Article

Comment

Community

Politics

8 November 2023

5 min read

A tents dispute about how to help the homeless

To house the homeless, argues Jon Kuhrt, silly soundbites and hasty policies need to be replaced with the right relationships and radical reform.

Jon Kuhrt

Jon Kuhrt is CEO of Hope into Action, a homelessness charity. He is a former government adviser on how faith groups address rough sleeping.

In an underpass a pedestrian passes and look at the tent of a homeless person.

Spielvogel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

2011: London’s Westminster City Council proposes byelaws to ban rough sleeping and to prevent groups distributing food to people in need, known as ‘soup runs’, in the Victoria area.

The proposals caused an almighty uproar from charities and community groups and demonstrations outside the council offices. In addition, both the London Mayor Boris Johnson, and the Conservative central government spoke out against the plans. In the end the proposals were quietly withdrawn.

At the time I was Director of the West London Mission, a homelessness charity based in Westminster. We worked closely with both churches and the council but we publicly disagreed with the plans because they were divisive, polarising and unworkable.

‘Lifestyle choice’

2023: The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, makes comments on social media about cracking down on rough sleepers who sleep in tents. Among other comments, Braverman said:

"We cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.”

Again, Braverman’s comments have provoked an avalanche of criticism. In the middle of a housing and cost of living crisis, the accusation that people living in tents are simply making a ‘lifestyle choice' is rightly seen by many as simplistic, harsh and deeply unhelpful to addressing the serious issue of rough sleeping.

Nothing represents UK poverty and exclusion with such visceral power as the sight of someone huddling in a doorway. Therefore, to the average person, providing help to rough sleepers makes sense. Banning help appears harsh and inhumane. These are issues that need talking about carefully and compassionately.

After 25 years of working for homeless charities, I worked for four years in the Government’s Rough Sleeping Initiative as an Adviser on how faith and community groups addressed homelessness. Building trust and cooperation between charities, churches and government was the key focus of my work.

And probably the most sensitive of all issues is how the outdated ‘Vagrancy Act’ of 1824 could be replaced. I know what frustration the Home Secretary’s ill-judged comments will cause to those in government working hard on reducing rough sleeping.

Dangerous and insecure

But whilst it’s right to condemn Braverman’s comments, we have to consider how we respond and not simply add to the unhelpful polarisation of these issues. The answer to anti-tent rhetoric is not to encourage people to give out more tents.

It may sound obvious, but the key thing to focus on is the welfare of rough sleepers at the heart of this discussion. And that does not mean we endorse every form of help that is offered.

The truth is that the rise in the use of cheap tents to sleep rough in is a genuine problem that local councils and charities have been struggling to address. They often create dangerous and insecure environments and can easily mask people’s serious declines in physical and mental health.

Christian response

A few years ago, I worked closely with All Saints Church in the centre of Northampton because they had 15 tents pitched in their churchyard. The drug use, defecation and other behaviours of those living in the tents were genuinely anti-social and problematic. Tensions with the council were rising and the vicar, Oliver Coss, was grappling with what the right Christian response was. Of course, there was genuine housing need in the town but what was happening in his churchyard was no good for anyone.

Through careful discussions, we brokered a plan of joint action between the church, the local authority and the key local charity. Those sleeping rough in the churchyard were given notice and were told the tents would be removed on a certain date but alongside this, interviews and offers of housing were made to everyone. I have huge respect for the way Rev.Coss navigated these tricky waters with resolve and compassion. He took heat, especially when the national press picked up the story but he steered a course which was genuinely best for all concerned. Theologically, his actions were the right blend of grace and truth.

Relationship and trust

Last winter I was involved in a similar way with an encampment in the park right behind my house in south London. It was causing serious concern to many local people due to the fires being lit, rubbish piling up and the vermin it attracted. I got to know almost all of the occupants of the camp as they attended a drop in meal I run at my church. The relationship and trust we developed helped me liaise between them and the council’s rough sleeping coordinator and this led to the camp being cleared and each of them offered temporary accommodation.

Informed debate

Rather than hasty policies or silly soundbites, we need a more honest and informed public discussion about rough sleeping. Addressing homelessness is complex because it involves an interweaving of structural injustice and the personal challenges that individuals face. Simplistic comments may work well on social media, but they don’t help people in the real world.

Enforcement is not the dirty word it is often made out to be – sometimes it is a vital ingredient in helping someone change their life. But in order to work, it must always be accompanied by a valid offer of accommodation, a meaningful step off the streets. And for too many, especially non-UK nationals, no such step exists.

Radical reform

Housing should be the key issue in the next election. We need urgent and radical policy reform to build more social housing. Record numbers are housed in expensive temporary accommodation which is causing bankruptcy in some local authorities. Millions of pounds of public money has been wasted in housing people for years in hotels which could have been used so much more productively.

We need more of the longer-term, community-based solutions to homelessness such as those pioneered by Hope into Action. We attract investment to buy houses which we turn into homes for people who have been homeless. In addition to professional support, each house is connected to a local church who provide friendship and community.

People sleeping rough in tents is not a ‘lifestyle choice’. It is the visible tip of a vast homelessness iceberg in this country caused by relational poverty and chronic underinvestment in affordable housing. And if we do not address the problems beneath the waterline, then we should not be surprised to see more tents appearing in our towns and parks.

Article

Community

Culture

Football

Friendship

15 August 2025

4 min read

As the season starts, here's why fans go mad for football

The game is part of life, but not all of life

Henry Corbett

Henry Corbett, a vicar in Liverpool and chaplain to Everton Football Club.

A football stand displays a long banner with text on it.

Everton F.C.

“I hate football,” said the mother of two mad keen footballing children. The clue to the hatred is maybe in the ‘mad keen’. Why do children and adults care so much about football?

“That Champions League music is so pompous…!”

“It’s only a football match! They make it too important. If their team loses then they are miserable for the whole weekend.”

“We can’t plan holidays until the fixtures come out.”

The money spent, the jobs refused, lost or short-changed, all because of football. A giant banner at a recent Everton home game read “I simply love you more than I love life itself”.

And there is football manager Bill Shankly wisdom: “Football is not a matter of life and death. It’s more important than that.” At least that was a typical Shankly quip, hyperbole for effect.

Why do some of us love football so much?

It often goes back to childhood. Playing with mates, scoring a goal, saving a goal, enjoying the togetherness, the shared aim, the friendships formed. Then there’s that first experience of going to a match. Up the stairs and there before you is a great huge rectangular expanse of green grass. Back in the day, it was maybe not so green, but still way more impressive than your back garden or the local park. Then comes the drama, unscripted, of the game. The sways of emotion, the joy, the frustration, and all experienced as part of a bigger community. When you kick a ball with your mates aged 50, or go to a game aged 80, you are doing something that connects you with your childhood enthusiasm, joy and wonder.

Then there are the family connections. You may have gone to that first match with your Mum, Dad, Grandad, older brother or sister. When Everton supporters were asked about their feelings at the last Premier League game at Goodison Park, again and again they referenced family members who they had gone to the match with. Some passed away, some no longer able to go, even some whose ashes were buried behind the goal.

There are the great memories of games seen or even played in. That win from 2-0 down, that last minute goal, the euphoria of a Cup win against the odds. And the memories are shared ones, with family, with friends. Football can write some miserable scripts, 0-0, 0-1, 0-6, but it can also write some wonderful memorable dramas.

Love for family, for friends, for a team, for players is a deep emotion and when that love is linked to victory or defeat the stakes are raised.

There is another reason which can touch us all, football-lovers or football-haters. Deep down we all want to be winners in life, not losers. The feeling of victory, not defeat, is such a treasured one. And the win, or loss, is a shared one: we are part of a group together, an identity together. Love for family, for friends, for a team, for players is a deep emotion and when that love is linked to victory or defeat the stakes are raised. In life we want goodness to win over evil, kindness to win over cruelty. The reason every Church shows the symbol of the Cross is because there was the ultimate demonstration of purposeful love, the sacrifice for the sins of the world, down the ages, across the world. When the apostle Paul writes to beleaguered, persecuted Christians facing death at the hands of Emperor Nero, he tells them “We are more than conquerors,” more than winners.

Football, playing or watching, taps into that deep feeling of victory. “We’re on the march with (manager’s name here!) army…. And we’ll really shake them up when we win the FA Cup…” When my team faced the prospect of relegation I wondered why I was feeling butterflies, and more than butterflies, in my stomach. Why did I care so much about this game of football, and the result at the weekend? Yes, because it affected people’s lives, because it would mean loss of income and job losses at the club if relegation happened. But also, because the feeling of defeat, of failure, would hang over us, and that feeling goes deep, to the pit of the stomach.

So why do some of us care so much? Because football taps into deep feelings; of family and friendship, joy and elation, togetherness and identity, and that wonderful feeling of victory… or the sorrow of defeat. Those feelings go deep. The problem is that football, unlike the Cross, sometime delivers, but definitely doesn’t always. That’s a reason why the mum of those those two mad-keen football-loving children should try and make sure that her two sons have other interests besides football, another faith beside faith in their team. Football is part of life, but not all of life. I also hope she stops hating what can be a beautiful, enchanting, community-fostering game, with many a helpful story to tell.

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