Some absolutely shocking figures about the number of homeless children in the UK have recently come into the public domain. And, tragically, they appear to have impinged very little – if at all – on general public consciousness, and indeed the conscience of us as an evangelical community.
Latest statistics show what are described as ‘record’ homelessness figures. For example, the number of people sleeping rough in England has more than doubled since 2010, when data was first collected. On any given night last year, there was an average of 3,898 people sleeping rough – a rise of 27% compared to 2022.
And between July and September 2023, there were 109,000 households – note, households, not individuals – needing to be housed in temporary accommodation. That is a rise of 10% in a year, and is the highest number since records began in March 1998.
That figures of 109,000 households includes 142,490 children.
What are the reasons? Polly Neate, of housing charity Shelter, says: ‘We haven’t built enough social homes in decades, and with rents at a record high, thousands of people are being forced to spend their nights freezing on street corners. Meanwhile families are being pushed into grim hostels and B&Bs miles away from their support networks, and where children have to share beds.’
She adds: ‘The only lasting solution is for the government and all political parties to commit to build genuinely affordable and good quality social homes – we need 90,000 a year.’
All this information seems too easily to sink without trace in the general public mind.
But we as evangelicals also have questions to ask ourselves: do we only care about ‘fashionable’ issues – be it matters of gender, sexuality, climate change, refugees, or whatever? Have we lost the heart for homeless people which many of our evangelical forebears perhaps had rather more of – especially in the 19th century?
Or are we – disturbingly perhaps – just so overwhelmingly middle class that these things are beyond our comprehension?
