Another ‘unacceptable fact’ is that some
people do choose to live on the streets.
When I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate
I said this and a Labour MP interrupted me
to say: ‘I simply cannot believe that anyone
would choose to sleep rough.’ This rhetorical
technique is what Richard Dawkins calls the
‘Argument from Personal Incredulity’, and
it’s as useless in examining homelessness
as it is in taking on the arguments against
evolution. A person’s failure to believe some-
thing does not make it false. A minority of
people do choose to sleep rough. Some don’t
like the rules enforced at night shelters that
forbid drink and drugs; a smaller number
like the escape from bourgeois conventions
and responsibility.
Some months ago, I slept out for a
few days behind the goods-in entrance ofMcDonald’s by Westminster Cathedral
where many addicted to the horrific syn-
thetic cannabis ‘spice’ are turned into zom-
bies. There I made friends with an alcoholic
in his thirties called Andy who showed me
the keys to the flat he lived in — he does
not actually live there, he told me, because
he gets so very lonely, and on the street the
passers-by now freely pay for his beer.
What’s more, in the summer sleeping
rough is not that unpleasant, certainly more
comfortable than being on army exercise (if
you are of sound mind, able-bodied and notin the throes of addiction). Trouble is, what
starts as a street party or escapism for some
can turn into a downward spiral of addiction
and mental illness.
What was depressing in our experience
on the streets recently was how little had
changed since the early 1990s. Despite bil-
lions of pounds of public money, countless
worthwhile charitable initiatives and royal
visits, Matthew and I saw the same cohort of
the addicted and the mentally ill. What, then,
is to be done? This is where we need to listen
to both the left and the right.
The public must stop giving cash direct-
ly to beggars. (The Oxford University busi-
ness incubator has developed an app to give
money to beggars via an account where
it can be used as a deposit on a flat or for
food.) In addition, money must be allocated
for emergency mental health assessments.
Someone with a serious psychiatric illness
is extremely unlikely to be able to maintain
a tenancy. Mental health support should
be embedded within outreach teams, so
that the money goes to the tip of the spear,
and then follows people through the system
rather than being absorbed by general
mental health budgets.
Lastly, the ‘Housing First’ policy, which
puts a homeless person in accommodation
before asking them to deal with their addic-
tions, is very obviously the right one. It has
been a great success in Finland and America
and is being trialled in three cities here.
That those least able to help themselves
end up homeless is ultimately driven by
another unacceptable fact: we are not build-
ing enough new homes. This is in part about
immigration. For 2018, net international
migration was estimated at 275,000, and
there were 121,000 more births than deaths:
396,000 more people. But for many years,
housing stock has not kept pace. You cannot
keep adding to your population while failing
to build enough new homes.
All in all, we are mostly only dealing with
the symptoms of homelessness rather than
its causes — and in the process we are keep-
ing those most unable to help themselves on
the street.Adam Holloway is the MP for Gravesham.
He was formerly a captain in the army and
an investigative journalist.O
ver the years, I have spent around
five months sleeping rough on the
streets of London, Birmingham
and New York, making undercover TV pro-
grammes. Matthew, who works in my West-
minster office, spent last summer invol-
untarily homeless after he was cheated by
his business partner. I suspect we are the
only people within the Palace of Westmin-
ster who have been through the unpleasant
experience of sleeping rough, and we both
have come to the same conclusion. Street
homelessness (as opposed to the homeless-
ness of temporary accommodation) is, for
the most part, a symptom or consequence
of a different problem: addiction to drink or
drugs, or mental illness. If politicians want to
deal with it, they must accept this.
Homelessness is a popular subject in
SW1. It enables both sides of the political
divide to project their prejudices onto the
least fortunate. The right tell them to get
a job; the left see them as victims of inad-
equately funded services by the state. But
both sides have a point: for the addicted or
the mentally ill to even get near a job, many
will need the intervention of social services.
Rough-sleeping could and should be
a cross-party issue, but for this to happen,
everyone must wake up. The left in particu-
lar must accept what George Orwell called
‘unacceptable facts’ — and here follow a few
from our own experience that will tweak the
noses of the pious.
Most beggars are kept in heroin or drink
by the kindness of strangers. If you give
money to a beggar you are almost certainly
enabling the addiction that put them on the
street. Here’s the test — look at the recipi-
ent’s teeth. If theirs are carious, blue-black
Elizabethan stumps or they have none at
all, their owner is a smack addict. Staff at
the homeless charity St Mungo’s told me of
one addict who now wishes the public had
not given him cash for ‘a cup of tea’ or ‘a
hostel’ because it enabled for a decade the
habit that lost him a leg. ‘If I hadn’t been
given that money, I would have got help
much sooner,’ he said. Beggars in London
can make more than £100 a day; in places
such as Winchester or Oxford, where there
is a huge oversupply of credulous tourists
and students, they make even more. Having
a cute puppy, I was told, increases your take.Wake-up call
We are encouraging rough sleeping instead of fixing it
ADAM HOLLOWAY
‘What side are you on
— doom or gloom?’Most beggars are kept in
heroin or drink by the
kindness of strangers