January 1, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast, host Matt McChlery and CEO of the Ferry Project, Keith Smith, explore the multifaceted issue of rural homelessness. They discuss community perceptions of home, the impact of invisibility on homeless individuals, and the differences between urban and rural homelessness. The conversation highlights the need for comprehensive support systems and addresses the root causes of homelessness, emphasizing that affordable housing alone is not a sufficient solution.
Links
Takeaways
- Home is defined by security, safety, and family.
- Many people associate homelessness with invisibility and rejection.
- Rural homelessness is often overlooked compared to urban areas.
- The stigma surrounding homelessness can lead to feelings of invisibility.
- Support systems must address both housing and emotional needs.
- Affordable housing is necessary but not the sole solution.
- Community awareness is crucial in addressing homelessness.
- Homelessness can affect anyone, regardless of background.
- Comprehensive support is needed to tackle the root causes of homelessness.
- The Ferry Project aims to provide dignity and support to homeless individuals.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Rural Homelessness 01:03 Defining Home: Perspectives from the Community 06:47 Perceptions of Homelessness: Insights and Stereotypes 11:10 The Impact of Invisibility on the Homeless 16:48 Rural vs Urban Homelessness: A Comparative Analysis 21:55 Understanding the Hidden Nature of Rural Homelessness 30:51 Addressing the Root Causes of Homelessness 35:32 The Importance of Comprehensive Support Systems
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
This is the Rural Homelessness Podcast, where we discuss the important issues around ruralhomelessness, hear from those affected by it, and offer some solutions.
Brought to you by the award-winning homelessness charity, The Ferry Project.
Welcome to the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I am your host, Matt McChlery
and joining me today is CEO of the ferry project Mr.
Keith Smith.
Hello Keith, welcome.
Hi, I'm Matt.
Thanks for inviting me back again.
It's a pleasure as always to be here.
Yeah, it's great to have you back.
And today we are starting off our new year by something that we did last year.
(00:52):
I can't believe it was that long ago now, but part of what we were doing is we traveledaround a little bit in our region and we spoke to people about
their perceptions and their views of homelessness.
So today we're going to be hearing a whole range of other voices as well on the show asyou can hear what people thought to some of the questions that we asked them.
(01:18):
Now the first question we asked Keith was what does home mean to you?
And here is some of what they said.
Home to me means security.
Safety and family.
Somewhere safe, comfortable, that I can relax, be myself and escape from the challenges ofthe world outside your front door.
(01:48):
Family.
A roof over my head.
Safety and community.
Where my husband is, where family is, yeah.
a safe place that you can go back to and know that you're safe, secure and welcome.
(02:11):
Family, warmth, food on a table and just happiness really.
Just think back to those memories of the child and home will always be that house where myparents are and that's what it means to me.
For me home is somewhere that I consider a safe place.
somewhere I can relax and escape the stresses of life.
(02:34):
But not everyone can be happy and have a safe home environment, especially if they livewith someone who's causing them not to feel safe.
And it's one of the most common reasons why we have young runaways and they choose tobecome homeless because they don't feel safe at home.
And unfortunately, that's just like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
(02:58):
So there are some of the responses we had as we weren't around asking people the question,what does home mean to you?
So Keith, on a personal level, what does home mean to you?
Well, I can only echo lots of what I've heard there.
So I'm one of four boys.
(03:18):
was brought up by my mum and dad and I was one of four boys.
obviously home is that image of, as they said, safe place where you're secure.
and you have fun and you've got all the memories and you know that you're accepted there.
It's a place that you're accepted.
And I'm now a granddad and I've got five kids and we obviously had a large home as well.
(03:41):
And we hope to provide that for our children and indeed for our grandchildren now a placewhere they feel safe and they can be accepted for who they are not for what the world or
anybody else wants them to be.
So yeah, that's what it means on a personal level.
I think.
Yeah, the place where you're accepted is the key.
(04:02):
And of course, we are speaking about people who are homeless, so people who are without ahome.
So does it necessarily mean to say that everything that people have said there, what homemeans to them, has that all been completely lost by the people you come across in your
(04:22):
work or in the support services that you provide or, you know,
What kind of picture is it?
Absolutely.
Well, actually, I know it sounds a bit surprising maybe, but the truth is, yes, that iswhat they've lost.
We talked to our staff team to help them to try and understand what being homeless islike, because if you haven't experienced it, and let me just say I did experience a form
(04:50):
of homelessness myself.
My wife and I had to move in with people we didn't know.
They very generously offered us a bedroom and their lounge to use.
We were buying a house and it all fell through and for a period of about six, eight weeks,we were living at their generosity really.
(05:12):
We were staying in their house.
Anna, my wife, was at that time seven months pregnant.
The whole thing felt very insecure.
Now we were actually fortunate that we were...
able to move in with this couple who were prepared to allow us to stay with them.
We just moved into a new town, the house we were purchasing fell through and they werevery generous to us.
(05:34):
So I've experienced it at a very low level, but what we say to our staff team is for theperson to be homeless, whether everybody around them likes it or not, it means every
person they've said, can I stay with you?
has turned them down.
They've been rejected by everybody they know.
So that feeling of security and safety and the place where people accept you has totallygone.
(06:03):
And this is a major trauma.
It's a major trauma for anyone.
If you've ever experienced that, that is a major shock to the system.
And so much of the work that we do initially with people is to provide them with twothings, a space to actually
come to terms with what just happened and a space where they can feel safe.
(06:23):
Because if you haven't got safety, you've got nothing.
So you need to feel safe.
That's really insightful.
Thank you.
Now, the second question we asked people was their perceptions of homelessness.
So we asked, when thinking of a homeless person, what is the first thing?
(06:47):
that comes to mind and these are some of their responses.
Somebody who has nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Loneliness.
How harsh it must be in terms of living conditions, most especially in winter given theseasons that we have in this country, but just how tough it is for individuals and people
(07:16):
in that position.
that's a tough question.
Often somebody that's hit a difficult patch in their life and they need help and they needsupport.
unsafe, needing support and companionship.
(07:38):
It's just really sad being on your own and not having a safe place to go and just feelingvulnerable all the time.
Someone's sleeping rough.
They're cold, they're alone and they're in really difficult spot.
Just really isolating, I guess is a really good word for it.
Yeah, and yeah, just scary, I guess.
(08:02):
I used to think, as most people do, that homeless people are just all alcoholics and drugaddicts.
And unfortunately, that stigma is attached to these very vulnerable people.
And as someone who's been homeless and someone who does not drink alcohol and doesn't takedrugs.
and my perception has obviously changed.
I only see very vulnerable people who need help and support.
(08:26):
I will always offer to help a homeless person in buying them a bottle of water and gettingthem some food and have a conversation with them because when you're homeless, you can
feel very invisible to the outside world and very cut off.
So there are some of the responses we had to our question.
(08:46):
when thinking of a homeless person, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
So having listened to that, Keith, what would you say?
Would you agree with some of those things?
Some of that kind of reflected some of the, I guess, assumptions or stereotypes, but thenthere was quite a lot of thoughtfulness in there as well, where people were going beyond
(09:11):
the sort of facade that you sometimes get that sort of
initial image of rough sleeper drug addict type thing and actually thinking about theperson and their circumstance.
From your experience, what can you say about that?
Well, if you listen to people speaking, the one who actually I think was most insightfulwas a person who'd actually experienced homelessness.
(09:37):
And he used the word invisible.
Now,
My experience both so I've never been street homeless, so I have no personal experience.
All I can share with you is what people have told me and what I've seen from individuals.
So that feeling of being invisible, that feeling that nobody cares is probably one of themost profound things that impacts the homeless people that we deal with.
(10:11):
So as I said, when you become homeless, that one of the key points is everybody you know,so all the people you actually know have rejected you.
Otherwise you'd be able to stay with them.
So even if there was legitimate reasons why you couldn't stay with them, they've stillsaid no.
So you've been rejected.
You then go into a situation like being on the street and actually people start to avoidyou and they avoid eye contact.
(10:40):
might cross the road.
and they will do different bits and pieces.
And as a result of that, the normal assumption where you can go and ask people for helpstarts to disappear.
So even the people you know, reject you.
The people you don't know, reject you.
So you are literally now put into almost a strange isolation within a community, whichmust be incredibly difficult to deal with.
(11:09):
That's why we need to give this
why we give this chance for decompression.
We need people to actually be able to express those feelings and express what that waslike, to be sad about it, to share some of that and to talk about it and so on.
There is some clear evidence.
(11:30):
There was a campaign called No Second Night Out.
And what the campaign was based on was research was done.
And what they said was,
that when they were talking to homeless people and people who lived through this, theysaid that the person on the first night when they sleep rough, that has a significant
(11:51):
impact.
But if you can get to those individuals and you can support them and you can give them aplace to stay, that impact is emotional, but it hasn't affected their behavior too much.
By the end of the second night out, they've already started to change their behavior.
because they have to go into a defense situation where they are suspicious of everybodyand they have to be careful about being attacked or people abusing them or doing things
(12:20):
and stealing things from them, people mistreating them and the impact of everybodyrejecting, not accepting help.
has a psychological impact and it changes the way that people think and the way thatpeople behave.
So the government accepted this and created this campaign called No Second Night Out.
And indeed lots of us as charities now try to do everything we can to prevent somebodysleeping rough more than one night if that's what they have to do.
(12:47):
Because the change is significant and it takes a while to recover from that change.
And the longer you sleep out, the more that change becomes embedded.
There was a...
If you go on YouTube, there's an interesting video you can find, and I'm sorry, I can'tremember its name, but they got a little girl of about nine and they dressed her up in
(13:11):
really tatty clothes and without shoes and stuck her on the streets of London.
And this little girl, they made her dirty.
And this little girl went up to people in the streets and started asking for help.
And in that situation, people just...
passed her, ignored her, walked away, did things and they didn't give her, nobody stoppedand helped her.
(13:35):
They got the same girl and they washed her up and put her in a pretty frock and gave hernice shoes and did her hair and so on.
And that girl then went up to people again in the same place and said, please can you helpme?
I've lost my parents or whatever.
And in every case people stopped and supported her.
(13:57):
and just shows just how people assume all sorts of things from appearance.
if you've been sleeping rough a couple of days and you're starting to look dirty anddisheveled, people start to assume things about you and so on.
it's complicated, it's a very complicated thing, but the impact on the individual isreally profound and that invisibility is something that we as a charity do something
(14:24):
about.
So Ferry Project, we deliberately bought a property in West Beach, which is a grade twostylistic building.
was built, this main building was built in 1730, okay?
And it's a beautiful building, Georgian and all the rest of it, and it's got all thefeatures.
And part of the reason for doing that was we wanted to send out a message to the homespeople locally to us, that as the advert puts it, you are worth it.
(14:52):
So we deliberately bought this building so that homeless people coming to our site did notfeel they were being put in the worst accommodation left and the only place that could be
gone, got.
But actually they were coming to one of the best buildings in the town.
One of the most beautiful, one of the best ones.
(15:13):
And for those who don't know, Whist Beach was the birthplace of Octavia Hill who startedthe social housing movement.
And she believed that every person deserved a place to live, deserved opportunity anddeserved beauty.
And so because we agree with that, we called our building Octavia View, which is theOctavia's view of life, Octavia's view of supporting people.
(15:41):
Because those things are just so key, so key.
A homeless person can be invisible, totally invisible.
And what we want to say is
You're not invisible with us.
You're not invisible.
Yeah, we see you.
I must say that's something that is echoed across other homelessness charities.
(16:02):
I'm just thinking of a national charity called Crisis.
I don't know if you know, but they've just recently teamed up with Mr.
Men and Little Miss.
Yeah.
And they've just started a whole range of products and awareness raising and they'vecreated two new
characters for Mr.
Min and Little Miss called Little Miss Invisible and Mr.
(16:26):
Invisible and these characters are homeless and just highlighting that whole what you'vebeen saying about this invisibility that happens as a result.
yeah, there you go.
We asked another question because of course this is the Rural Homelessness podcast and
(16:48):
We are based in Whizbeach and the ferry project provides homelessness services and supportfor people in the Fenland area of England.
And so we asked where people thought the biggest problem of homelessness was.
And we gave them the choice between Whizbeach, which is where the ferry project islocated, and a nearby city.
(17:18):
where we know that there is a homelessness problem.
Well, there's homelessness problems all over the place, let's be honest.
But we compared with Cambridge and we asked, where did they think was the greaterhomelessness problem in Whizbeach or in Cambridge?
And this is what they said.
(17:38):
Cambridge.
I think Whizbeach.
There's probably a homeless problem in both, but I just purely based on the sort ofpopulation of both, I kind of think maybe Cambridge has a slightly higher concentration,
but I suspect proportionally that they both have similar issues.
(18:02):
I would say, I would have said Cambridge, but now Whizbeach is on the list, possiblyWhizbeach.
Knowing a little bit about...
rural homelessness, I would say Whisbeige.
I guess it depends what you mean by homeless because some people think of people who areon the streets and some people think of families who...
yeah, so I don't know.
(18:23):
It could go either way that one.
I really don't know.
It sounds all...
would think Whisbeige but it depends on the numbers.
I can see sometimes in it, maybe it's Cambridge, but I would think probably Whisbeige.
Cambridge, just as it being a city, just, you know, maybe it's an attraction to people togo there, there's more happening there.
(18:45):
But yeah, I'll be, I'm not sure, it could be neck and neck, but I'll go with Cambridge onthat one.
This is a difficult question for me to answer as I don't really know the areas very well.
I'm originally from London and I know that it's such a big, a huge problem in London andin most cities.
Not much is being done to help these people.
(19:07):
Mostly they are swept under the carpet, moved on by the police.
know, have, you know, charities like the Salvation Army and the Ferry Project to Save MyLife literally do a fantastic job.
But the government are not doing nearly enough to help these and support the homelesspeople in this country.
(19:31):
So there are some thoughts that we gathered.
from the people we spoke to about that.
So Keith, what do you think?
You work in Whispich, but I'm sure you're also familiar with the homelessness situation inneighboring cities such as Cambridge.
(19:51):
How do the statistics compare?
Okay, so if we're looking purely at numbers of people who are homeless in othercommunities, then Cambridge
is higher.
But that's because their population is so much higher.
So Cambridge's population is around 100,000 plus.
(20:13):
Whistbeach is just 30,000 plus.
Now Ferry Project supports 300 individuals a year in the Whistbeach area who are homelessor just on the verge of becoming homeless.
And that does not include all the people that
the local authority has a legal responsibility to deal with.
(20:34):
And we only deal mostly with single people.
So on top of all our figures are those figures from local government and indeed fromfamilies as well.
So if we actually take that, we're looking at over 2 % of the adult population ofWhizbeach being homeless every single year.
(20:56):
Now, if we were to put that into
Cambridge what we'd be looking at that is nearly 2,000 people homeless a year Well thesefigures have started to get very large and although Cambridge literally has hundreds of
homeless people 2000 is perhaps beyond where even they are and these are the figures ofthe people we actually know not just people who might be you know, so for surfing or
(21:24):
whatever so
Actually, people don't realize that percentage wise homelessness is very high in ruralcommunities and with Beach because of its economy is one of the highest in the country,
percentage wise.
So, yeah, I think it depends how you take the figures, raw figures, pure numbers,Cambridge percentage wise, I think actually with Beach is higher.
(21:49):
Yeah.
And that follows on to the next question that we asked everybody, which was
Do you think that there is a homelessness problem in the countryside?
This is what they said.
Yes, I do.
Yeah, I don't think it's noted as much or governed as much, but I do think there is.
(22:10):
Yeah.
Yeah, I do.
I think it's not just in urban areas, but clearly in rural parts too, in small towns andsettlements, you still have substantive issues there.
People struggling to buy homes, rent homes.
And from what I can see it's not just the big towns and cities, it's El Swarter.
(22:31):
100 % absolutely yes.
Yeah I reckon it can happen to anybody.
Perhaps more in the town but also in the countryside.
Yeah.
I wouldn't have but yes I do now.
I don't think so, mainly because I haven't seen it, haven't witnessed it myself.
But just because the countryside doesn't mean it's not happening.
(22:54):
I know that there is a lot of homeless people who choose to stay in the countryside asthey may feel safer than staying on the streets.
But they are also very difficult to spot compared with obviously people sleeping rough onthe streets because they are pretty much visible.
(23:16):
the homeless people in the countryside, they probably choose to go there.
because they want to be invisible.
So yeah, that's a big issue.
There are some responses about, you think there is a problem of homelessness in thecountryside?
Just a few things to pick out there.
(23:37):
One person said that they didn't think there was a problem because they couldn't see it.
And then another person saying that, well, he's not surprised that you don't see itbecause it's very much of a hidden thing, especially.
in the rural areas.
Would you agree with this in your experience?
Yes.
so you're absolutely right.
So we've done a straw poll and indeed, there's been quite a bit of work done.
(24:02):
If you actually ask people on the whole, can you tell me if you close your eyes andimagine a homeless person, where do you see them?
And nearly everybody says outside a shop, on a bench, on a bench, by a bus stop.
That's on the pavement, in the shop.
(24:22):
Outside Starbucks.
All these types of things.
None of them actually go, I see them in the middle of a field or I see them on farmland orin the woods or anything like that.
And so one of the challenges is that because people don't see homelessness in the same wayin a rural setting, there is an assumption that it's not present.
(24:48):
And as a result of that, services get drawn, get developed into urban areas.
So one of the challenges, one of the reasons we've asked you to do this podcast is becausewe wanted to raise the fact that actually, anything, supporting homeless people in rural
settings is more challenging because, a good example, we did some research.
(25:13):
If you look at a rough sleeper in an urban setting,
The figures we've found is that they tend to walk about 10 miles a day.
So going from place to place and perhaps going to appointments and so on.
If you look at a rural setting, it can be as many as 15 miles a day because all thedifferent places they need to go are spread over a much wider area.
(25:35):
In many rural towns, there is no DWP or job center or whatever.
They might have to go to...
And with the number of banks that are closing branches these days in more rural areas andexpecting people to travel long distances to get to the branch of your bank is also going
(25:56):
to become an increased problem, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
And so we can relate all that.
So basically what we see is in the rural areas, there might be fewer people, but the toreach those individuals to actually help them.
there's much bigger gaps.
You have to take them much further to get to services and so on.
(26:16):
So it becomes a more challenging problem.
So supporting a homeless person in a rural setting is more costly than supporting ahomeless person in an urban center because it's much easier to get economies to scale and
so on.
You don't have those in the world.
then because the perception is that the problem is more in the cities, the funding goes tothe cities rather than to the rural areas where the funding is needed more.
(26:41):
Yes, exactly.
So so it becomes it becomes a challenging and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
let me just give you some examples of where we've when we've talked to some of ourclients, where we found people.
So we found one ex-soldier.
who would become homeless for particular reasons.
(27:03):
He was living in a tree.
He'd set up his own house in the top of a tree because that was where he felt safe.
We often find that people in the fence areas make encampments on fields.
And when one person sets up a tent, usually near some trees, somebody else will join themand another, and you can end up with encampments of 10, 20 people.
(27:27):
Where they actually set up their own little community and someone and so so those thingshappen But they'd be out of sight because on the whole their experiences if people see
where they are They're also very vulnerable because in a town if somebody attacks youthere's usually other people around there's lights on and so on in the country in the high
(27:49):
street and all that exactly Whereas if you're in the countryside you can be attacked andnobody might see you
Nobody might be aware.
they need to, the people in the countryside need to find specific places to go into.
We've had to take people who have been living under, literally, they created shelters outof bits of old metal and plastic sheeting, and they've gone to skips and got old
(28:16):
mattresses and put them on the ground.
We know loads of people who've ended up in hospital because they're sleeping effectivelyout in the open and on dam.
damp surfaces.
So all these things are going on.
And I can guarantee you, if any of the listeners to this podcast have driven through acountry area, whether that's the Lake District, whether that's County Durham, the Peak
(28:39):
District, the West Country, down in Cornwall and around there, whether it's down in Kent,whether it's in East Anglia, whether it's in Wales or Scotland, everywhere you have
driven.
You will have driven past some homeless people.
It's just that you are not aware of it because they don't want you to be aware of it.
(29:00):
So people forget that.
And when they walk through cities and see homeless people, they just acknowledge that asbeing the norm.
And that's where they picture it.
But you will have driven past, you know, many homeless people never even realizing thatthey're there.
Okay.
So we don't want people to forget that homelessness is very much found in rural settingsand
(29:21):
actually those individuals need, if not, at least the same as the services in cities,probably a lot more.
And just on that, a good example.
So in Cambridge, if we actually look at the number of homelessness organizations inCambridge, we're talking about double figures, okay?
(29:42):
In Finland, Ferry Project is the primary homelessness service.
There are three or four other housing organizations that will provide some support.
but none of them do outreach.
So here we have a town with a very high percentage of the population homeless with oneservice.
And in a city like Cambridge, you'll have six, seven, eight services trying to reach outinto the same area.
(30:08):
Loads of soup kitchens, people wanting to do bits and pieces.
so the podcast really is just to raise a profile, not to say that...
that people in urban settings don't need help, but just to say, don't forget what's goingon in the rural communities as well.
Yeah, thank you.
(30:28):
Don't forget the rural homeless.
That's a great message.
And the final question we asked those people who we were chatting to last year was whatthey thought needed to be done to solve some of the problems around the issue of
homelessness.
And this is what they said.
(30:51):
I that's case of looking at the root cause, so that's providing people with jobs, trainingskills so that they can then get themselves out of the situation that they're in.
I think better connections across housing, education, health and social care.
I think probably a very clear housing strategy that's agreed by the government, especially
(31:19):
a social housing strategy that has proper investment and that we increase the supply ofnew homes because of the excessive demand that we face in this country.
That hopefully in turn would help the whole issue around homelessness.
We need to get to the root of the issues and be able to support people in the right way.
(31:40):
It's not just about house, it's about everything else that a person needs in their life.
yeah.
So more affordable housing and making sure that there's statutory services and support forpeople to prevent homelessness in the first place.
(32:02):
Some of them are so difficult, aren't they?
Because if your relationship breaks down, there's not much anybody can do about thatexcept to help you onto the ladder to try to get back on your feet.
That's a mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean, to actually get somewhere where you canhave a place of your own again and feel safe.
We just need a better safety net.
(32:22):
We need to recognise that people shouldn't drop below a certain level in our society andwe seem to have accepted that.
So it's putting back the basics that you should be able to stay dry and fed and healthy.
Just having that support network for them, but not, you know, the sense of friends andfamily, because some people may not have that.
Just having a safe space for them to go to and being aware of that they can go to thatplace.
(32:46):
And just, yeah, support from other, you know, companies, charities all come together.
It's not just a one man band thing.
It needs to be a collective of everybody really.
Well, the system that is in place at the moment is completely flawed.
There needs to be, my opinion, a complete rethink towards preventing homelessness andtackling homelessness.
(33:11):
However, I think it is easier to tackle than to prevent because there are so many factorsthat come into play for someone to end up being homeless.
I firmly believe that the government needs to form a new type of task force withfacilities to have outreach capabilities to locate
(33:33):
and search and have conversations with the homeless and offer them immediate help.
For this to happen, they will also need to have in place lots of temporary supportedaccommodations across the country with access to health professionals, administration to
(33:53):
help with their recovery from being homeless and any other issues such as poor physicalhealth, mental health, addiction.
you know, help with, you know, maybe they have a lack of benefits and need help there.
And I know the blueprint for this, you know, works because ferry projects have this allencompassing support.
(34:16):
But it's something that needs to, you know, happen the whole country, you know, we need tohave these facilities all over the country just to support the homeless because we don't
have that right now.
Homeless people are just sort of sent to a bed and breakfast, you know, temporarily andthen they're back homeless again.
(34:41):
And no one is really tackling the long-term problems for homelessness.
It's just a very short-term fix, which is costing so much money.
know, short-term fix never work.
There needs to be a long-term fix here so we can almost eradicate it, you know.
(35:04):
So lots of talk there about affordable housing.
Is that the magic bullet or is there more to it than that?
Yeah, there's a lot more to it than that.
Affordable housing.
So obviously there is a housing shortage and so more houses are needed.
Can I just say that again, if you think about it, where houses are houses are built inurban centers.
(35:28):
They're not particularly built in rural centers.
And indeed people resist houses being built in centres.
So we have a rather strange situation where we have homeless people in rural settings andyet other people are resisting having a new house built for them in those settings.
And indeed many will say don't come spoiling our village.
(35:51):
Well actually for the person who's sleeping rough in the field in your village, it's notspoiling the village at all.
It's actually providing a basic requirement.
So there is a balancing act here and it's not a simple answer.
But some homes obviously support homes are needed.
However, everybody who is homeless, without being too brutal is homeless for a reason.
(36:14):
Something has happened that has led to their homelessness.
And so therefore they need some support to both come to terms with what happened andactually develop skills so the thing isn't repeated over and over again.
And again, search is quite clear.
The most common cause of homelessness is actually breakdown in family, breakdown inrelationships.
(36:38):
So that could be matrimonial, could be parent, child, it could be the death of a partneror a spouse or a close intimate person.
All these things lead to severe trauma for the individual.
And it's how the individual reacts that trauma.
(36:58):
and how they try and resolve the trauma in their lives that causes much of the problem.
So it isn't just about housing, it is about the fact that people have gone through someterrible events and that's result of those terrible events, whatever reason, are alone.
(37:19):
And we need to provide them with support on that.
So that might be mental health support, it might be support, as you say, developingskills, it might be...
support, rebuilding relationships back.
might be with debt management, it could be about drug and alcohol addictions.
It could be that they've gone to prison, they're coming out to prison and they've beenrejected by their family now.
(37:40):
And some people might say, well, rightly so, but those individuals have got to livesomewhere.
So, so, you know, we need to rebuild them.
We need to build them back up so that they can make a positive contribution to societyrather than them.
rather than a negative one or be a drain on society.
And that's what we're trying to do.
Nobody, when they were a child, when they were asked, what do you want to do when you growup?
(38:04):
Said I want to be a homeless person.
So that's not been ever anybody's ambition.
So what we want to do is provide them with the support and ability and the opportunitiesto become the person they wanted to become.
And if we can do that, then hopefully
we can support them on that journey.
(38:25):
They can get going.
so some of our clients, if we wanted to share a few success stories, some of our clientsnow have got some very high powered jobs.
Some of them live on the continent.
Some of them are in all sorts of positions.
I was a school teacher before I got involved in homelessness.
So I know about education.
(38:46):
The most intelligent person I've ever met was home.
He could talk to me about scientific theories and all sorts of stuff.
He taught me a lot of science stuff.
So we mustn't just assume that because somebody's homeless now, that is their destiny andthat is their situation.
(39:07):
Actually, they could go on to incredibly great things.
They just need the opportunity and the chance to start again.
And that might take a while to help them on that journey.
It's a lot more than the housing.
We made that mistake at the beginning.
Ferry Projects at the beginning, we just thought if we provided housing, that'd be enough.
(39:28):
It took less than a year for us to learn.
That was just not the case.
There's a lot more to helping people than just giving them a house.
And there's a lot that the Ferry Project does offer.
If you are interested in finding out all the different services that Ferry Project offerstheir clients, as well as the wider community, do go and visit the website,
ferryproject.org.uk.
(39:49):
and you'll find out all sorts of interesting things there.
Thank you, Keith Smith, for joining us today on the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
It's been fascinating.
And thank you also to everybody who participated answering our questions as we went aroundthe region a little while ago.
So thank you to everyone for your thoughts and your contributions as well.
(40:11):
Well, thank you, Keith.
Thanks for joining us.
My pleasure.
And it's good to see you, Matt, again.
Yeah.
glad to be able to contribute in this way.
thank you as well for listening to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
We come out on the first and the 15th of every month, so do join us again soon for anotherepisode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
(40:33):
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the Rural Homelessness Podcast brought to you by The FerryProject.
Visit our website on www.ferryproject.org
This is the Rural Homelessness Podcast, where we discuss the important issues around ruralhomelessness, hear from those affected by it, and offer some solutions.
Brought to you by the award-winning homelessness charity, The Ferry Project.
Welcome to the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
(00:27):
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I am your host, Matt McChlery
and joining me today is CEO of the ferry project Mr.
Keith Smith.
Hello Keith, welcome.
Hi, I'm Matt.
Thanks for inviting me back again.
It's a pleasure as always to be here.
Yeah, it's great to have you back.
And today we are starting off our new year by something that we did last year.
(00:52):
I can't believe it was that long ago now, but part of what we were doing is we traveledaround a little bit in our region and we spoke to people about
their perceptions and their views of homelessness.
So today we're going to be hearing a whole range of other voices as well on the show asyou can hear what people thought to some of the questions that we asked them.
(01:18):
Now the first question we asked Keith was what does home mean to you?
And here is some of what they said.
Home to me means security.
Safety and family.
Somewhere safe, comfortable, that I can relax, be myself and escape from the challenges ofthe world outside your front door.
(01:48):
Family.
A roof over my head.
Safety and community.
Where my husband is, where family is, yeah.
a safe place that you can go back to and know that you're safe, secure and welcome.
(02:11):
Family, warmth, food on a table and just happiness really.
Just think back to those memories of the child and home will always be that house where myparents are and that's what it means to me.
For me home is somewhere that I consider a safe place.
somewhere I can relax and escape the stresses of life.
(02:34):
But not everyone can be happy and have a safe home environment, especially if they livewith someone who's causing them not to feel safe.
And it's one of the most common reasons why we have young runaways and they choose tobecome homeless because they don't feel safe at home.
And unfortunately, that's just like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
(02:58):
So there are some of the responses we had as we weren't around asking people the question,what does home mean to you?
So Keith, on a personal level, what does home mean to you?
Well, I can only echo lots of what I've heard there.
So I'm one of four boys.
(03:18):
was brought up by my mum and dad and I was one of four boys.
obviously home is that image of, as they said, safe place where you're secure.
and you have fun and you've got all the memories and you know that you're accepted there.
It's a place that you're accepted.
And I'm now a granddad and I've got five kids and we obviously had a large home as well.
(03:41):
And we hope to provide that for our children and indeed for our grandchildren now a placewhere they feel safe and they can be accepted for who they are not for what the world or
anybody else wants them to be.
So yeah, that's what it means on a personal level.
I think.
Yeah, the place where you're accepted is the key.
(04:02):
And of course, we are speaking about people who are homeless, so people who are without ahome.
So does it necessarily mean to say that everything that people have said there, what homemeans to them, has that all been completely lost by the people you come across in your
(04:22):
work or in the support services that you provide or, you know,
What kind of picture is it?
Absolutely.
Well, actually, I know it sounds a bit surprising maybe, but the truth is, yes, that iswhat they've lost.
We talked to our staff team to help them to try and understand what being homeless islike, because if you haven't experienced it, and let me just say I did experience a form
(04:50):
of homelessness myself.
My wife and I had to move in with people we didn't know.
They very generously offered us a bedroom and their lounge to use.
We were buying a house and it all fell through and for a period of about six, eight weeks,we were living at their generosity really.
(05:12):
We were staying in their house.
Anna, my wife, was at that time seven months pregnant.
The whole thing felt very insecure.
Now we were actually fortunate that we were...
able to move in with this couple who were prepared to allow us to stay with them.
We just moved into a new town, the house we were purchasing fell through and they werevery generous to us.
(05:34):
So I've experienced it at a very low level, but what we say to our staff team is for theperson to be homeless, whether everybody around them likes it or not, it means every
person they've said, can I stay with you?
has turned them down.
They've been rejected by everybody they know.
So that feeling of security and safety and the place where people accept you has totallygone.
(06:03):
And this is a major trauma.
It's a major trauma for anyone.
If you've ever experienced that, that is a major shock to the system.
And so much of the work that we do initially with people is to provide them with twothings, a space to actually
come to terms with what just happened and a space where they can feel safe.
(06:23):
Because if you haven't got safety, you've got nothing.
So you need to feel safe.
That's really insightful.
Thank you.
Now, the second question we asked people was their perceptions of homelessness.
So we asked, when thinking of a homeless person, what is the first thing?
(06:47):
that comes to mind and these are some of their responses.
Somebody who has nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Loneliness.
How harsh it must be in terms of living conditions, most especially in winter given theseasons that we have in this country, but just how tough it is for individuals and people
(07:16):
in that position.
that's a tough question.
Often somebody that's hit a difficult patch in their life and they need help and they needsupport.
unsafe, needing support and companionship.
(07:38):
It's just really sad being on your own and not having a safe place to go and just feelingvulnerable all the time.
Someone's sleeping rough.
They're cold, they're alone and they're in really difficult spot.
Just really isolating, I guess is a really good word for it.
Yeah, and yeah, just scary, I guess.
(08:02):
I used to think, as most people do, that homeless people are just all alcoholics and drugaddicts.
And unfortunately, that stigma is attached to these very vulnerable people.
And as someone who's been homeless and someone who does not drink alcohol and doesn't takedrugs.
and my perception has obviously changed.
I only see very vulnerable people who need help and support.
(08:26):
I will always offer to help a homeless person in buying them a bottle of water and gettingthem some food and have a conversation with them because when you're homeless, you can
feel very invisible to the outside world and very cut off.
So there are some of the responses we had to our question.
(08:46):
when thinking of a homeless person, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
So having listened to that, Keith, what would you say?
Would you agree with some of those things?
Some of that kind of reflected some of the, I guess, assumptions or stereotypes, but thenthere was quite a lot of thoughtfulness in there as well, where people were going beyond
(09:11):
the sort of facade that you sometimes get that sort of
initial image of rough sleeper drug addict type thing and actually thinking about theperson and their circumstance.
From your experience, what can you say about that?
Well, if you listen to people speaking, the one who actually I think was most insightfulwas a person who'd actually experienced homelessness.
(09:37):
And he used the word invisible.
Now,
My experience both so I've never been street homeless, so I have no personal experience.
All I can share with you is what people have told me and what I've seen from individuals.
So that feeling of being invisible, that feeling that nobody cares is probably one of themost profound things that impacts the homeless people that we deal with.
(10:11):
So as I said, when you become homeless, that one of the key points is everybody you know,so all the people you actually know have rejected you.
Otherwise you'd be able to stay with them.
So even if there was legitimate reasons why you couldn't stay with them, they've stillsaid no.
So you've been rejected.
You then go into a situation like being on the street and actually people start to avoidyou and they avoid eye contact.
(10:40):
might cross the road.
and they will do different bits and pieces.
And as a result of that, the normal assumption where you can go and ask people for helpstarts to disappear.
So even the people you know, reject you.
The people you don't know, reject you.
So you are literally now put into almost a strange isolation within a community, whichmust be incredibly difficult to deal with.
(11:09):
That's why we need to give this
why we give this chance for decompression.
We need people to actually be able to express those feelings and express what that waslike, to be sad about it, to share some of that and to talk about it and so on.
There is some clear evidence.
(11:30):
There was a campaign called No Second Night Out.
And what the campaign was based on was research was done.
And what they said was,
that when they were talking to homeless people and people who lived through this, theysaid that the person on the first night when they sleep rough, that has a significant
(11:51):
impact.
But if you can get to those individuals and you can support them and you can give them aplace to stay, that impact is emotional, but it hasn't affected their behavior too much.
By the end of the second night out, they've already started to change their behavior.
because they have to go into a defense situation where they are suspicious of everybodyand they have to be careful about being attacked or people abusing them or doing things
(12:20):
and stealing things from them, people mistreating them and the impact of everybodyrejecting, not accepting help.
has a psychological impact and it changes the way that people think and the way thatpeople behave.
So the government accepted this and created this campaign called No Second Night Out.
And indeed lots of us as charities now try to do everything we can to prevent somebodysleeping rough more than one night if that's what they have to do.
(12:47):
Because the change is significant and it takes a while to recover from that change.
And the longer you sleep out, the more that change becomes embedded.
There was a...
If you go on YouTube, there's an interesting video you can find, and I'm sorry, I can'tremember its name, but they got a little girl of about nine and they dressed her up in
(13:11):
really tatty clothes and without shoes and stuck her on the streets of London.
And this little girl, they made her dirty.
And this little girl went up to people in the streets and started asking for help.
And in that situation, people just...
passed her, ignored her, walked away, did things and they didn't give her, nobody stoppedand helped her.
(13:35):
They got the same girl and they washed her up and put her in a pretty frock and gave hernice shoes and did her hair and so on.
And that girl then went up to people again in the same place and said, please can you helpme?
I've lost my parents or whatever.
And in every case people stopped and supported her.
(13:57):
and just shows just how people assume all sorts of things from appearance.
if you've been sleeping rough a couple of days and you're starting to look dirty anddisheveled, people start to assume things about you and so on.
it's complicated, it's a very complicated thing, but the impact on the individual isreally profound and that invisibility is something that we as a charity do something
(14:24):
about.
So Ferry Project, we deliberately bought a property in West Beach, which is a grade twostylistic building.
was built, this main building was built in 1730, okay?
And it's a beautiful building, Georgian and all the rest of it, and it's got all thefeatures.
And part of the reason for doing that was we wanted to send out a message to the homespeople locally to us, that as the advert puts it, you are worth it.
(14:52):
So we deliberately bought this building so that homeless people coming to our site did notfeel they were being put in the worst accommodation left and the only place that could be
gone, got.
But actually they were coming to one of the best buildings in the town.
One of the most beautiful, one of the best ones.
(15:13):
And for those who don't know, Whist Beach was the birthplace of Octavia Hill who startedthe social housing movement.
And she believed that every person deserved a place to live, deserved opportunity anddeserved beauty.
And so because we agree with that, we called our building Octavia View, which is theOctavia's view of life, Octavia's view of supporting people.
(15:41):
Because those things are just so key, so key.
A homeless person can be invisible, totally invisible.
And what we want to say is
You're not invisible with us.
You're not invisible.
Yeah, we see you.
I must say that's something that is echoed across other homelessness charities.
(16:02):
I'm just thinking of a national charity called Crisis.
I don't know if you know, but they've just recently teamed up with Mr.
Men and Little Miss.
Yeah.
And they've just started a whole range of products and awareness raising and they'vecreated two new
characters for Mr.
Min and Little Miss called Little Miss Invisible and Mr.
(16:26):
Invisible and these characters are homeless and just highlighting that whole what you'vebeen saying about this invisibility that happens as a result.
yeah, there you go.
We asked another question because of course this is the Rural Homelessness podcast and
(16:48):
We are based in Whizbeach and the ferry project provides homelessness services and supportfor people in the Fenland area of England.
And so we asked where people thought the biggest problem of homelessness was.
And we gave them the choice between Whizbeach, which is where the ferry project islocated, and a nearby city.
(17:18):
where we know that there is a homelessness problem.
Well, there's homelessness problems all over the place, let's be honest.
But we compared with Cambridge and we asked, where did they think was the greaterhomelessness problem in Whizbeach or in Cambridge?
And this is what they said.
(17:38):
Cambridge.
I think Whizbeach.
There's probably a homeless problem in both, but I just purely based on the sort ofpopulation of both, I kind of think maybe Cambridge has a slightly higher concentration,
but I suspect proportionally that they both have similar issues.
(18:02):
I would say, I would have said Cambridge, but now Whizbeach is on the list, possiblyWhizbeach.
Knowing a little bit about...
rural homelessness, I would say Whisbeige.
I guess it depends what you mean by homeless because some people think of people who areon the streets and some people think of families who...
yeah, so I don't know.
(18:23):
It could go either way that one.
I really don't know.
It sounds all...
would think Whisbeige but it depends on the numbers.
I can see sometimes in it, maybe it's Cambridge, but I would think probably Whisbeige.
Cambridge, just as it being a city, just, you know, maybe it's an attraction to people togo there, there's more happening there.
(18:45):
But yeah, I'll be, I'm not sure, it could be neck and neck, but I'll go with Cambridge onthat one.
This is a difficult question for me to answer as I don't really know the areas very well.
I'm originally from London and I know that it's such a big, a huge problem in London andin most cities.
Not much is being done to help these people.
(19:07):
Mostly they are swept under the carpet, moved on by the police.
know, have, you know, charities like the Salvation Army and the Ferry Project to Save MyLife literally do a fantastic job.
But the government are not doing nearly enough to help these and support the homelesspeople in this country.
(19:31):
So there are some thoughts that we gathered.
from the people we spoke to about that.
So Keith, what do you think?
You work in Whispich, but I'm sure you're also familiar with the homelessness situation inneighboring cities such as Cambridge.
(19:51):
How do the statistics compare?
Okay, so if we're looking purely at numbers of people who are homeless in othercommunities, then Cambridge
is higher.
But that's because their population is so much higher.
So Cambridge's population is around 100,000 plus.
(20:13):
Whistbeach is just 30,000 plus.
Now Ferry Project supports 300 individuals a year in the Whistbeach area who are homelessor just on the verge of becoming homeless.
And that does not include all the people that
the local authority has a legal responsibility to deal with.
(20:34):
And we only deal mostly with single people.
So on top of all our figures are those figures from local government and indeed fromfamilies as well.
So if we actually take that, we're looking at over 2 % of the adult population ofWhizbeach being homeless every single year.
(20:56):
Now, if we were to put that into
Cambridge what we'd be looking at that is nearly 2,000 people homeless a year Well thesefigures have started to get very large and although Cambridge literally has hundreds of
homeless people 2000 is perhaps beyond where even they are and these are the figures ofthe people we actually know not just people who might be you know, so for surfing or
(21:24):
whatever so
Actually, people don't realize that percentage wise homelessness is very high in ruralcommunities and with Beach because of its economy is one of the highest in the country,
percentage wise.
So, yeah, I think it depends how you take the figures, raw figures, pure numbers,Cambridge percentage wise, I think actually with Beach is higher.
(21:49):
Yeah.
And that follows on to the next question that we asked everybody, which was
Do you think that there is a homelessness problem in the countryside?
This is what they said.
Yes, I do.
Yeah, I don't think it's noted as much or governed as much, but I do think there is.
(22:10):
Yeah.
Yeah, I do.
I think it's not just in urban areas, but clearly in rural parts too, in small towns andsettlements, you still have substantive issues there.
People struggling to buy homes, rent homes.
And from what I can see it's not just the big towns and cities, it's El Swarter.
(22:31):
100 % absolutely yes.
Yeah I reckon it can happen to anybody.
Perhaps more in the town but also in the countryside.
Yeah.
I wouldn't have but yes I do now.
I don't think so, mainly because I haven't seen it, haven't witnessed it myself.
But just because the countryside doesn't mean it's not happening.
(22:54):
I know that there is a lot of homeless people who choose to stay in the countryside asthey may feel safer than staying on the streets.
But they are also very difficult to spot compared with obviously people sleeping rough onthe streets because they are pretty much visible.
(23:16):
the homeless people in the countryside, they probably choose to go there.
because they want to be invisible.
So yeah, that's a big issue.
There are some responses about, you think there is a problem of homelessness in thecountryside?
Just a few things to pick out there.
(23:37):
One person said that they didn't think there was a problem because they couldn't see it.
And then another person saying that, well, he's not surprised that you don't see itbecause it's very much of a hidden thing, especially.
in the rural areas.
Would you agree with this in your experience?
Yes.
so you're absolutely right.
So we've done a straw poll and indeed, there's been quite a bit of work done.
(24:02):
If you actually ask people on the whole, can you tell me if you close your eyes andimagine a homeless person, where do you see them?
And nearly everybody says outside a shop, on a bench, on a bench, by a bus stop.
That's on the pavement, in the shop.
(24:22):
Outside Starbucks.
All these types of things.
None of them actually go, I see them in the middle of a field or I see them on farmland orin the woods or anything like that.
And so one of the challenges is that because people don't see homelessness in the same wayin a rural setting, there is an assumption that it's not present.
(24:48):
And as a result of that, services get drawn, get developed into urban areas.
So one of the challenges, one of the reasons we've asked you to do this podcast is becausewe wanted to raise the fact that actually, anything, supporting homeless people in rural
settings is more challenging because, a good example, we did some research.
(25:13):
If you look at a rough sleeper in an urban setting,
The figures we've found is that they tend to walk about 10 miles a day.
So going from place to place and perhaps going to appointments and so on.
If you look at a rural setting, it can be as many as 15 miles a day because all thedifferent places they need to go are spread over a much wider area.
(25:35):
In many rural towns, there is no DWP or job center or whatever.
They might have to go to...
And with the number of banks that are closing branches these days in more rural areas andexpecting people to travel long distances to get to the branch of your bank is also going
(25:56):
to become an increased problem, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
And so we can relate all that.
So basically what we see is in the rural areas, there might be fewer people, but the toreach those individuals to actually help them.
there's much bigger gaps.
You have to take them much further to get to services and so on.
(26:16):
So it becomes a more challenging problem.
So supporting a homeless person in a rural setting is more costly than supporting ahomeless person in an urban center because it's much easier to get economies to scale and
so on.
You don't have those in the world.
then because the perception is that the problem is more in the cities, the funding goes tothe cities rather than to the rural areas where the funding is needed more.
(26:41):
Yes, exactly.
So so it becomes it becomes a challenging and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
let me just give you some examples of where we've when we've talked to some of ourclients, where we found people.
So we found one ex-soldier.
who would become homeless for particular reasons.
(27:03):
He was living in a tree.
He'd set up his own house in the top of a tree because that was where he felt safe.
We often find that people in the fence areas make encampments on fields.
And when one person sets up a tent, usually near some trees, somebody else will join themand another, and you can end up with encampments of 10, 20 people.
(27:27):
Where they actually set up their own little community and someone and so so those thingshappen But they'd be out of sight because on the whole their experiences if people see
where they are They're also very vulnerable because in a town if somebody attacks youthere's usually other people around there's lights on and so on in the country in the high
(27:49):
street and all that exactly Whereas if you're in the countryside you can be attacked andnobody might see you
Nobody might be aware.
they need to, the people in the countryside need to find specific places to go into.
We've had to take people who have been living under, literally, they created shelters outof bits of old metal and plastic sheeting, and they've gone to skips and got old
(28:16):
mattresses and put them on the ground.
We know loads of people who've ended up in hospital because they're sleeping effectivelyout in the open and on dam.
damp surfaces.
So all these things are going on.
And I can guarantee you, if any of the listeners to this podcast have driven through acountry area, whether that's the Lake District, whether that's County Durham, the Peak
(28:39):
District, the West Country, down in Cornwall and around there, whether it's down in Kent,whether it's in East Anglia, whether it's in Wales or Scotland, everywhere you have
driven.
You will have driven past some homeless people.
It's just that you are not aware of it because they don't want you to be aware of it.
(29:00):
So people forget that.
And when they walk through cities and see homeless people, they just acknowledge that asbeing the norm.
And that's where they picture it.
But you will have driven past, you know, many homeless people never even realizing thatthey're there.
Okay.
So we don't want people to forget that homelessness is very much found in rural settingsand
(29:21):
actually those individuals need, if not, at least the same as the services in cities,probably a lot more.
And just on that, a good example.
So in Cambridge, if we actually look at the number of homelessness organizations inCambridge, we're talking about double figures, okay?
(29:42):
In Finland, Ferry Project is the primary homelessness service.
There are three or four other housing organizations that will provide some support.
but none of them do outreach.
So here we have a town with a very high percentage of the population homeless with oneservice.
And in a city like Cambridge, you'll have six, seven, eight services trying to reach outinto the same area.
(30:08):
Loads of soup kitchens, people wanting to do bits and pieces.
so the podcast really is just to raise a profile, not to say that...
that people in urban settings don't need help, but just to say, don't forget what's goingon in the rural communities as well.
Yeah, thank you.
(30:28):
Don't forget the rural homeless.
That's a great message.
And the final question we asked those people who we were chatting to last year was whatthey thought needed to be done to solve some of the problems around the issue of
homelessness.
And this is what they said.
(30:51):
I that's case of looking at the root cause, so that's providing people with jobs, trainingskills so that they can then get themselves out of the situation that they're in.
I think better connections across housing, education, health and social care.
I think probably a very clear housing strategy that's agreed by the government, especially
(31:19):
a social housing strategy that has proper investment and that we increase the supply ofnew homes because of the excessive demand that we face in this country.
That hopefully in turn would help the whole issue around homelessness.
We need to get to the root of the issues and be able to support people in the right way.
(31:40):
It's not just about house, it's about everything else that a person needs in their life.
yeah.
So more affordable housing and making sure that there's statutory services and support forpeople to prevent homelessness in the first place.
(32:02):
Some of them are so difficult, aren't they?
Because if your relationship breaks down, there's not much anybody can do about thatexcept to help you onto the ladder to try to get back on your feet.
That's a mixed metaphor, but you know what I mean, to actually get somewhere where you canhave a place of your own again and feel safe.
We just need a better safety net.
(32:22):
We need to recognise that people shouldn't drop below a certain level in our society andwe seem to have accepted that.
So it's putting back the basics that you should be able to stay dry and fed and healthy.
Just having that support network for them, but not, you know, the sense of friends andfamily, because some people may not have that.
Just having a safe space for them to go to and being aware of that they can go to thatplace.
(32:46):
And just, yeah, support from other, you know, companies, charities all come together.
It's not just a one man band thing.
It needs to be a collective of everybody really.
Well, the system that is in place at the moment is completely flawed.
There needs to be, my opinion, a complete rethink towards preventing homelessness andtackling homelessness.
(33:11):
However, I think it is easier to tackle than to prevent because there are so many factorsthat come into play for someone to end up being homeless.
I firmly believe that the government needs to form a new type of task force withfacilities to have outreach capabilities to locate
(33:33):
and search and have conversations with the homeless and offer them immediate help.
For this to happen, they will also need to have in place lots of temporary supportedaccommodations across the country with access to health professionals, administration to
(33:53):
help with their recovery from being homeless and any other issues such as poor physicalhealth, mental health, addiction.
you know, help with, you know, maybe they have a lack of benefits and need help there.
And I know the blueprint for this, you know, works because ferry projects have this allencompassing support.
(34:16):
But it's something that needs to, you know, happen the whole country, you know, we need tohave these facilities all over the country just to support the homeless because we don't
have that right now.
Homeless people are just sort of sent to a bed and breakfast, you know, temporarily andthen they're back homeless again.
(34:41):
And no one is really tackling the long-term problems for homelessness.
It's just a very short-term fix, which is costing so much money.
know, short-term fix never work.
There needs to be a long-term fix here so we can almost eradicate it, you know.
(35:04):
So lots of talk there about affordable housing.
Is that the magic bullet or is there more to it than that?
Yeah, there's a lot more to it than that.
Affordable housing.
So obviously there is a housing shortage and so more houses are needed.
Can I just say that again, if you think about it, where houses are houses are built inurban centers.
(35:28):
They're not particularly built in rural centers.
And indeed people resist houses being built in centres.
So we have a rather strange situation where we have homeless people in rural settings andyet other people are resisting having a new house built for them in those settings.
And indeed many will say don't come spoiling our village.
(35:51):
Well actually for the person who's sleeping rough in the field in your village, it's notspoiling the village at all.
It's actually providing a basic requirement.
So there is a balancing act here and it's not a simple answer.
But some homes obviously support homes are needed.
However, everybody who is homeless, without being too brutal is homeless for a reason.
(36:14):
Something has happened that has led to their homelessness.
And so therefore they need some support to both come to terms with what happened andactually develop skills so the thing isn't repeated over and over again.
And again, search is quite clear.
The most common cause of homelessness is actually breakdown in family, breakdown inrelationships.
(36:38):
So that could be matrimonial, could be parent, child, it could be the death of a partneror a spouse or a close intimate person.
All these things lead to severe trauma for the individual.
And it's how the individual reacts that trauma.
(36:58):
and how they try and resolve the trauma in their lives that causes much of the problem.
So it isn't just about housing, it is about the fact that people have gone through someterrible events and that's result of those terrible events, whatever reason, are alone.
(37:19):
And we need to provide them with support on that.
So that might be mental health support, it might be support, as you say, developingskills, it might be...
support, rebuilding relationships back.
might be with debt management, it could be about drug and alcohol addictions.
It could be that they've gone to prison, they're coming out to prison and they've beenrejected by their family now.
(37:40):
And some people might say, well, rightly so, but those individuals have got to livesomewhere.
So, so, you know, we need to rebuild them.
We need to build them back up so that they can make a positive contribution to societyrather than them.
rather than a negative one or be a drain on society.
And that's what we're trying to do.
Nobody, when they were a child, when they were asked, what do you want to do when you growup?
(38:04):
Said I want to be a homeless person.
So that's not been ever anybody's ambition.
So what we want to do is provide them with the support and ability and the opportunitiesto become the person they wanted to become.
And if we can do that, then hopefully
we can support them on that journey.
(38:25):
They can get going.
so some of our clients, if we wanted to share a few success stories, some of our clientsnow have got some very high powered jobs.
Some of them live on the continent.
Some of them are in all sorts of positions.
I was a school teacher before I got involved in homelessness.
So I know about education.
(38:46):
The most intelligent person I've ever met was home.
He could talk to me about scientific theories and all sorts of stuff.
He taught me a lot of science stuff.
So we mustn't just assume that because somebody's homeless now, that is their destiny andthat is their situation.
(39:07):
Actually, they could go on to incredibly great things.
They just need the opportunity and the chance to start again.
And that might take a while to help them on that journey.
It's a lot more than the housing.
We made that mistake at the beginning.
Ferry Projects at the beginning, we just thought if we provided housing, that'd be enough.
(39:28):
It took less than a year for us to learn.
That was just not the case.
There's a lot more to helping people than just giving them a house.
And there's a lot that the Ferry Project does offer.
If you are interested in finding out all the different services that Ferry Project offerstheir clients, as well as the wider community, do go and visit the website,
ferryproject.org.uk.
(39:49):
and you'll find out all sorts of interesting things there.
Thank you, Keith Smith, for joining us today on the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
It's been fascinating.
And thank you also to everybody who participated answering our questions as we went aroundthe region a little while ago.
So thank you to everyone for your thoughts and your contributions as well.
(40:11):
Well, thank you, Keith.
Thanks for joining us.
My pleasure.
And it's good to see you, Matt, again.
Yeah.
glad to be able to contribute in this way.
thank you as well for listening to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
We come out on the first and the 15th of every month, so do join us again soon for anotherepisode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast.
(40:33):
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the Rural Homelessness Podcast brought to you by The FerryProject.
Visit our website on www.ferryproject.org
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