As a temporarily embarrassed billionaire who has slept rough for many years, I can’t work up too much loathing for Suella Braverman after her comments about homelessness being a lifestyle choice (Report, 6 November).
Like most of the public, the home secretary will be ill-informed about how people can become trapped in this situation.
Drugs, alcohol and mental health issues are only superficial causes; many, perhaps most, homeless people have none of these afflictions.
The real causes are housing costs, which have gone through the stratosphere, driven by demand for housing which has increased dramatically in the last 20 years.
We are only offered dire accommodation by organisations that cynically exploit this situation to charge sky-high rents.
Suella, I can’t really recommend homelessness to you as a career path, but if you fancy a swap, let me know.
Alex White
London
• On being discharged from the navy, I found myself in London. What money I had soon ran out. I tried to find suitable employment and accommodation, but with no fixed address, even benefits were not offered.
To my surprise, institutions I thought charitable charged. I trudged the streets and eventually spent seven days sleeping in the open in a park. I would have welcomed a tent for shelter, not as a lifestyle choice. Suella Braverman should spend a few days in a tent at this time of year. Let’s see what she thinks then. We are coming up to Christmas – does she think the holy family were in a stable as a “lifestyle choice”?
Name and address supplied
• The Botley Bikers, one of the projects run by Food for Charities, delivers food and toiletries by bicycle to people experiencing homelessness.
We can confirm that rough sleeping is very much a lifestyle choice: between sleeping on the street and an abusive relationship, a shelter where drug dealers circle like vultures, violent neighbours, or being moved 100 miles away from one’s children etc.
Imagine just how bad things have to be to make such a lifestyle choice. Suella Braverman should deal with the causes, not the symptoms, of homelessness – both of which have been worsened by her government.
Riki Therivel
Director, Food for Charities
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