"Homelessness is not just a housing problem . Not having a decent home adversely affects all areas of your life - from your health, to your achievement at school if you are a child, and your ability to get work if you are an adult. Conversely, if you are struggling with your health or your employment, this may in turn affect your housing needs and the security of your home."
The lives of most people are dependent on the modest wages they receive from work to survive and keep a roof over their family's heads. Any interruption of that income due to illness or unemployment of the breadwinner could tip the family into homelessness. Most of us feel "there but for the grace of God go I".
As individuals we take up insurance to ameliorate the shocks of life. As a society we pool our resources through our taxes to give us the welfare safety net; we pay for the NHS to ensure that we will be treated if we or our children become ill. That our welfare safety net should have become so poor to the extent of condemning families to live in such unsuitable accommodation as a B&B is a scandal a civilized society should not accept. The elevation of dogma and ideology above reason often has tragic and devastating consequences.
Margaret Thatcher initiated in 1980 the sale of council social housing under the right to buy scheme, and one million council houses were sold by 1987. That, in itself, would not have been so bad if central government had allowed councils to use the money to build more houses, instead of restricting them to using it to reduce their debt. That was false economy, as we, the taxpayers, ended up paying more money to private landlords to provide inferior accommodation for those who had fallen on hard times, taxpayer funds to enrich the wealthy.
Perhaps it is time for a "Cathy come home" part two to be made to remind people and governments about the destruction of lives brought about by homelessness.
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