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Mental Health

10 October 2023

6 min read

The rough sleeper: an icon of injustice

Each rough sleeper is a raw illustration of injustice. On an awareness day for both homelessness and mental health, Jon Kuhrt reflects on the root causes and yet sees hope.

Jon Kuhrt

Jon Kuhrt is CEO of Hope into Action, a homelessness charity. He is a former government adviser on how faith groups address rough sleeping.

A black and white close up of the weather-beaten and wrinkled face and beard of a homeless man.

Portrait of a homeless man in Prague.

Ales Dusa on Unsplash.

In 2016, five-year Brooke Blair became an internet sensation after a video of her berating Prime Minister Theresa May went viral. As she put it, she was ‘very angry’:

“Yesterday night, I was out on the streets, and saw a hundred and a million of homeless people. I saw one with floppy ears, I saw loads. You should be out there, Theresa May. You should be, biscuits! Hot chocolate, sandwiches, you should be building houses. Look, I'm only five-years-old. There's nothing I can do about it. I'm saving up money but there'll never be enough. You've got the pot of money, spend some and help people.”

The video struck a chord because a young girl was passionately expressing the distress, anger, sympathy and bewilderment that so many feel when seeing people sleep rough in such a wealthy country.

The image of a rough sleeper is an icon of poverty. And just as religious icons represent the sacred, so does each person sleeping rough.

Each rough sleeper is a raw illustration of injustice and social breakdown.  The structural issues of poverty and inequality crystalize in the plight of a vulnerable person huddling in a doorway. In them we see an amalgam of both political failure and personal tragedy.

It's personal because we know that each person has a different story about what led them onto the streets. We will always be moved far more by a person than any statistic.

The image of a rough sleeper is an icon of poverty. And just as religious icons represent the sacred, so does each person sleeping rough. A precious human of infinite worth, imprinted with the divine, living in destitution. And just as restoring fragile religious icons is a specialist job, so the task of restoring those who have been homeless is often complex and intricate work.

Today, 10 October, is both World Homeless Day and World Mental Health Day. The two are closely intertwined. It’s a good day to reflect on the nature of homelessness and what we can do in the work of restoration.

We cannot simply remove the tip of the iceberg without addressing the deeper issues ... The water is getting colder and the iceberg is growing.

Rough sleeping is just the tip of a far bigger homelessness iceberg. It receives the most attention because it’s visible and visceral. But it is just a small fraction of the total number of people who have no settled home who exist underneath the waterline: those sleeping in temporary shelters, hostels and squats, sofa-surfing or placed in B&Bs.

It’s the visibility of rough sleeping that gives it political capital. Whilst in power, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Theresa May and Boris Johnson all launched high profile initiatives with ambitious targets to reduce or end rough sleeping.

In 2018, I was seconded from the Christian charity I was working for into the Civil Service as a specialist adviser on rough sleeping. In the four years I spent in this role I worked under four different Prime Ministers and six different homelessness ministers. Despite some significant progress made before and during the pandemic, the numbers of people sleeping rough and those in temporary accommodation are starting to rise again.

We cannot simply remove the tip of the iceberg without addressing the deeper issues of poverty that it is connected to. The reality is that we have a deep housing crisis in this country. The water is getting colder and the iceberg is growing.

But the challenge is that rough sleeping and homelessness are genuinely complex problems. Politics and economics provide some of the answers but not all. After thirty years of working with people who are homeless, these are the key issues which lie behind homelessness.

Poverty of resources

The most obvious cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. Housing is a resource which is not distributed fairly, and this inequity creates intense pressure and vulnerability. All of this is compounded by austerity, funding cuts and benefit sanctions which have withdrawn support services for vulnerable groups.

As London has become an international playground for the uber rich, many new housing developments are simply investment opportunities. Often people sleep rough outside accommodation no one lives in. It is a stark picture of the failure of the housing market.

This aspect of homelessness is the one that government can do most about. Brooke Blair was fundamentally right – Prime Ministers need to build more houses for those who need them.

A poverty of relationships

But homelessness is more than house-lessness. Homes are more than bricks and mortar: they are places of relationships.

And if you talk with anyone sleeping rough, you are likely to hear of relationships that have gone wrong with partners or with their wider family. Some are fleeing abuse or domestic violence; some have been perpetrators. Relational problems are often a key source of regret and shame; where people carry their deepest scars.

In our concern for people’s rights to the resources they deserve, we should not lose sight of where humans find true meaning and fulfilment. We all have a deep need to know and be known, to love and to be loved.  We cannot get away from the importance of relationships and a sense of belonging.

A poverty of identity

Finally, and most deeply, is the issue of people’s inner identity. The essential relationship that everyone has with themselves.  

The rise in mental health problems are symptoms of a vulnerability of our inner well-being.  For people affected by homelessness, their experiences of exclusion and trauma are both a root cause and an on-going reason for their mental fragility.

And the addictions to alcohol or drugs which are common to many rough sleepers are deeply connected to these psychological vulnerabilities. Drugs become a form of self-medication to ameliorate pain. And however negative, the lifestyle required to maintain addictions can be relatively exciting and can provide each give a day a clear goal. It can be hard to leave such an identity and embark on a demanding journey of recovery.

Homelessness doesn’t just end in a flat. It truly ends in community and connection.

So, in short, homelessness is far more than house-lessness. Houses are a key resource but homes are primarily places of relationships and identity. And the restoration of these cannot be just done by the government. It requires a whole community.

Thirteen years ago, a Christian couple in Peterborough, Ed and Rachel Walker chose to invest their own inheritance into a house for people who were homeless. The idea inspired others: it was simple and innovative: encourage people with wealth to invest in homes for those who are poor. And each home was attached to a local church which provides friendship and support and a critical sense of community.

This is the roots of Hope into Action where I now work. We are now a national charity with 106 homes across the country and last year we housed over 400 people. Our model is a holistic response to the types of poverty I have described.

Our tenants are provided with the resource of a great house where they feel safe and secure. And this is combined with relationships with housemates and the support of local church volunteers. And our whole focus is to empower our tenants to find a more positive identity: whether through purposeful work, on-going recovery or through exploring faith. Last year, fifty percent of our tenants chose to engage in church activities and six took the step to be baptised.

Homelessness doesn’t just end in a flat. It truly ends in community and connection. In our work we see justice and generosity in how resources are shared, compassion in the relationships that are formed, and hope on which people can rebuild a positive identity. Just as a lone rough sleeper is an icon of poverty, each of our tenants is a symbol of hope.

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Politics

Virtues

27 September 2024

8 min read

The emerging frontier: renewing courage in geopolitics

Narcissistic moralising needs to stop, and we can learn from Churchill too.

Emerson Csorba and Gal Treger

Emerson writes on geopolitics. Gal is a tech investor.

Military personnel, wearing camoflague uniform crowd round a computer monitor.

U.S. Space Force guardians assess a threat.

U.S. Space Force.

In August 1939, the Polish poet Kazimierz Wierzyński reflected on a “Peaceful bliss which had become Europe’s chloroform.” Yet, then as now, crises shake us from moments of calm, especially when we abandon vigilance. We let our guards down, nonchalance replacing serious deliberation toward action.

A shroud of darkness has descended on the world over recent years, with new conflicts emerging just as – or perhaps because – democratic populations turn inward. These conflicts – whether the Russia-Ukraine War, the Israel-Gaza War, or the US-UK led battles in the Red Sea – demonstrate the courage of peoples sacrificing for their nations, families, histories, and traditions.

Yet, in much of the political West, narcissism – rather than courage – has become the focal point of our culture.

Christopher Lasch describes this narcissism in The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations as a conceit of the present. Lasch notes that we have become a consumer society focused on individual self-absorption that leads to present-focus, sense of isolation, and disconnection from history.

The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argues in The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil that narcissism is an attachment to “self-image,” which “distorts rational judgment.” Yet, Fromm later reflects “If the feeling which the Greek poet expressed in Antigone’s words, ‘There is nothing more wonderful than man,’ could become an experience shared by all, certainly a great step forward would have been taken.”

This wonder of man is in the freedom to act in a world that is yet to be determined.

This is a position of “deep faith.” It encourages full participation in the world, affirming the self through action, though always in relation to something much greater.

The philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich similarly states “this is just what participation means: being a part of something from which one is, at the same time, separate. Literally, participation means ‘taking part,’ in the sense of ‘sharing’ or ‘having in common.’” We play, as legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne once said, "For everyone that came before us, and everyone that will come after us."

If common history is needed as our foundation for current action in geopolitics, to what then might we turn?

We propose a refocusing and modern renewal of alliances underpinned by Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, a project he initiated in the early 1930s as the threats of Nazism and Fascism had taken centre stage.

This refocusing reprioritises courage in geopolitics, maintaining the light amid descending darkness. It is badly needed given the modern tendency to look inward rather than to sources of value outside of the self.

This is a pathway to vigilance in anticipation of the thief in the night, who may arrive at an unexpected hour.

Churchill – recently demonised by influential conspiracy theorists – emphasises the common cultural and political heritage of the English-Speaking Peoples, including the rule of law, individual rights and parliamentary democracy, which shaped the modern world.

Churchill reminds us of the global influence of English-Speaking Peoples in spreading democratic ideals and governance structures across the world, believing that the global spread of these ideas was instrumental in shaping modern life. He underscores the unity of the English-Speaking Peoples in facing global challenges, particularly in the context of the World War he foresaw. And he viewed the cooperation between the UK, the US, and other Allied nations as crucial to the survival of freedom and democracy.

It is important, now as much as ever, that we remind ourselves of Churchill’s wise words, building on them to address with courage the challenges of our present times.

Specifically, we must adapt Churchill’s emphasis on the English-Speaking Peoples to a focus on nations working at the frontiers of Western civilisation to resist rising darkness which seeks to corrupt the good. Ones not necessarily actually speaking English too.

Building on these unique and complementary strengths, these agile nations united as upholders of the values of English-Speaking Peoples should reindustrialize, rearm, redraft and recommit to a common goal in a world of increasing geopolitical conflict.

The sharing of expertise and overall close collaboration between these agile nations can facilitate rapid preparation for conflict at any moment, proactively addressing Wierzyński's dangerous “peaceful bliss.”

In other words, this is a pathway to vigilance in anticipation of the thief in the night, who may arrive at an unexpected hour.

Renewed partnership is necessary between these nations. There is a need for these nations to re-assert their historical courage, underpinned by vital modern capabilities.

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Alongside the United States as the focal point, these nations are Canada on the Arctic frontier; the United Kingdom as a Northern frontier; Poland as the Eastern frontier; Israel as the Southeastern frontier towards the Eurasian landmass, and Australia, with its recent experiences confronting neighbour China, on the Far East frontier.

Each of these nations serves as a regional center of power and influence: Canada in the Arctic and Atlantic; the US into the Caribbean and broader Latin America; Israel in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords and North Africa; Poland into Central and Eastern Europe, and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Each of these nations possesses vital agility, given their small geographical sizes or populations.

These frontier nations respond to United States CIA Director William Burns’ 2023 Ditchley Lecture, in which he focused on “[hedging middle power countries who] see little benefit and lots of risk in monogamous geopolitical relationships. Instead, we’re likely to see more countries pursue more open relationships than we were accustomed to over several post-Cold War decades of unipolarity.” The focus here is courage with a long-term view, building a frontier-focused alliance rather than seeking relations based on short-term material interest only.

In this frontier model, it is currently Israel demonstrating the courage to uphold the values captured in Churchill’s account of the English-Speaking Peoples. Hamas’ brutal October 7th attack was predicated on the notion that over the last decades, Israel transformed into a consumer society, focused on short-term economic incentives and leisure pursuits. Israel provides technology and experience in fighting modern wars of various types, as well as persistence and proactiveness that other nations must quickly recover.

Canada is historically a frontier nation of courage, reflected for instance in its contributions to WWI and WWII victories, as well as in the often-quiet contributions that Canadians make to peacekeeping efforts across the globe. But Canada can take bolder action, given its strategic Northern location and proximity to the Arctic, with its vast natural resources including critical minerals supply and its vast freshwater reserves. It can become a more influential global player amid trade wars, helping reduce dependence on Chinese resources.

The United Kingdom’s combination of common law, property rights, financial markets and freedom of the press are important strengths. As Nigel Biggar finds in his Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, the UK has historically championed free markets generating economic opportunities for diverse peoples; established peace where internal strife previously existed, protected the rural poor from wicked landlords, and provided civil service and judiciary systems to reduce corruption.

Poland, as noted by Radoslaw Sikorski in a recent speech, shares with the United Kingdom “the same strategic vision. It is based on the fundamental assumption that international law is the guardian of peace and stability.” Poland also “consistently supports close, comprehensive cooperation between the UK and the EU’s security and defence frameworks” with continued focus on strengthening its military capabilities. And, of course, Poland is keenly aware of the threat of war which which is ever-present on its border.

Australia has, over the last decade, demonstrated evident success in facing the threat of China on its doorstep, this ever-present threat producing a group of leaders across government, private and media sectors that are as sharp, worldly and realist in nature as any in the Commonwealth.

Renewed partnership is necessary between these nations. There is a need for these nations to re-assert their historical courage, underpinned by vital modern capabilities. C.S. Lewis, in his famous Screwtape Letters, shows that “courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.” Each of these frontier nations has historically demonstrated success in the face of testing.

Our focus cannot be narcissistic moralising – too often the case in today’s geopolitics – which is the product of the serpent’s advice in the Garden of Eden, in which our eyes will be opened as we “become as gods knowing good and evil.” We must not allow others to twist our sense of history, such that we begin to exalt ourselves in the present moment rather than adopting attitudes of service, sacrifice and worship of that which is unfathomably greater and farther-reaching.

Instead, it must be – as we have seen with Churchill, and as described by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his incredible commentary on the story of the Garden of Eden, to act.

As Bonhoeffer writes, “If the Holy Scripture insists with such great urgency on doing, that is because it wishes to take away from man every possibility of self-justification before God on the basis of his own knowledge of good and evil… The error of the Pharisees, therefore, did not lie in their extremely strict insistence on the necessity for action, but rather in their failure to act. ‘They say, and do not do it.’”

The frontier model we propose facilitates such action, prepared with the necessary capabilities and coordination for the considerable challenges before us.

We must remember that to participate in the world with deep faith – courage – has been and always will be the basis for human freedom.

Indeed, this is the task of the nations: united by the common heritage of English-Speaking Peoples, acting with faith in the good, always at the frontier.