Homeless Crisis: Charity Founder Slams Home Secretary’s Comments

So, the founder of a homeless charity has called out the Home Secretary for her comments about rough sleepers, saying it’s all ‘nonsense’ and ‘completely inappropriate’. Dr Zahid Chauhan, the big boss at Homeless Friendly, thinks Ms Braverman’s remarks have made things worse for homeless people and will stop them from getting help. He’s not happy with her saying that sleeping rough is a ‘lifestyle choice’. He told the PA news agency, ‘It’s totally wrong to call that a lifestyle choice. These people are already suffering, they’ve already been stigmatised and coming from a national politician, statements like that don’t help the cause. I think by saying these things, you’re just pushing people away.’ He also said her comments are too general and show she doesn’t understand what homeless people go through. He said, ‘You can’t say that about everyone who’s sleeping rough. It’s just nonsense and I think it’s ignorance, lack of understanding.’ Dr Chauhan talked about people who have had to sleep in graveyards because they’ve got nowhere else to go. He said, ‘I’ve seen people sleeping in graveyards with a tent because they’ve got nowhere else to go … This is the manifestation of crisis when you become a rough sleeper in a tent. There are loads of events take place before that and unfortunately our services are not geared up to support (homeless people). Our wider systems are not geared up to support them.’ He said that people need to stop looking down on homeless people and that if you can’t help them, don’t make them feel bad. Dr Chauhan got an OBE in 2019 for his charity work, which is all about getting GPs to let rough sleepers into their clinics. He’s asked Ms Braverman to spend time with Homeless Friendly to see how homeless people live and what they go through. He said, ‘I think she would benefit from our listening and our attending one of our training sessions.’ He said the Government needs to show care and compassion to make homeless services better. He said, ‘Let’s gear up our homeless services, our housing services, benefits and social services to support these people. I think there’s more help and support needed but before the help and support comes, we need to understand the problem and we need to have the right caring attitude.’ A guy who used to be homeless said Ms Braverman should walk the streets with him to see what it’s really like. Chris Royston said her comments had left him feeling ‘hurt’, ‘misunderstood’ and ‘stigmatised’. He said the Government is just looking for a ‘political score’ and doesn’t really want to fix the causes of homelessness. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak didn’t say anything bad about the Home Secretary’s claim but didn’t say it again either. Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho said she wouldn’t use the same language as the Home Secretary to talk about homelessness.