affected by domestic violence. 40% of homeless women in the UK say domestic abuse played a role in making them homeless. Minority groups such as members of the LGBTQ+ community and disabled people are also at higher risk of becoming homeless or facing abuse whilst living on the streets and the number of homeless refugees in the UK has risen significantly in the last four years.

The economic or political factors may vary between countries but, overall, it appears to be the same story around the world, just on a different scale for countries like Nigeria. Homelessness is rising globally and the common trend in groups affected is that they are the most vulnerable minorities. With the amount homeless people are costing the healthcare and criminal justice systems, surely supporting people is more cost effective than leaving them on the streets. Perhaps we can learn something from countries like Japan, where less than 3,000 people are officially living on the streets. How have they managed to achieve such a low homelessness rate?

Japan’s Approach to Homelessness

Among the many aspects explored here, there are three main differences between Japan and the UK’s approaches to homelessness that stand out to me. Firstly, Japan offers rather extensive and holistic support to people at risk of becoming homeless, covering healthcare, employment, addiction rehabilitation, transitioning out of prison and many other areas where people often fall through the cracks. Secondly, they take a preventative approach, reaching out to high-risk individuals and offering support before they reach breaking point. The final and most intriguing difference in my opinion is that Japanese culture could be seen to encompass a more collective identity and responsibility to care for others than the UK does. What if the root of the UK’s housing crisis lies in our loss of care for one another? Is it, like many other issues around the world, more of an empathy crisis than an economic one?

How Can I Help?

Though what homeless people really need is safe housing and support in building stable lives, we also seem to underestimate the power of human compassion and community. Imagine how it feels to have hundreds of people walk past and try not to make eye contact every day. As cliché as it sounds, you cannot put a price on connection. It’s hard to know exactly how much of Japan’s success in reducing homelessness is down to a cultural expectation to work together, but if empathy has the potential to make that big of a difference, then it’s surely worth a try.

Our number one excuse for not helping people is that we don’t have enough money to spare, but if there’s one free way you can help someone in any unjust situation it is by talking to them, understanding how they ended up in that position, making them smile and reminding them not to give up on their life. Everyone deserves safety, a place to call home and to be shown a little humanity.

Returning to the political side of this discussion, the 37,430 people the government managed to get off the streets during COVID proves that drastic change is possible, especially when we treat homelessness like a public health risk that therefore requires preventative measures rather than waiting for it to escalate before doing anything about it. Let’s hope Andy Burnham is committed to his pledge and successfully changes the lives of thousands of homeless people.

Thank you for making it this far! It’s always difficult keeping these posts short when discussing such complicated global issues.

I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions of small ways we can all get involved in reducing homelessness.

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Until next time,
The Torn Traveller