Sleep-walking in the Park

 'Sleep in the Park' taking place in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens with prominent media personalities participating aims to raise money to combat homelessness and catalyse a movement to end homelessness in Scotland within a five-year period. A noble act, indeed, but will it succeed. Experience tells not. We recall how Big Issue was started back in 1991 to help the homeless by allowing them to help themselves. Hostels, supported housing and other homeless projects may help some people to progress, but they can’t solve the problem of homelessness itself.

It is easy to accuse the beggars on the street of not really being destitute and desperate. They are sly opportunists on the make, claiming to be homeless so to con the honest public. It says so in the Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail who insist that the beggars are undeserving. The pernicious tabloid rags tell lies about society's modern paupers, claiming that they are con-merchants.  These newspapers celebrate the family, but for thousands of youngsters, family life is a story of intense poverty and degrading abuse. The benefits system makes it grimmer still.  No money, no shelter, no hope. Capitalism is a society of haves and have-nots, of winners and losers. Homeless people are at the unlucky end of the social scale. Many other people are only one wage packet away from being drawn towards homelessness. So, to accept that homelessness is just a part of life is to accept the capitalist system which traps us all.

Homelessness is a complex issue. For every homeless person, there is a raft of interrelated reasons why they may be in that situation. Some are simple: loss of housing through relationship breakdowns, inability to pay for housing, drink, drugs, mental health issues, abuse and domestic violence. For some, all they really need is a house or flat. For others, more complex social help is required from specialists perhaps in drink and drug rehabilitation, or social workers to support individuals through crises.  Many of the issues homeless people face are centred around their ability to pay for their accommodation and to maintain those payments. Loss of a job, reduction in working hours or wages can have a devastating impact and can often result in homelessness.  However, as a general rule, in times of economic downturn, the number of homeless persons increases exponentially. No amount of charity or campaigning will alter the root cause of the problem and the profit-driven nature of housing.

 When society is driven by economic forces, rather than what people want and need, then some people inevitably suffer. Increased funding, new services, or reformed procedures may help a few people in the short-term, but they can’t address the causes of the problem. If we want to end the conditions we exist under we will not do so by misguidedly placing faith in politicians nor through subscribing to charities. No doubt on an individual basis “Sleep in the Park' will help some to be able to better their own situations, but in the bigger picture it, like so many other homeless charities, is unable to achieve anything of real and lasting value. There was a huge homeless problem 20 years ago in the UK and there is still one now. Unless capitalism is swept away, there will still be one in 20 years time. What is required is class consciousness and democratic political action. Under capitalism, housing, like everything else, is a commodity to be bought and sold on the market. For those unable to afford it, homelessness is the only option unless bailed out by the limited council and state help or charitable donations. These are not solving the problem, merely at best reducing some of its ill effects. Business has no interest in solving social problems, contrary to the hopes of Social Bite. Its goal, always, is profit. If housing was fairly distributed according to need rather than via a market, then the problem of homelessness would disappear and there would be no need for such social entrepreneurship as lauded by Josh Littlejohn and similar well-meaning people.