“But look! You can get a fiver out of the cash machine over there!” went the feared retort fired at the passer-by who had “engaged”. On the receiving end, I mumbled a doubtful defence and hurried away, probably to buy “the good bread” from Marks and Spencer.
In the wake of Exeposé’s front-page that drunken, Jack Wills donning Exeter students are the target of boozed-up beggars who really have accommodation, we must reflect: do intimidating experiences justify our detachment from homelessness when it is on our streets and actually, “it” is sat outside Sainsbury’s looking mournful and clutching his dog for warmth?
Credit: Pat Tuson
It’s good advice that when giving money to drug-addicted homeless people, we are actually keeping them on the streets and away from support. But what about the rest of the homeless population who are not shooting-up every night courtesy of student goodwill? “Homelessness is not what you think” says Kay Hammond of Emmaus, an Exeter-based homelessness charity. “Yes there are a lot of drugs and alcohol, but there’s also a lot of returning service personnel with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a lot of families – people who never thought they’d end up homeless.” These are the stories of the homeless overshadowed by the smackhead stereotype; that same stereotype giving us licence to avoid eye-contact and walk past, guilt-free.
Additionally, how do we know “the help is out there” without up-to-date insider knowledge? Just days ago, charity for homeless young people, Nightstop made a Radio Exe request for more host families because demand is increasing. It’s nice and simple to apply a blanket approach of “do not give money”. But homelessness is not simple because it’s human. We are talking about people as unique as you and I. And what actually happens with the blanket approach is we stereotype and may end up giving nothing of ourselves to homelessness.
It’s time to stop, make eye contact and realise the burden is on us to know what is the right thing to do. We must engage. That involves finding out what local support resources are really like and giving your time or money to the right ones. In the streets, when we can safely, we must talk with those homeless in our community. Who is the homeless person sat outside your Sainsbury’s? Well, we didn’t exchange names but his canine pal did get a tin of dog food from me!
Rachel E. Brown 