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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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Re-enchanting
9 min read

Re-enchanting the anxious generation

The future doesn’t have to be horrible.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Two teenager lean against a rail, arms crossed, and laugh together.
LaShawn Dobbs on Unsplash.

I meet many anxious people as I wait for meetings in the Palace Westminster, but one in particular stands out. As I was queueing to get through security, a breathless American man rushed over asking if he was in the right place to meet the Minister of State for Universities. Once I had reassured him that he was, and he had caught his breath, I asked him where he was from and what he did for a job. He told me he was a social psychologist from New York. 

Funnily enough, the night before, I had been reading a book by a social psychologist from New York. I asked the man if he had come across the author, Jonathan Haidt. He replied with a smile: “I am Jonathan Haidt.” 

I chuckle when I remember that chance encounter, especially considering the title of his latest book – The Anxious Generation. The book tackles a much more serious topic than queueing nerves. It claims to show, in the words of the subtitle: “How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”.  

The Anxious Generation is a tightly argued plea to parents and educators for a radical change in the way that young people are allowed to engage with digital technology in general and social media in particular.  

It follows the line of thought he began in his book The Coddling of the American Mind which argued that ‘helicopter parenting’ has led to such a fragility in young adults that universities are no longer places of open and free dialogue, but somewhere young people feel the need to be protected from ideas they disagree with. That problem was what Haidt was preparing to discuss with the Minister when we met outside Parliament.

“Embracing all this is a desire to maintain and hand on to our children an earth that offers genuine possibilities of flourishing.” 

Mary Grey
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The Anxious Generation makes a compelling case for the way we are failing a generation of children. It likens the social media world to another planet that we are all happily sending our children off to without first learning about or checking any of the risks linked with the potentially toxic environment. It concludes that as much as we are overprotecting our children in the physical world, we are under-protecting them in the digital world, thereby complicit in the resulting tidal wave of mental health disorders.   

Haidt writes:  

“Are screen-based experiences less valuable than real-life flesh-and-blood experiences? When we’re talking about children whose brains evolved to expect certain kinds of experiences at certain ages, yes. A resounding yes.” 

Haidt argues that what children need is less screen time and more unsupervised play. Some might call this the re-enchantment of childhood– a rediscovery of wonder, and simple emotional connections with freedom, food, imagination, curiosity, those around them and the great outdoors. Perhaps there is healthy therapy to be found in this re-enchantment through the sharing of art, poetry, and fantasy. Maybe a rediscovery of faith and hope can help to bring healing.  

Mary Grey, Emeritus Professor of Theology at the University of Wales in Lampeter, describes re-enchantment like this: 

“The market’s language of desire must be replaced by reflecting what we really long for, like satisfying relationships and intimacy, meaningful communities where our values are shared, with working conditions that do not create an unbearable level of stress, enough income to cover basic and leisure needs, and planning for the future. Embracing all this is a desire to maintain and hand on to our children an earth that offers genuine possibilities of flourishing. … This is not an invitation to exchange reality for Magic Kingdoms, but to become embodied kinships of women, men, children and earth creatures in a re-imagined and transformed world of sustainable earth communities of healing and hope.” 

The re-enchantment of childhood is an attractive theory. I often find myself comparing my children’s childhood with that of my own. I’m sure I played more in the garden than they do, climbed more trees, cycled more round the block, round the town, and later round the county in my spare time. I remember as a teenager getting on a bus to travel from Brighton to Durham without either parents or phones. Around the same time, I travelled to Tbilisi, Georgia with just a backpack, a map, a couple of friends and quite a lot of self-confidence. I wish that my children could experience some of the pleasures that come with fixing a bike or looking up at the stars or browsing the library to find answers, instead of just googling.  

Yet, at the same time, if my children were making their way to Durham or Tbilisi today, I would certainly make sure they had plenty of charge on their phone and all the necessary mobile data roaming rights, and I would probably WhatsApp them regularly until they arrived safely at their destination.  

Haidt presents a perfect story, one that explains all the evidence. He doesn’t mention anything that might challenge it, or anything that the doesn’t quite fit.

Haidt’s book touches a nerve. Not just because of my own contradictory feelings as a parent, but because of the shocking statistics that reflect the wider state of our nation’s children. With waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services at a record high, a 47 per cent increase in young people being treated for eating disorders compared to pre-pandemic, and an enormous leap in prevalence of probable mental disorder from one in nine children (in England aged 8-25 years old in 2017) to one in five (similar cohort in 2023), the mental health of the next generation is rightly highly concerning.   

The blame has been levelled in many different directions: COVID lockdowns, school league tables, excessive homework, helicopter parenting, screen time, and general disenchantment in society at large.  Some even say the increase is directly related to the increase in public discussion and awareness about mental health disorders.  

For Haidt it is social media that is public mental health enemy number one. However, he does admit he is not a specialist in children’s mental health, child psychology or clinical psychology. This has led to some criticism about his conclusions. Professor Candice L. Odgers, the Associate Dean for research into psychological science and informatics at the University of California challenges head on the central argument of Haidt’s book. She claims:  

“...the book’s repeated suggestion that digital technologies are rewiring our children’s brains and causing an epidemic of mental illness is not supported by science. Worse, the bold proposal that social media is to blame might distract us from effectively responding to the real causes of the current mental health crisis in young people.” 

Similarly Henna Cundill, a researcher with the centre for autism and theology at the University of Aberdeen, wrote last week in an article for Seen and Unseen:  

“From a scientific perspective, the argument is a barrage of statistics, arranged to the tune of ‘correlation equals causation’. “ 

Cundill and Professor Odgers are right to be sceptical. Sometimes we let our commitment to a story shape the way that we read the evidence. If there’s one thing I remember from A- level statistics it is that causation and correlation should not be confused. In his bid to add urgency and cogency to his argument, Haidt presents a perfect story, one that explains all the evidence. He doesn’t mention anything that might challenge it, or anything that the doesn’t quite fit. It is not a scientific treatise - which is both the book’s strength and its weakness.  

Nevertheless, many of the recommendations Haidt suggests are wise and helpful. Even Professor Odgers, to some extent, agrees.  

“Many of Haidt’s solutions for parents, adolescents, educators and big technology firms are reasonable, including stricter content-moderation policies and requiring companies to take user age into account when designing platforms and algorithms. Others, such as age-based restrictions and bans on mobile devices, are unlikely to be effective in practice — or worse, could backfire given what we know about adolescent behaviour.” 

Therein lies the issue. Because of the lack of evidence for the causes, all we are left with – even from the experts – is what may or may not be likely to be effective in practice.   

I wonder if this paucity of robust scientific evidence stems from the fact that the issues facing the next generation are even more complex than we could ever imagine. 

The truth is that hype, hysteria and horror are more likely to gain traction than humdrum and happy medium. 

Every generation is different from the last. My own youth in the UK in the late 1980s when I became part of the video games and micro-computers subculture was just as much a mystery to my parents and teachers.  My generation’s problems were blamed on everything from the microwave to Mrs Thatcher to the milk that we drank following the disaster at Chernobyl.  

It seems to me too simplistic to demonise the technology. It’s an easy sell, after all. In fact, whenever there is a major technical shift, horror stories are created by those who believe the dangers outweigh the benefits. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein seems to be a reaction to the industrial revolution. The nuclear threat led to movies about Godzilla and 60-foot-tall Amazonian women. The advent of the internet brought us the Terminator films.   

The truth is that hype, hysteria and horror are more likely to gain traction than humdrum and happy medium. Yet, despite the many and serious problems, the rise of new technologies, even social media, also have much to offer, and they are not going away soon. Instead of demonising new technology as the problem, perhaps we need to find ways to turn it into the solution.  

And perhaps there are glimmers of hope. I like the fact that my children are connected to the wider world, that they know people and languages from more diverse places than I ever did. I like that they know what is going on in the world way before the 9 o’clock news. I like the fact that they are on the cutting edge of advancements I will never experience in my lifetime. I like the fact that they can get their homework checked by AI, that they don’t need to phone me up every time they want to try a new recipe, that we can grumble together about the football match in real time even when we are on different sides of the world. I like that they can browse the Bible or listen to podcasts about history while they are waiting at a bus stop.  I like the fact that they have libraries of books at their fingertips, that they can disappear into fantasy worlds with a swipe and don’t have to spend hours at the job centre when they need to find work. And I love the fact that my children and their friends are rediscovering board games, crochet, embroidery and hiking and taking them to a whole new level because they are learning these crafts from experts around the world.  

I sincerely appreciate that Jonathan Haidt cares about the real and desperate problem of youth mental health. His book adds weight to the pleas of those of us advocating for urgent investment into this area. It reminds us of the world beyond the digital borders and it gives us hope that the re-enchantment of childhood is not impossible.  

However, the solution to these complex issues cannot be found in nostalgia alone. We cannot turn back the clock, nor should we want to. The past had problems of its own.  

I would love someone to write a book that looks forward, that equips young people to live in the worlds of today and tomorrow. If, by some strange coincidence, Jonathan Haidt is reading this article and is in the process of writing that book, I do hope I will bump into him again to thank him.  

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