My thanks to Douglas for pointing me to this appaling piece by a female “journalist” – in reality, a “copy and paste” merchant – in Bedford Today, one of my local papers. Polly Neate, the CEO of Shelter, is the evil woman who ran Women’s Aid for years, an organization which continues to promote the lie that domestic violence is a gendereed crime, and along with Refuge and other women’s charities continues to corrupt government circles.
Douglas is sending this excellent letter to the Editor, Laura Hutchinson:
Dear Laura,
The article written by Helen Johnson and titled “Women more likely to be affected by homelessness than men, says charity” is disgracefully short on information and an insult to the grieving families of the hundreds of men dying from homelessness on the streets of our country. [J4MB: Street homelessness reduces life expectancy by an average of 30 years, and 90 per cent of the street homelesss are men. Source – the same charity, Shelter, before Neate took over as CEO.]
To be in temporary accommodation may be bad compared to those in permanent accommodation but those who do not have the luxury of even temporary accommodation and are left to live—and die—on the streets are undoubtedly far worse off, particularly as we approach the coldest months of the year. [J4MB: I have very rarely seen women among the street homeless in Bedford. For the past 10+ years the (female) seller of The Big Issue – a magazine supposedly supporting the street homeless – on the streets of Bedford has been the healthiest-looking woman in in the town. If she’s a street homeless person, I’m a lesser-spotted chipmunk.]
Findings from the December 2018 government ONS report: Deaths of homeless people in England and Wales: 2013 to 2017 included:
- There were an estimated 597 deaths of homeless people in England & Wales in 2017 (an increase of 24% since 2013);
- Men accounted for 84% of these deaths.
The last estimate of rough sleepers—those without the luxury of temporary accommodation—was in the region of 4,500.
Of course, these men living on the streets helps keep the balance of women in better circumstances higher, and when they die off, that also helps. For your paper to publish a ‘journalist’ article with such poor research into the real issues of homelessness will only help to make things worse.
If you want an article giving a more rounded picture of homelessness in the UK, including the ways in which men and women compare and the situation for the most vulnerable in our society (which is the huge problem of homeless children who are brushed out by the headline “Women more likely to be affected by homelessness”) then I could arrange for an article to be prepared for you.
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