London is Lonely: The Homelessness Epidemic

Image Credit: @zacdurant on Instagram

Coming from a small town in the Midlands, the homelessness I saw before university was very limited. In recent years, the number of homeless people in my town has increased dramatically, and this is the same across England. But even despite this huge increase at home, coming to London and seeing the desperation here was - and still is - incredibly shocking.

This summer, I volunteered with people experiencing housing difficulties. My role was to help run ‘Breakfast Club’ in the morning, which consisted of putting on the kettle and encouraging people to help themselves to a free breakfast donated by a local bakery (shout out The Cornish Bakery). But most of all, it was about having a chat with the people who came along.

One man was battling alcoholism and addiction, finding it difficult that people in his temporary housing were continuing to use and offer him drugs. He told me that talking to people who weren’t homeless helped him to feel a “normal” part of society again. Another man I spoke with was an ex-homeless musician. He would join sometimes and strum his guitar in the background while figuring out new songs. We talked about how trauma had rewritten his brain, from being an £80k-a-year businessman who’d never picked up an instrument, to a songwriter no longer able to do maths. There was an old lady who didn’t make eye contact, but dressed like a Queen in a fabulous purple blazer and held herself regally in conversation. A man whose story I never heard volunteered each Sunday to coach swimming for disabled children at the local pool, and described their achievements with massive pride and great detail every time I saw him.

Some people didn’t want to talk, and others were searching for the opportunity to share their story with anyone willing to listen. For each person, their journey to and through homelessness looked completely different.

Everyone I spoke to said that the most important part of these mornings was the conversation, not the food. It was the handshakes, the eye contact, and a feeling of humanity that was stolen from them on the street. Because when every passer-by avoids eye contact with you like the plague, how do you keep yourself from feeling like a leper?

There is often something fearful in the way people act around poverty, or hardship, as though it is contagious. As though it could be caught by cross-contamination, by leaving your vegetables on the same shelf as your chicken. As though one could become homeless by brushing against a coat sleeve, or looking someone in the eyes for too long. Because to see their humanity - without the blame of laziness or inferiority - is to admit that, given bad luck or happenstance, this could be you, too.

Seeing people sat, weeping, on the doorstep of extravagant hotels in London feels like a scene from a Dickens novel. It should not be an everyday sight. But a report from Shelter in 2019 found that 1 in 52 people in London were homeless. 19 out of the 20 local authorities with the highest concentrations of homelessness in England were in London. These are crazy statistics - and despicable from a capital with nearly 12,000 multi-millionaires.

London has a huge problem with homelessness - something it is impossible not to see any time you walk down the street. It is so easy to allow each person to blur into obscurity, or tell yourself it is not your problem. But as soon as you stop feeling empathy for people, they are no longer human to you.

If you can afford to donate or have the time to volunteer, there are places to do so listed below. But even if you don’t do either of these, helping can just mean buying an extra sandwich to give away next time you go into Tesco’s, or offering up a Fruit Winder when you’ve no other food on you. It can be stopping to chat for five minutes, or asking what you could do to help.

Everyone deserves to feel human.

How to help:

https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us - how you can help Shelter UK.

http://www.streetsoflondon.org.uk/about-homelessness - learn about homelessness, how it happens, and testimonies from homeless people about their experiences.

http://www.streetsoflondon.org.uk/get-involved - how you can help homelessness in London.

https://www.evolvehousing.org.uk/learn-and-share/help-someone-who-is-homeless/ - great ways to help, including StreetLink app to connect homeless people to local resources, as well as where to donate.

https://studentsunionucl.org/volunteering/organisation/c4ws-homeless-project#:~:text=C4WS%20Homeless%20Project%2C%20established%20in,and%20also%20offer%20welfare%20support - UCL volunteering Friday lunch club.

https://studentsunionucl.org/volunteering/directory/category/homeless-people - more UCL volunteering opportunities to help fight homelessness.