Where abuse leads to homelessness
Adrian Pryce, Senior Lecturer in Strategy and International Business at the University of Northampton — and chairman of the Hope Centre homeless charity — explains how abuse can play a part in people becoming homeless
We are all shocked at the child sexual abuse uncovered in football years ago, but my worry is that it is not limited to football — or the past.
There are just too many instances coming to light. Among other major incidents in modern UK history, child abuse has been recorded on a substantial scale at a number of schools, hospitals, and care homes, and organised sexual abuse or sexual trafficking rings were revealed to have been active in Plymouth, Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Derby, Telford and elsewhere. Research indicates that as many as 4 per cent of children are sexually abused, not to mention those who are physically or mentally abused in other ways. The truth may be as much as double that figure, both within families and with trusted third parties, so much unreported due to the shame, stigma and fear. Where is respect and care for young people? What has gone wrong with our sex education? Why are we producing so many predatory monsters? Why are we not able to detect the signs?
The spill-over effects are many, at great cost to society. Not all children who suffer childhood trauma become homeless, but for those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness one of the most common factors is childhood trauma — often sexual abuse. The Lankelly Chase Foundation and Heriot-Watt University have identified a category of ‘severe and multiple disadvantage’ or SMD. In England alone over 250,000 people suffer two or more of the following: learning difficulties, substance abuse, mental health problems and finally criminal justice problems, having fallen foul of the law.
If you are raped as a child, no wonder that you struggle to study and learn, turn to alcohol and drugs as soon as you can, have mental health challenges and problems with authority, especially the police. Not to mention poor physical health, accidents and hospitalisations as a result. Up to 90 per cent of children who’ve been abused will develop mental health issues by the time they’re 18.
Welcome to the world of homeless day centres, charities who serve damaged adults, often with nowhere else to turn. Take the Northampton Hope Centre which I chair, for instance. The service sees as many as 100 people each day, and over 1,200 individuals each year, in a town with a population of approximately 215,000. The Hope Centre runs on approximately £350/client/year — of which less than 10 per cent comes from public funds, the balance from donations grants and trusts. Quite inadequate when you consider that our clients can cost the state up to £20,000pa per person in NHS and policing/court costs alone.
The pressures of modern life are leading to enough mental wellbeing issues in adults, but as a nation we are letting down too many children. Abuse passes from generation to generation. Lack of sufficient attention to this issue now is building up significant challenges and costs for the future. Government at national and local levels need to rethink social policies and develop some long term joined up thinking to break the inter-generational cycle, with resources channelled towards schools, the social services and the charities that are handling the most difficult and hard to reach cases. This should start with support for parents, as the first seven years are the most formative of the person. And the first two years of life are so important in terms of genuine unconditional love, not abuse, so that a child develops emotionally, as the work of charities like NORPIP testify and promote.
And don’t get me started on another sad indictment of modern life — childhood food poverty and malnutrition, another area for some joined-up policy thinking. Modern Britain? A beacon of light and hope in the world? In so many ways yes, but in so many ways no, we are a sick society storing up a growing underbelly of social ills because we have turned a blind eye for far too long to child abuse.
Shocking. It has to end. Full stop.
