David Smith MP column: Ending rough sleeping can be the starting point
Something hopeful is emerging in British politics.
We are going after rough sleeping. This is a statement that says homelessness is not inevitable. Difficult problems are not inevitable. We can choose to tackle the things that seem too entrenched or complicated to solve.
I speak having spent years leading a homelessness charity and as vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ending Homelessness.
From that experience, I believe this is the right place to start a new approach to politics: one that is ambitious, patient and confident that government can make a difference.
A serious commitment to ending rough sleeping is more than a policy pledge. It’s a test of whether we still believe in genuine progress.
If we can tackle entrenched rough sleeping, we can then turn to the wider housing crisis – building affordable homes, preventing homelessness and helping the many people living for years in supposedly ‘temporary’ accommodation.
Ending rough sleeping can be the starting point. Ending homelessness is the bigger ambition.
But there is something else at stake. Homelessness is about more than having somewhere to sleep. It is about whether someone has a place in the world, whether they have people around them, and whether they can imagine a better tomorrow.
That is why I think ending homelessness can become an emblem of a politics of belonging, something I have written about at length. When we can welcome home those who have fallen furthest through the cracks, there is room at the hearth for everybody.
I understand the divisions in our communities. There are powerful incentives in modern politics to make us fearful of one another.
There are those who profit from hatred and attention. But the answer cannot simply be to argue louder. We need to give people something better to belong to.
I know we have far more in common than we sometimes think. Every day spent in North Northumberland reminds me that people are already building that common ground: through families, voluntary organisations, faith communities, charities, businesses and neighbours looking after one another.
Politics should help those things thrive.
That is why we need policies that strengthen the foundations of family and community – affordable housing, decent work, effective welfare and good education.
Our job as MPs is not to control every outcome. It is to build the conditions in which people, families and communities can flourish.
*The Politics of Belonging essays can be read on my website.