Times Are Changing: Let’s Embrace It and Change for Good
Over the last 18 months I’ve been looking closely at broadband speeds and how Britain fares in the global league tables for connectivity and download rates.
We’re not where we should be, there are some straightforward solutions and we are pressing that those are urgently looked at if we want to remain competitive and a voice to be listened to as a world-leading economy.
While this was front of mind I stumbled across another statistic. Again, it was world leagues tables, but this time it was for numbers of homeless people.
My birth country, Italy is 28th in the world league table with 48,000 people homeless on any given night. The figures are old, 2014, but they still showed where the country is in the world rankings if you could use such a term to describe human tragedy in numbers.
More shocking was the UK — in at 54th place.
Just to put it into perspective, the UK is fourth from bottom of the league table. Although it is one place above the US on raw numbers of homeless per night — the UK’s 307,000 homeless people (0.46% of the population) against the US’ 554,000 homeless people (0.17% of the population) gives us a very clear indication that the UK has a problem that’s nearly three times the size.
UK = 66.02 million population — USA = 325.7 million
Rounding up the numbers, the US population is five times that of the UK — and the UK’s homeless numbers, on any given night, are almost half of that of America’s.
The UK would comfortably fit inside the US 40 times over.
How is it some countries, or even cities, get it right and yet two leading developed world countries are still left with so much more to do.
The BBC reported a few days ago on one city that is getting it right.
The number of people sleeping rough in the UK has multiplied since 2010 yet in Finland’s capital Helsinki rough sleeping has been almost eradicated.
At Helsinki’s central railway station there are no rough sleepers and no-one is begging. It wasn’t always the case, but now it is. How?
It’s all down to a ground-breaking scheme.
Since 2007, the Fins’ government has built homeless policies on the foundations of its “Housing First” principle.
In short, it gives rough sleepers or homeless people a stable and permanent home of their own as soon as possible, together with the help and support they need. Sounds simple. Sounds good even. Sounds like common sense with some humanity thrown in.
Here in the UK a permanent home is only offered after a homeless person has sought help in a homeless hostel or temporary accommodation.
Under the Fins’ Housing First, a home is offered is unconditionally, immediately. Even someone still taking drugs or abusing alcohol will get to stay in the house or flat — so long as they are interacting with support workers. Of course, what that does is stem the spiral of damage and give people a safe and secure platform to recover and perhaps find a way to relaunch themselves into society.
They can pay rent through state housing benefit and opt to stay for the rest of their lives. According to official figures, the number of rough sleepers in England (not the same as the wider group described as ‘homeless’, and England only, not the UK) has risen from 1,768 in 2010 to 4,677 in 2018.
Charities such as Shelter say the real number of people sleeping rough is much higher. Official figures are based on the number of homeless people counted on the streets on a single autumn evening each year.
For me this Scandinavian model makes total sense. You can’t have good health or a make a good life without good housing.
Having a home unlocks opportunities. Why are we making those least capable make a supreme effort before we will house them? Can that be right?
Weather pundits have this in store for us for the rest of February.
A double plume of Arctic air will batter Britain for the whole of February, weather forecasters have warned. Temperatures will again plunge way below zero as air from both Scandinavia, where the sub-zero temperatures are currently below -20C, and Greenland heads our way.
Some forecasters also believe temperatures could plummet as low as -16C (3F), a figure showing the coldest in Britain for nine years. This is not the time to be seeking shelter on the streets at night.
The UK government is now looking at the Finnish model. I, for one, would whole-heartedly support a British version.
Source
Helsinki source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46891392?ns_campaign=bbc_radio_4&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_linkname=radio_and_music
Homeless world league table source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population
Weather for February source; https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/1083021/uk-weather-forecast-snow-latest-met-office-bbc-weather-snow-radar-map-today
