We're telling the stories of those who died homeless – here's why | Cities | The Guardian

I t started with the tents. From 2010 onwards it seemed they were springing up everywhere– in stations, shopping centres, tunnels, parks, wastelands. Blots on every landscape. Tents became a symbol of David Cameron and George Osborne’s austerity politics – or the Big Society, where statutory public services and benefits were slashed and replaced by the voluntary sector and well-meaning individuals with sandwich trolleys. In the blink of an eye, tents became normalised. Britain became a society in which those with nothing, and sometimes even those who worked for a wage, were housed in plastic.

Then we discovered that people weren’t simply living in tents, they were dying in them too. Aimee Teese in Liverpool overdosed in her tent while Richard Kehoe was found dead in his after he stopped taking his diabetes medication – both in Liverpool. It’s a truism that society’s most vulnerable have been hardest hit by austerity politics. And you don’t get more vulnerable than the homeless. And of the homeless, you don’t get more vulnerable than the street homeless. And the most vulnerable of them all? They don’t get to live. They perish on the streets of Britain, or in hostels if they’re lucky.

Last year it felt as if Britain had finally started to take notice of those dying homeless in Britain. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism undertook an important project to count and bear witness to Britain’s homeless dead, and soon after the Office of National Statistics started to collate figures – how they died, age, why, where, when. Shocking new data emerged. Last year Shelter estimated that 320,000 people were homeless in Britain – from sofa surfers to those in temporary accommodation and hostels, and ultimately those sleeping rough on the streets. The government’s own statistics, published in January 2018, show that street homelessness had increased by 169% since 2010. The average age of those dying on Britain’s streets is 42 for women and 44 for men. It is estimated that 800 homeless people died in the 18 months before March 2019, but the figures may be far higher.

Horrific statistics. But in the end they are little more than that – statistics. What we want to do is tell the stories of some of these people. Not so much the story of their death, but the story of their life – what they were like as kids, what their dreams were, their hobbies, what people loved about them, what was infuriating. We also wanted to find out what went wrong with their lives, how it impacted on their loved ones, and if anything could have been done differently by statutory agencies or the voluntary sector to prevent their deaths.

All the people we are writing about had their demons. Many were victims of abuse; some were self-destructive or suffering from mental illness; all were addicted to drink or drugs. At the same time, in virtually every case we discovered a failing of those who are there to protect them that could have been the difference between them living or dying.

Over the next few months we will be recounting the lives of homeless people who have recently died in the UK. These stories will focus on a variety of issues, including addiction (the biggest killer of homeless people), suicide (the second biggest killer), care (a hugely disproportionate number of homeless people have been in the care system), , post-traumatic stress disorder, domestic abuse, disability, prison. The individual stories we tell will be a tribute to those who have died on the streets – an attempt to reclaim their lives – but also a way in to discussing fundamental issues around homelessness.

We met politicians, mayors, outreach workers, charity executives who all talked about people falling through the network and a lack of joined-up thinking. At times these phrases felt abstract, divorced from reality. We wanted to discover what they actually meant in real terms; how did the lack of joined-up thinking contribute to the deaths of the people whose stories we were telling?

Of course, it’s never quite as simple as that. And there are no definitive answers. But in most cases with more resources, compassion, efficiency, time, flexibility and luck these people could still be alive. Some of the failings happened early in life – for example, the boy from care who was moved numerous times before he was four years old, and then moved yet again when he was finally settled. But many of the failings happened in the final days or day of their lives. We heard the stories of the east European who was turned away from a hostel a week before his death because he did not qualify for benefits and was thought to have no reasonable prospects of a job; the young mother released from prison without accommodation to go to or her addiction treated; the woman who, three days before her death, finally admitted she needed help but was told to come back three weeks later for a rehab place; the young man who, ill and delirious, told the ambulance service he didn’t want to go to hospital and died later that day. None of this was malicious or deliberate. They are just examples of services stretched beyond breaking point, bogged down in bureaucracy, or not acting as wisely as they could.

Many issues arise from what we heard and saw: the lack of accountability of those housing vulnerable people in semi-independent accommodation; the coroners who let statutory and voluntary services off the hook by concluding the deceased had all the support they needed without really scrutinising the situation; the lack of formal reviews into those who have died homeless. As the series develops, we will invite politicians, charities and the organisations charged with helping the homeless to respond to the issues raised. We are also asking readers to offer their own stories and reflections on homelessness. We want the stories we tell to become the fulcrum of a debate about homelessness; to make a difference to a scourge that shames us all. It is time to stop just passing by.

But this series is about much more than pinpointing institutional and governmental failures. Ultimately it is a tribute to those who lived and died homeless, and the families and friends who did their best to keep them alive. It has been tough for people like Cathy Teese, who today tells the story of her niece Aimee, to open up to us. But they have done so for one reason only – by telling the story of their loved ones, they hope to make it less likely that others will suffer such a terrible fate.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. If you are worried about becoming homeless, contact the housing department of your local authority to fill in a homeless application. You can use the Gov.uk website to find your local council

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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/sep/17/were-telling-the-stories-of-those-who-died-homeless-heres-why