UK is close to knowing the 'routes out of homelessness'

Organisations working to combat the UK’s homelessness problem are close to knowing the ‘routes out of homelessness’, a leading industry figure claimed yesterday.

Homeless Link Chief Executive Jenny Edwards says the UK is leading the world in its own domestic fight against homelessness.

She said that George Bush’s US government had set itself a target of ending chronic homelessness in the country in 10 years.

And she revealed that Thames Reach Chief Executive, Jeremy Swain, and Shelter’s Caroline Davey would soon be travelling to the US in an advisory capacity.

Edwards spoke out at the Capita ‘Working together to deliver targeted services’ homelessness conference in London.

She highlighted the need to pinpoint the barriers which exist in tackling homelessness and the impact made by negative images of run-down housing estates.

She said: “From people who have had really complicated life-long issues – the lesson we have learnt is to get in early with prevention and intervention. If we don’t act on the problem and solve it at an early stage, that problem will get worse.

“It’s important to focus on the individual - looking at the individual as a person. It’s important that we value our own front-line staff.”

Edwards told delegates about a heart-warming case study of a 39-year-old man called Jamie, who had lived at a hostel in Warrington.

Jamie, she said, suffered from psychosis, had been in prison 13 times and a drug addcit for 20 years.

She said Jamie had been homeless on more than 10 occasions and hospitalised many times owing to his drug injections.

She said: “When Jamie was a kid, he could remember playing snakes and ladders. He made a ceramic snakes and ladders game in the hostel – but it did not contain many ladders, only snakes. Like a broken record, he also asked ‘When do you stop saying to yourself that you are useless’.”

Edwards said Jamie’s life started to turn round when he went on a trip to the lakes with people from his hostel.

Edwards said Jamie thoroughly enjoyed the trip and people started making things with him.

He subsequently went on an eight-week artistic course with his hostel and managed to come off the drugs.

An artist then took him and his friends to Barcelona where they won a prize and met the Mayor of Barcelona

Edwards said that proved to be a trigger point and Jamie now had a degree in imaginative writing and had since become a teacher.

She also highlighted the importance of skills and pre-employment as a route out of homelessness.

“We met a chap on the streets who wanted to be a racing driver. He wasn’t a racing driver – but he became a mechanic,” she said.

Edwards reaffirmed to those present that there were many routes out of homelessness, including health.

She said: “It’s about having a magic key – one which you can give away and, at the same time, keep it. You have to find where the lock is in each individual and then unlock it. Ending homelessness is about helping everyone who walks through your door. Everybody involved has to take responsibility.

“I think we are close to knowing the routes out of homelessness and everyone in this room is close to the tipping point. We have to look at the individual in front of us.”

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