Housing and Homes

Debate between Adam Holloway and James Cartlidge

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I am going to speak about street homelessness, because what I observed recently in the seven days that I spent living on the streets of London and in my constituency was a very serious problem of accommodation for single men, and particularly single men who are mentally ill.

Twenty-seven years ago I did the same thing for several months, living as a homeless person but also a homeless mentally ill person. Some things were very similar, as we would expect, and some were very different. What was very different this time was that people like the Mayor of London, Westminster City Council and the Prime Minister are at last taking this problem enormously seriously. What was also very different was that, by my reckoning, about 60% of homeless people in London are born overseas. Indeed, when I was camped out in Covent Garden, I was sleeping next to a very nice Italian and Romanian couple. What is the same, though, is that the same mentally ill and drug-addicted people are still roaming the streets of our cities. The kindness of the public and of churches, mosques, gurdwaras and the staff of amazing organisations such as St Mungo’s was also the same.

What I learned this time round is that it is complicated. Each individual has a different reason for being on the streets, and their problem is not primarily homelessness, although of course that is a problem; it is the reason they are homeless that we need to address if we are going to get anywhere. For example, on one night I was camped out behind the goods-in entrance of McDonald’s by Westminster station. I am sure many Members have seen all those people taking this horrendous drug, Spice. I was sleeping next to a young man from the north of England who was an alcoholic, and he had four cans of beer by the time I woke up on the Saturday morning. He showed me the keys to his home, which was somewhere north of London, but was on the streets because he was lonely and an alcoholic.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and it enriches this place to hear the experience of those who have been on the frontline. Does he agree that his experience underlines why we should not jump to conclusions and generalisations about those who are on the streets, but should deal with each case on its merits?

[Adam Holloway]

Absolutely. We have to segment the homeless as much as we can. The Prime Minister has made an extraordinary commitment to end street homelessness within 10 years, but if we are really serious about solving the problem, we have to see people as individuals. We have to differentiate between different groups. We have to accept that some people have made a lifestyle choice. We have to ask whether the large number of foreign nationals really are here looking for work. We have to be honest and have the courage to look at whether the provision of services to homeless people is enabling able-bodied people to live on the streets, where they quickly get into a whole other load of difficulties.

We also need to think about whether public kindness is enabling addiction. The guy I slept next to outside the McDonald’s goods-in entrance got £30 on the Sunday night from kind members of the public, but that was enabling his addiction. Indeed, one of the homeless workers told me after I had finished making the programme that someone they looked after who was a heroin addict and was in a wheelchair, having lost a leg, firmly believed that if the public had not been so kind to him, he would have sought treatment a lot earlier, but he was able to continue with his addiction because of that kindness from the public.

We also need to accept that we cannot add to our population year after year and not build new homes and not expect that to have some knock-on effect on the people at the very bottom. We also have to accept the impact of the cost of housing. I was sleeping in the doorway of a shop on Tottenham Court Road, and two or three of the people there were actually going off to work, but they slept there because they would rather not, and probably could not, afford to spend £1,000 a month on housing. We need to look at whether, by lumping everyone together, we are making it harder for people who are in the direst need. Most of all, in this welfare state of ours, we need to try to rescue the people at the very bottom from roaming the streets of our cities.

I am making a brief speech because I had a Westminster Hall debate on this subject recently, and others wish to speak. We need to look at the root causes of homelessness, look at each individual and rapidly intervene when they need it, for the mentally ill and the drug addicted, otherwise we will get nowhere.