It’s a big issue – child homelessness – but it’s not one we speak about. Perhaps because it’s the horror, atrocity, or stain on our national dignity, that dare not speak its name?
Perhaps child homelessness is so shaming that it is better kept in the dark? The trouble is that it is a very real phenomenon, and to pretend that it isn’t is to act like the Priest or the Levite in The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10, 25-37).
So how big is this problem that dare not speak its name? Well in a small city like mine (Newport, South Wales), it is estimated that there are currently in excess of 250 homeless households. If we assume that each homeless household has two children, that’s a minimum of 500 homeless children. That’s an awful lot of children, and is very likely a significant underestimate.
Just pause and let those numbers sink in. And then reflect on the fact that most of these children are just that a number, for the reality is that they live their lives being processed, moved around, relocated – so it’s no wonder that they feel let down, disengaged, dislocated from community and society.
Now to be clear ‘homeless’ doesn’t mean ‘rough sleeping,’ but rather living in temporary accommodation. Some of the temporary accommodation is good – well okay – but much of it is truly awful. A further problem is that temporary means what is says: temporary! Temporary means that you might be kicked out, or asked to move on at any time. Temporary quite often means that when the landlord gets a better offer, even if it’s just for the weekend, ‘off you go.’
Did you know that when a major sporting or musical event takes place at the Millennium Stadium some hotels reclaim their rooms, spruce them up, and sell them on for a higher price? For many residents there is no stability to be found in the temporary. I wonder how undermining this is to a child’s ability to fulfil their potential (in fact I don’t wonder at all!).
In The Parable of the Good Samaritan the Samaritan takes the injured man to a hotel and promises to come back and if necessary pay the hotelier to look after him well. No such luck for many of our homeless families and children! Our homeless families and children, and I hope I am persuading you to think of them as ‘ours,’ are simply dumped, excommunicated as it were. They are determinedly not treated as ‘neighbours.’ In fact they are not even provided with the basics – those things that many of us take for granted – and which give us a reasonable chance of flourishing. In Newport those who dare to care have seen rooms without beds, flats without curtains, blankets infested with bugs. I could go on.
Fortunately there is a firm commitment in Newport to creating an environment where child homelessness will be ‘rare, brief and unrepeated’ and working with the Royal Foundation’ we have given ourselves a five year time period to realise our ambitions (the normal length of a parliament!) I am thrilled that the faith communities have been invited to play their part, working alongside others of good will.
But, I am angry: I am angry that we have children living in Dickensian conditions in plain sight, yet invisible to those who dare not look. I am angry that the politicians don’t seem to want to talk about what many might consider to be a national disgrace. I am angry with the unscrupulous and barely regulated landlords. I am angry with a society that refuses to see the homeless family as a neighbour: ‘And, who is my neighbour’ asks the lawyer in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10, 29).
And, so here is my pledge: I will stay angry until child homelessness is indeed ‘rare, brief, and unrepeated.’ I will stay angry because I think that anger, in this case, is a measured response, and I will seek to challenge the structures and political decision making and choices that make child homelessness so prevalent in our communities, drawing inspiration from the prophetic tradition; the tradition that dares to speak truth to power.
The really good news is that there are so many others who are equally determined to keep their eyes open, to refuse to walk by on the other side, and to all they can to render child homelessness rare, brief, and unrepeated.
Together we can make this a disgrace that dares to speak its name.
Theore0 