Political Accountability and Future Hope

Next! One cheesy beef patty please. No cheesy beef. Okay, just beef then. No just beef. Jerp chicken? That done. Saltfish. Fresh out. Kalaloo? Right. What do you have then? Pumpkin . Last one . You can't always get what you want round here, but HIV prevention, that's always available. Get free condoms, prep, and test s. Just search Do It London. Right, this is Pete and Abby from the Therapy Crouch. We're currently sponsored by Tui. Now Pete and I never disagree about where to go on holiday, right? Really? Quiet, Pete. But if we did, then we know Tui is the place to go. If you want to find a holiday that works for both halves of a couple or every member of the family, then Tui is the answer. If you just said quiet, Pete. Yeah. Tui has more options and more choice with hundreds of destinations worldwide, so I can find a place with water slides for the kids, a beautiful beach for Abbey, and around the golf for me. Twee, you pick it, they sort it. Booking T's and C's apply at Ola and Abdta Protected . I think one of the biggest problems in this country around politics and policy is the failures of politicians who don't have the lived experience or haven't bothered to spend the time talking to people with lived experience of a whole range of issues. So they' core-designing and producing policies with the people most affected. Matthew Torbitt is a man who has been doing a lot of campaigning on tackling homelessness with a housing first approach. And he has experienced homelessness himself firsthand. He first came to prominence uh in this country for his challenge of Suela Brothersman's awful rhetoric that rough sleeping was a lifestyle choice. Today in the studio is Matthew to talk about why that was so wrong and what needs to happen next. Matthew, thank you very much for coming on Bold Politics. Now you do a whole wide range of things and we're gonna dive into them. I think one of the most obvious is um your work on homelessness. I suppose the first place to start is you know, how did you get involved with this and what needs to happen? So I got involved because it happened to me. Um I, like lots of people, uh ended up homeless on the street because of family breakdown. I'm the eldest of four and I always think the eldest probably gets it a little bit harder than than the other set of kids because you're like the trial child and I think therefore there's an element of strictness that the others don't always get. I didn't hold me my with mum and dad growing up. I think I I probably had a lot of unresolved issues growing up. I think my mum and dad didn't really know what to do with me, how to cope. Me and my brother would fight like cat and dog and I I talk about it a lot and I used to blame myself a lot and I don't blame my mum and dad, certainly not anymore. I think you know they they are human beings and I think life is too short to not forgive and and you know we have an amazing relationship now. But I think I was a normal teenager , unfortunately, and they just weren't prepared, basically, um on on how to deal with it. So they they kicked me out and I slept rough on the streets of Manchester for twelve months. I was groomed into a gang from there and narrowly avoided going to prison. I was sentenced to prison for twelve months, uh involved in similar to county lines, but it was involved bank fraud, checking people's cards and it was it was a they called it sort of almost like a Nigerian underworld in Manchester. And I just wanted to put a roof over my head. And if I'm honest, I thought I was streetwise I was a little bit more naive than I'd gave myself credit for. But at that point in time, after spending, you know, time being beaten up on the street, being urinated on, being dehumanized, starving, being filthy, not brushing your teeth for a week on end, not really wanting to be here anymore. The the the worst part of it literally is waking up every morning and remind a reminder of w w where you are and what what the situation is and you're not dreaming for a moment anymore. So I narrowly avoided going to prison and my best friend's mum took me in and his dad, his late dad . And uh they basically gave me another chance at life. They were a little bit more I wouldn't use the word educated, but they were different from my mum and dad. My mum and dad very stereotypically working class. Uh mum was a cleaner, actually had a small business for a while, making curtains and blinds with my nan. And uh my dad was a postman all his life. No sort of formal qualifications, but they knew what they knew and they they got on with things. Whereas my best friend's mum, very liberal, voted , uh university educated, read The Guardian, Mum and I'd read The Sun 'cause it was 30 P and it had the the football and the celebrity gossip all in one lot. And because they also had a disabled child, I think they knew what you could and couldn't access from the system , so they said, Go to college, go go and get education, go and get your GCSEs, uh go and do an access course, you'll get it for free because you're currently unemployed, go and then find work, go to university and and go and have a crack at life. So I did and I never really spoke about it because I was I think I was I was probably a bit ashamed and I thought I'd done wrong as I said and I carried that with me and it was only it was Swell Braverman's fault she's got herself to blame actually because she was home secretary under her guise as a being a Tory MP and she said that people that rough slept was it was a lifestyle choice and people that had lived in tents on city centres and whatever. It was a lifestyle choice. They were doing it because they wanted to. And I remember texting a friend saying, Can you please cover this? And also can you get somebody proper in? Because I don't think there's many MPs that could do this justice because I'd not known of any that had that had had the journey maybe I and others had had done. And she said, Why don't you come on and talk to us about it? And I thought, Oh I've really done this stuff before. And the feedback I got and the change the the the pushback that we had, because at the time as well the Tories were looking at passing a bill, I think it was the police and crime bill or something similar. They were gonna prosecute people for nuisance rough sleeping and uh offensive smell and and this sort of vague dehumanizing language . And they relented on that because we started up a bit of a campaign, I started touring round doing media. I thought this is all a bit of a whirlwind. And I saw the action that can be taken and also the pressure you can put on politicians if you use your voice, you know, properly and and and vouch for people who in a way can't vouch for themselves. You're not going to get rough sleepers invited to the studio. You're not going to hear from them. You're going to hear from politicians that don't know about this sort of stuff. Want to use vulnerable people as the new kicking stick of that month and you know, use it for politics. So I became passionate about it, wanted to use my my experience for change uh and and it's taken me, you know, a long way so far. What a journey. Rough sleeping. What what do you think is most misunderstood about it or the thing that that people don't necessarily know what it's like to rough sleep and what's the interaction like with other rough sleepers, is there a sense of community or people very kind of they're just protecting to get through the day? Aaron Ross Powell , you must have done something. Uh you know, ru rough sleeping tends to be I mean it can happen literally to anybody. It doesn't discriminate. It can be a death in the family and nobody's no longer got their can pay the mortgage. It can be a job loss. It can be literally you know, somebody coming out as gay in the family d disowning them. It can be an all manner of things. So I think there's an assumption that you must be a bad person or or you've done something or well, you know, i if somebody's not taking him in then he must have done something quite bad. And it's not always necessarily the case because people slip through the gaps. People have a view of rough sleeping where it's the sleeping bag under the bridge or whatever else, and it takes on many different forms. The thing that I think cuts through to people the most is if I was to say to you, close your eyes, or say to anybody at home, close your eyes, and I was to have a tape recorder and I played three different keys in locks, you would know your own front door. Everybody knows the sound of their own front door and it's a sound I don't take for granted. Every time I turn that key , there's a little feeling of I'm home again. And I think what I'd like to get through to people is people who are rough sleeping and people that are homeless are people that once knew the sound of their own front door. And that's what I think we need to get back to is that everybody knows the round the sound to their own front door again because everybody has a front door to put a key in. With regards to my experience, there there was a sense of community in Manchester, it was really interesting because different types of rough sleepers would congregate in different types of communities. You'll know Manchester well, obviously, and down near Chinatown you would have rough sleepers that also maybe had issues with drugs and they'd all congregate together. Down by the border of Salford where the train station is, with the border of Manchester, you'd have had rough sleepers with mental health issues. You'd have had ones in the northern quarter issue, people with issues with drink. And I to this day don't know how people found each other. I I sort of stumbled upon people and I befriended somebody that used to squat and he would take in vulnerable people and all the rest of it. So there was a sense of community, but there's also a little bit of territorial nature as well. It's almost like having a pitch. Well, I sit outside the spa on uh Oxford Road . So that's my spot. Don't you be coming sitting there 'cause I wasn't there because that's where I you know beg for change and actually you know and so there's a little bit of that as well. And it it depends because people are vulnerable, people have got elements of total trauma , um so you don't quite know what you're gonna get. But there was this sort of I wouldn't go as far as camaraderie, but definitely a sense of community weirdly. Um and and people almost looking out for one another at times. Yeah, in many ways it doesn't surprise me. I used to work on Old Compton Street, which obviously the LGBT sector of London. And as you mentioned there, there's lots of LGBT people who are homeless because they've been kicked out by their families. I used to work outside on the streets um doing leafleting. And very often you'd see on my site at the right time a meeting of lots of rough sleepers where they come together to chat and have a tea together and then you'd see them disappear again. In terms of how other members of the public would interact with you, I'm presuming a lot of it would be people would just ignore you and that would be dehumanizing. I imagine there are probably also people who would stop and chat. Aaron Powell You could go a week without human interaction quite easily. People mean well. And I think my biggest concern in the immediacy of rough sleeping is the rapid rise of a sort of cashless society and therefore people not having that change to give because people don't carry cash or change anymore. You get two types of people. There are those that will just ignore because that's who they are from what I could tell and the interaction that you would sort of tell from their body language, there would be the other that they feel embarrassed. They they wish they could do something. They wish they had the change. They they feel bad that they haven't. They don't want to ignore you. But also this is really embarrassing for me and I don't I'm just gonna pretend you don't exist and and sort of walk on by a little bit. You'd get people that'd offer food. You'd also get again maybe due to the sometimes lack of understanding. Um there was a there was the a couple of instances I had where one fella got really angry with me because at about half two, three in the morning. I had camped up outside TK Max on Market Street and you weren't really supposed to be there. Used to get turfed on 'cause it was outside a bit of a fire exit. But this fellow had offered me half a kebab, right, which I laugh about now. But I thought I don't really want your happy but I'm hungry but also like I just want some food. I'd I'd have a sauce of draw or whatever it might be. And the rage I think 'cause he was drunk as well and whatever else, the rage of how dare I say no to his half eaten kebab that he'd slathered all over and whatever else and ready to fight me and all the rest of it. and didn't know what else to do. And the only thing he could offer me was a tin of dog food. As if it'll do sort of thing. Um and again w was, you know, kind enough when I said, I think I'll leave it. I'd just say thank you very much, 'cause I thought I don't wanna fight, I don't wanna So people definitely mean well. You st you definitely see an uptick at Christmas. I think it pulls on the heartstrings the idea of somebody not having somewhere to go when families get together and all that sort of thing. The thing that I've tried to campaign on most, and it frustrates me the media won't help with this, is lots of media will focus on it at Christmas because again it tugs on the heartstrings. Nobody wants to talk about January. Right. Nobody's got any money to give. The homelessness is an all round issue. It bites just as cold in January as it does in December and people are then ignored again. And nobody wants to talk about the fact that this has to be an all year round effort if we're going to end this or at least in the immediacy try to ensure people are well looked after. And it just isn't sexy enough or or or you know, maybe they don't want to do two months on the trot of that as a story or whatever. But that's the thing that irks me. I think it's great that people are generous. If we're going to be doing it, it's it's got to be all year round essentially. Trevor Burrus, we'll get into this and I'm sure in a moment, but even the idea that people have to be generous in January also annoys me in the long term as opposed to we should have a government that's that's making interventions. But just before I go there, we're talking about people urinating the dehumanizing things that public might be doing. But also around that time I believe that's when the government started to make hostile furniture as it was a uh called so benches with spikes on and and things like that. Um what was your experience of that or experiences of people around you? You'd find doorways because certainly outside this will be annoying for people that don't know Manchester, they started doing that outside the cell fridges because there was a long load of cement blocks and because there was cover over it you would you would get people sleeping along there almost in a line because you'd stay dry. There's nothing worse than waking up with a wet sleeping bag because you get ill. It's horrible. You can't sleep . You you feel horrible we all know what it's like to be soaking wet through if you're caught in the rain. Now imagine you've not got that house to go and dry off and go and have the shower and whatever else. Um the council could sometimes be aggressive at moving you on or at least council employed workers they, might be private contractors or whatever else. It's interesting I've even even now I've seen people push back and go just leave them alone. You know, people if you're not doing anybody any harm, just leave them to their own devices. But for me it' bed a a strategic sense of trying to find a doorway really. Um certainly amongst some of the more uh the the larger listed buildings in Manchester you'd try and get into somewhat of an alcove, as I said TK Maxx was a great one, but you tend to get security doing the rounds and they said this is a fire exit, we have night workers, you have to move on and they they never liked doing it, but they were always actually okay about it. Um you'd also I think you it seemed to be quite warm, I don't know there was heat coming from below as well. So it you tend to learn where was it good to go and you just had to hope you'd be there first essentially and have have that as your your spot if you will. Um and we mentioned the media have responsibility in January um and I take that to politicians as well to keep speaking about homelessness all year round. More holistically, though, what does need to be done about uh the whole issue of making sure that people have a roof above their head? Trevor Burrus We need to change the system and flip it on its head from what it is. So there's a concept called Housing First that that was brought in in the New York in the nineteen nineties. They had a load of homelessness there. And it flipped the current model, certainly that we still have at the moment on its head. We operate on sort of a treatment first or they call it a ladder model where you have to meet certain stipulations before you're seen as housing ready. So for instance, if you've got mental health issues, if you're a former squaddy that's been, you know, struggles with PTSD or or I mean it doesn't matter what you've come from, you're going to have mental health issues if you've lived on the street for a period of time. If you've got a drink or drug issue. You've got to you've got to meet these demands and kick that before we can get you into the housing. My challenge and my annoyance has always been that's hard enough to do anyway, if you're if you're in a house ten times, hundred times harder, if you're on the street. I have tried with the government. They at least appeared to listen or at least give it lip service and then just did didn't bother in the last round of funding. I worked with the Centre for Social Justice who had a had a costed plan for twenty million pounds a year that was already ring fenced by the Chancellor in the last budget. That that money is not going anywhere. That is the money is there that can be used specifically. You could double the amount of housing first places in this country between now and the end of the parliament. That would be five and a half thousand people that would have a roof over their head. Housing first means no stipulations. It is what it says on the tin. Housing first. There's no you've not got to r meet any any anything, basically. We will look out for you and you'll get the wraparound care alongside it. Finland have used it very well.' Thevey all but eradicated rough sleeping and homelessness. They have a small amount of temporary accommodation usage, but other than that, it's rare instances. I'm always a big believer of evidence based policy. And if it seems to work, you have to question why you're not doing it, particularly when the government is spending over three billion pounds each year on temporary accommodation that could be freed up for you know whatever usage, these people could have a home over their head. Andy Burnham has been a big supporter of it and has used it in Greater Manchester. Both him, Ste ve Rotherham and the West Midlands mayorality trialed it for three years and they had an eighty-eight to ninety-two percent success rate of people keeping that tenancy. And they are people that are saved. That is human potential that that can can maybe be go out and do all sorts of things. I try and make the case economically because unfortunately we have politicians that just see numbers rather than people at times. But if you want to put forward the moral case. Over the last twelve months , one thousand six hundred and eleven people died last year due to being homeless. Eleven of those were children and three of them were babies under the age of one. There is no way on this earth that we should be in the fifth or sixth or whatever richest economy on the planet and we have babies dying because they have nowhere to live. It is a a stain and actually I would say an indictment on where we are as a society and the politics that that has plunged us to this. You go into politics to change people's lives, right? You know this. And and you want to make a difference. And I don't know how you can see evidence looking at you in the face and ignore it for for for I don't know. I is there some sort of powerful anti homelessness lobby out there or I I I honestly don't know what the reason is. But it's it's something I believe is achievable. I think I wouldn't use it long term, but we showed during COVID that it could be done even temporarily. There is no reason for anybody to be on the street tonight in London or elsewhere. Um and I believe it is a case of political will that for whatever reason is wanting at the moment. I mean I think that's put so well. We could probably end the podcast there, but I've still got other questions to ask. So if a daily mail journalist was listening to this, they go, but if people are have drink problems or drug problems or they don't want to work, why should the state uh provide for them or why should they give them housing? I obviously have my answer to that, but it would be great to hear you know, how would you respond to that? Costs us all in the long run. I think look at the people that are in work and that are homeless. Right. Um is that through their own their own choice because they're earning a crust, but it appears they're not earning enough to to put a roof over their head for whatever reason. That could even be a rogue landlord as we've seen. This is the reason why lots of families end up in temporary accommodation. Housing first is shown for every pound you put in you actually make two pound because it is less resources going towards policing because that can either be people abusing people that are homeless or even homeless people who maybe with issues that are taking part in antisocial behavior or have is issues either side. Uh they're not using the health service as often. You're not calling out uh they're not using the prison system because you will find many homeless people that go it is much better to be in prison than be on the street because at least you've got the roof over your head and the three square meals a day and the gym and whatever else. So that's fine. If you're on the right and a small city conservative and you want to be economically, you know, unreliable, that's up to you. But really I thought the MO of people on the right and these sort of fiscally responsible types small c conservatives is to save money and to do the right thing, therefore, this would be the right thing to do. Makes so much sense. I suppose when you say that I don't know why they are spending less money on temporary accommodation, my immediate assumption would be that there's very lucrative contracts in temporary accommodation rather than the actual hard craft of just making sure that there's housing for people. Um I don't know how much you followed through that to be true. Aaron Powell There is. You certainly see it in the the asylum system. And that's another aspect of homelessness certainly in the in the more modern era, because we have an asylum system that isn't for purpose. You see certainly in cities like Manchester, London is probably the same, but Manchester there's about a three hundred percent increase in uh asylum seeker rough sleeping because the decisions aren't made on people's leave to remain or anything else within the six month period of them applying to be an asylum seeker or refugee. Therefore they're kicked out of the accommodation that they're put in because that six months is up. They're then on the street with no recourse to public funds. Therefore are there forevermore for for want of a better word, because they don't know if they're they're they a they they have been granted a uh asylum or not. So that is a huge issue. In the meantime, they have these b you know, I won't name names, but I know several hotels who who are doing making quite a trade off the back of human misery and whether that be people that are from this country or aren't um you this is where you see ten, fifteen, twenty year contracts going on with government because it is easier apparently to kick the can down the road but that way they're they're somewhere and you've not got to think about it um than building the houses. And at the moment we have developers sat on land that is just accumulating more worth because it's about supply and demand as we know. And then they'll blame the idea of the economy or inflation and actually it's not cost effective to build at the moment, so we're just not going to bother building. And I just think as a government, I don't know how easy easy it is to do and how uncontroversial it might be, but you're just going to have to start compulsory taking land off people and going, we have a population that we have to look after, right? Again, aside of the moral argument, it's gonna cost us all more in the future if these people haven't got somewhere to live. So let's start building houses and not just affordable with a pretend A and and you know, it's not really affordable and we've just come up with this the same they call the minimum wage the living wage and actually you can't live on it, so it can't be the living wage. We want proper social housing. Everyone should be able to have the access to that. And you know, listen, that was one of the better things Labour Kid Labour did in nineteen forty five. The idea of it didn't matter what money you were on, it was about building communities and you could be you know the businessman at one end but you had the butcher at the other and you had the school mum at the other and all the rest of it. And that's what I think we need to get back to because at the moment, not to go off on too much of a tangent, we have people becoming more insular, sta um d living in their phones, a total lack of community and therefore that that has that knock on effects bonus or not. Yeah absolutely next one cheesy beef patty please no cheesy beef okay just beef then. No just beef. Jerp chicken? Not done. Saltfish. Fresh out . Kolo op? Right. What do you have then? Pumpkin. Last one . You can't always get what you want around here, but HIV prevention, that's always available. Get free condoms, prep, and tests. Just search Do It London. Right, this is Pete and Abby from the Therapy Crowd. We're currently sponsored by Tui. Now Pete and I never disagree about where to go on holiday, right? Really? Quiet Pete. But if we did, then we know Tooie is the place to go. If you want to find a holiday that works for both halves of a couple or every member of the kids a beautiful beach for Abbey and around a golf for me. Tui, you pick it, they sort it. Book and Ts and C's apply at Olinab to Protected. Hi Derek, Tara from Flash Designs here. Hope you're well. Not sure if you've seen my emails from last month, but could you please pay my invoice? Thank you so much. Bye. Hi, it's Tara, Flash Designs. Did you get my last voicemail? I know you're busy, but please pay my invoice today, if possible. Hello again. It's Tara Again, politely nudging, again. Still chasing unpaid invoices. Let Sage Co-Pilot help do the chasing so you can get paid up to seven days faster. Search Sage Accountant today . Please And then linking in that uh w with poverty and particular shoplifting. Um we see uh on social media particularly often videos of people uh you know, shoplifting and people claim it's as if every homeless person or every rough sleeper is shoplifting. I've got strong views, but it's interesting to hear yours. It isn't I mean listen, there may well be rough sleepers doing it. What you'll find, having worked in shops, is it's more organized than that. Right. This is organized gang s doing it. This is food is now and actually w with what Donald Trump is doing with regards to Iran, it's going to become even more expensive and therefore more lucrative to be stealing stuff. I've worked in pubs. People you would get regulars coming in with legs of lamb or coffee or butter or cheese or whatever it was and flogging them for a few quid. They weren't homeless. They were just, you know, rogues for for want of a better word. These were these were people you would find on your estate that you all knew about, but that was their way of making a an extra crust. That's not to say it's right, but the idea that this is just rough sleepers. If you're a rough sleeper, you're not taking twenty-five cheese and bacon sandwiches from from Greg's, right? That's somebody that's that's got some element of business plan behind this, organised or not. I get the argument particularly that you get from the right, but in this current climate people feel a sense of unfairness about society. And if you think, well, I have to buy my food and I can't afford it and why's somebody nicking it . I think yeah, it's not fair, but I would struggle to tell the mother nicking the baby food or or or the single dad who's trying to put food down his throat because he's had to give it to his kid. Whoever it might be, you know, everyone's got their reasons. It doesn't make it right. But it's if people want to say it's all homeless people, that's just plain wrong. It's not it's not the case. It's in many cases vulnerable people. In other cases certainly a more organised element of people making a few quid. Aaron Powell Yeah, makes total sense. And so then that leads on to a conversation that I know you've been doing a lot of campaigning on, which is prisons and the fact that the prison system isn't working. And often those same people who have been stealing nappy food or baby food, particularly women, uh might end up in in prisons. Now we obviously did an episode of this recently on bold politics. But um what would your case be against prisons and and how they are or more accurately aren't working? Aaron Ross Powell We have a prison system fit to fit to burst, many prisons over a hundred percent full. That is not safe for either the prison officers or prisoners, quite simply. Um I've got friends inside and you know they they they don't know if they're gonna they're gonna survive the end of their sentence. It is one friend, for instance, uh currently in Manchester , his first day walking on the landing was a feller off an either a mobile phone or a knife the size of a machete. Don't ask me how they've got 'em in, they've got 'em in. And he said I think it was five hundred quid for the phone or two grand for the for the knife, and he said you'll need one of them. And that is genuinely the everyday existence of many prisons up and down up and down this country. I think the reason it's fit to burst is because I think since nineteen ninety the maximum sentence length has doubled, therefore people are staying in prison for longer. I'm always a believer most people can be saved or helped, and people will say that's naive. I know that through my own experience. Not everybody. Some people may be too far gone or whatever else. But again, I speak of human potential because I know that could have been me. And if I hadn't have had the helping hand I had, I can't say I would have stayed on the right path. Because you get desperate. And what what can happen is when the sentences are harsher or longer, is you've got to wait even longer to get over uh declaring it to people. And there's a reason why you have to declare it, you do your time, whatever else. I would ban the box on job job applications in which says do you have a criminal rec ord? I think unless you're working in national security or something really serious, that's that's maybe different, but they'll do the checks anyway. But there is very little reason for you to put that to be to be rejected. What will happen is your application might be strong but they'll have another application and go, Well, he's not as good as him, but he's got that baggage and we don't know about it. What I found is when I could get in the interview room people's perceptions would change because they would see one, I was sorry, two , there's context in my story and there will be with many other people's stories. And actually they might be all right. And what you'll find is, as James Timpson's shown is most people are desperate for that second chance. They'll be a better worker than you could have imagined. Um the other thing I will say I would say is that we need to use community sentencing more. Community sentencing is not a lesser sentence than a prison sentence. It still ruins your life. Everything in this era is Googlable if you do something wrong and it is is you know is in the media or whatever. You cannot escape that, but it it means you still see your kids and there's not that knock on trauma effect. You can still go to work. And there'll be people that say well you shouldn't be allowed to. How are we expecting people to come out and get on with their lives? I actually heard a an interesting one from a right-wing MP I'll tell you about after this. I won't name drop him. But I was quite surprised at how sensible it seemed. He he thought that most prisoners should be allowed out at a weekend to go and work and they could save that money to be able to get a house or a flat or whatever it is once they got out. And therefore you're not just releasing people with a forty six pound travel travel grant and expect ing them just to find their way through life because it doesn't work like that. So again it's almost like flipping the telescope and I think community sentencing is a great thing. I think people like Jacob Jacob Dunn have done amazing things with regard to restorative justice and how powerful that can be in stopping people committing crime. Girl I know that committed over a hundred crimes, petty things, shoplifting, thieving, whatever. Once she was brought to heel and brought face to face with that victim and that powerful thing of going, that's the person that I've scared and didn't know because they were upstairs in their bed when I was getting stealing from their house. That's the person that I've upset. That's that's putting that human element on the crime I've committed that for m for me felt faceless and you know just something quick and easy for a few quid. I don't want to do this anymore. That's and you the um i it it works. Again, it's another thing that works. I know Jacob has been pushing very hard with it uh with regards to the government. Again, again a little bit reticent to to move forward with that which is a shame. But um it's it th they're they're three things I would certainly look at doing. I'd love to shout out the group as well, Switch Pack, who have been doing a lot to work with prisoners inside them and indeed the Dusty Knuckle which I might have got the location wrong, but they're uh they go into prisons before people leave to work with them so it's not such a sharp transition. And then they work within the bakery to train people up with skills and then lots of them stay working in the bakery but other people then have transferable skills to go elsewhere. Which is good. There shouldn't be a need for them. Right. Years ago, you had people that did that. Two months before you would leave, you would go and see somebody that would show you the proper ties that may or may not be available. What happened when the coalition came in is they were all sold off for a start, and those jobs were the first to go when it came to austerity. And therefore, you've immediately, if you're thinking about a chain with links, you've took that link out and that person's falling straight out then and that that's so it's amazing they're doing that and the same with switchback. However, jobs were there paid jobs were there for people to do as well and and not need not need to step up and volunteer. Um and it's a shame that th they've got to in that sense. Trevor Burrus It feels like a theme of this conversation is kind of a false economy where governments, mainly the coalition government, took cuts in order to save money, but actually what it's done is cost us huge consequences in terms of a societal fabric that holds us together. But also if you just look at it through an economic frame, it's actually cost us fortunes and is is declining our society. Trevor Burrus Well, we've seen loss of life. There's a reason people feel worse off at the moment, and there's a reason that there appears to be a real anger in the country at the state of things. And I think largely it's because big decisions haven't been made and therefore things haven't haven't uh got done. I also think we haven't punished people that deserve to be punished. Life felt better in the nineties because we had a thirty-six percent debt to GDP ratio. After two thousand eight and we had bankers uh you know going willy-nilly with subprime mortgages, of which no body was jailed, nobody was really punished, other than golden handshakes maybe T be being taken away. Took a huge hit to the economy. We've then had Brexit which has wiped nine percent off our GDP and people are worse off evermore. And then people could say they you know it's maybe not their fault. I think they could have been better prepared quite clearly is COVID. And because of that, it feels like nobody is ever held accountable. There is one rule for one and one for another. And what the politics of that populist right is blame your neighbour. So it's the immigrant, all of a sudden it's trans people's fault, apparently. There's the small less than one percent of the country that are that are trans, it's all their fault, all the ills and whatever else. That's what it is. Um and I think we have to get better at reframing and going, No, no, these are the people with power. These are the people that are making the decisions that directly impact your lives, don't fall for him who's going to do it all over again against you. He's not on your side. Trevor Burrus And part of my working assumption is one of the problems we have is politicians, even when they're well-intentioned, because they haven't had life experiences like yours, or it doesn't even need to be as um traumatic as that because they've not had life experiences where they've had real struggle or or an actual job outside of politics. That there is just a huge blind spot or huge kind of grey area in what it's like to live in society at the moment. And I think that's why we keep kind of ending up in the cycle of things not getting better. Aaron Ross Powell I think there's definitely a a professional class of politician. And in some cases, there might be a small need for that. I have to be representative of the country, which, you know, if you're looking at privately educated people, it'd be a smaller percentage of the people that are currently in parliament and were privately educated. Um I think, you know, people have got foibbles about if you want to send your kids to private school and you think that's the best thing to do, that's up to Where I saw it certainly get corrosive in parliament is I think people probably have good intentions sometimes and they're corrupted by their own parties. So we'll offer you a job in the whip's office or we'll give you a a shadow brief, but you've got to do as we tell you now. We'll we'll we'll reward you but obviously you're on our side now and you don't ever say anything out of turn and and the whole whipping system is is ridiculous in many ways and it it doesn't allow for individual thought, it doesn't allow for new ideas, to be honest with you. And that I think is a massive problem because people are cowed into making bad decisions, I would say, uh all all levels of government. I don't think you don't necessarily need an experience like mine. I don't think I'd be a particularly good Prime Minister. My agenda is to end homelessness in this country. That's my my whole agenda, and there are too many people in politics, as we all know, that have ul terior motives and agendas that aren't necessarily conducive to the good of the working class or the the ordinary people in this country, and that that is an even bigger issue. Trevor Burrus And how hopeful are you that we can turn this around? Do you see the the vision and the plan of how the steps happen to make sure that we do end homelessness in the country? Aaron Ross Powell I have hope, and I think I have to have hope, otherwise I would give up tomorrow. And there are people out there relying on us all to have hope to make a difference and the will and the political will and moral will to make a difference. I'm no royalist, right? If the next king gets it and is is it implementing a housing first scheme of his own, which listen, he doesn't have to do. Um but he's decided that's his PR thing and he's gonna go out and he's gonna house people and he understands it and appears to sort of go, Yeah, this makes sense to me. Then how do people further down that chain who aren't royals not get it? And what is it going to take for us to get it? So we have to be fearful of those that are leading the polls and that will perpetuate myths that these people are the ills of society and we go back to an era of the ragged trousered philanthropist or the sort of eighteen thirty four Paul Law or whatever else it might be, and that they should be punished and ignored and their feckless workshy layabouts. And promote those voices, give them opportunities and work together to do this. I think regardless of where you come from, you deserve the support and the help. And I I also think it's something where left and right can come together. Because I think, you know, if you're some Tory Tov type, you don't like seeing that person on the street because you think it's not nice. Well that's fine. You also might have somebody that goes, I I I hate seeing that because I care. Well that's great. We can help the pair of you because we've got a plan to change this. We're gonna do things like housing first. We're going to give people opportunities. We're going to turn off the taps of poverty, as as Lord John Byrd says. I think that's also the part of it. This is a it is a homelessness crisis, possibly it's a poverty crisis is where it starts. And that's where you have to start. You turn off those taps and you provide opportunities for people, and that will go some way to ending the issue itself. And I've seen examples like as in Hastings last week where they've over halved the amount of rough sleeping. And while I've been there, the amo myunt of the rough sleeping still is n't acceptable. But it's good to know good steps have been taken to reduce it. Are there examples around the world where rough sleeping's been eliminated entirely or good kind of international examples? Finland is the one. Finland has all but eradicated homelessness. And that that was also because it was a cross party idea that okay, this is the best way that we see this happening. Lo and behold, it took it took its time, took about twenty, twenty-five years, but it's not an issue anymore. And that's where you want to get to. I think my my pessimist nature would be do I see people across the different aisles of the house going, yes, this is the right thing to do. And I think for their own their own reasons that isn't going to happen, which is why I think you've got to get as many people with the right progressive ideas into Parliament, into positions of power that go, okay, yeah, no, we, despite being in different sides, can agree that this is what we want to do on this and somehow ring fence that as the as the best idea because it's been proven to work. And again I I I will always reiterate the point that this is people's potential. When you're talking about babies babies that have you know they've not even begun it's it's sustainable