Across the world the vast majority of homeless people – ‘rough sleepers’ in particular – are men. In the UK, it’s around 90%. Predictably this attracts little interest from the government, indeed a number of state actions and inactions contribute to the male homelessness rate. The state drives up male unemployment through the public sector’s preference for women when recruiting, enshrined in the 2010 Equality Act (2010), despite the following:
– two-thirds of public sector workers are already women
– four out of seven unemployed people are men
– men collectively pay 72% of the income taxes which largely finance the state, and women just 28%
Homelessness increases the risk of death by suicide nine-fold – how can that not be contributing to the fact that for every British woman who commits suicide, three men do? Homelessness also cuts lifespans dramatically, by upwards of 30 years. If 90% of homeless people were women, both women and men would demand the state devote far more resources to the problem. But 90% are men, so neither women nor men collectively are much bothered by the matter.
We’re currently researching homelessness in the UK, and expect to add proposals to our public consultation document in the next two to three months.
I was interested in a piece published today by James Williams for Men’s Matters Radio – James’s YouTube channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Menmatters/videos
AVfM have picked up the piece, which is about half an hour long, and I strongly recommend it. The interview with Alex, a young homeless man in London, is particularly revealing about the realities of being a homeless man in modern-day Britain:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/video/homelessness-poverty-on-our-streets-2/
