Homeless crisis at unparalleled levels, says bishop
BISHOP SAYS GOVERNMENT MUST DO MORE TO HELP
CHURCH LEADER SLAMS GOVERNMENT FOR NOT DOING MORE TO TACKLE POVERTY AND DESTITUTION
MANCHESTER’S homeless crisis is now at levels ‘unparalleled’ in our lifetimes, the Bishop of Manchester has warned in a damning Christmas message to ministers.
Accusing government of taking its ‘eye off the ball,’ the Right Rev David Walker said the safety net previously relied upon by the city’s poorest has now been ‘torn apart’ by welfare cuts, leading to destitution on an unprecedented scale.
And disputing government claims that benefits cuts have not led to a surge in child poverty, he told the M.E.N.: “It would be bizarre if you imagined otherwise.”
The Bishop was speaking as fears grow nationally over the effects of austerity – and particularly welfare changes – on children in particular, as well as around soaring rough-sleeping.
Asked how destitution in the city compares to previous decades, he said: “I think visible street homelessness is at a level unparalleled in my lifetime, and I’m 61 now.
“As a teenager I crossed the centre of Manchester every morning on my way to and from school and I did not see the scenes I’m seeing now.
“By the mid-70s, Manchester was economically poorer than it is now, and yet there was not the visible homelessness.
“There were a lot of people who were homeless then, but there was basic funding for hostels. They weren’t great, but they were better than nothing at all.”
The Bishop, who chairs the city’s homelessness partnership and has been outspoken in the past on the reality of austerity, said he had watched the nature of the crisis change significantly in recent times.
More and more people are now becoming destitute not due to bad luck or changes in circumstance, he said, but out of sheer poverty – including working people.
“Until this year, if you’d asked me what the main causes were I’d say relationship breakdown – which could be domestic violence or a break-up or a young person kicked out by a step parent,” he said.
“And then number two would have been mental health issues, where someone’s mental health takes a turn and every aspect of their life can be badly damaged. Then, often as a consequences of that, someone ends up with a dependency on drugs or alcohol.
“What’s become clear in the last year or two is the number of people where it’s simply poverty.
“The number of people I’ve met in recent times in night shelters who have actually got a job – yet end up for at least a period of time with nowhere to sleep.”
The Right Revd Walker was also particularly scathing on the effects of welfare cuts on families, especially the two-child child benefit limit and freezes to housing benefit for private tenants.
“Rents have been going well ahead of inflation and certainly well ahead of the local housing allowance,” he said. “It’s just torn holes in the safety net and too many people are falling through. We have over 1,000 families in some kind of the temporary accommodation at the moment and lots of people visibly sleeping rough on our streets – and these numbers have continued to grow.” His comments come after the M.E.N. revealed the Victorian conditions faced by soaring numbers of homeless families living in temporary accommodation and hotels, many of them priced out of the private rented sector and unable to survive without food banks. In recent weeks both the United Nations and a string of charities have tabled damning research on child poverty, while teachers have spoken of having to buy jumpers and shoes for impoverished children.
The government has disputed those findings, arguing ‘absolute’ poverty has gone down, but the Bishop said he found that hard to fathom.
“I think a lot more does lie at the door of government,” he said. “I’m never really sure what ‘absolute’ poverty means. You are poor if you can’t afford to participate adequately in the society of which you are a part.
“I think relative poverty is as important as absolute poverty. If children can’t participate in things their peer group can, that’s poverty.”
The Bishop echoed the UN’s findings, arguing that limiting child benefit to two children had a particularly direct impact.
“I think we’ve seen the eye off the ball in recent times,” he added.
“If you reduce welfare payments for families, you‘re going to increase child poverty. It would be bizarre if you imagined otherwise.”
He said that after efforts to reduce rough-sleeping since the millennium had appeared to have worked, shelters and hostels had been closed.
As a result, charities and local authorities were now having to urgently add space back into the system, he said, so that enough beds are available to deal with rocketing demand. But he said he had a number of reasons to be hopeful.
In recent weeks he said his own personal counts of rough-sleepers – which he carries out when walking through the city centre early in the morning – suggested numbers were starting to come down thanks to extra night shelters.
“The way that in Manchester we have moved from doing things to people to doing things with people is also important,” he added.
“When we are making decisions about what we are going to do about homelessness we are doing it with a good number of people in the room with experience of homelessness and their voices are heard.
“Secondly, for the first time in my adult life, I think the health services are a joined-up part of thinking up solutions.”
But he said one of the biggest reasons to be optimistic lies in the way Mancunians collectively have rallied around to try and solve the crisis.
“It’s the sheer number of volunteers who are willing to give up a night, an evening, an early morning, to work in a homeless project,” he said. “That gives me hope.”