Sleeping shadows

There is a disturbing tragedy unfolding on our streets and it is growing every day. As drunken groups of revellers stumble from bar to bar, and couples roll out of restaurants, doorways are filled with anonymous sleeping shadows. These are the forgotten, the ignored, our shame. As I wandered through Newcastle in the late evening I saw them everywhere. No street or underpass was untouched, even on a patch of grass next to the Civic Centre a battered tent was pitched. Oh the bitter irony. I was listening to Dylan as I walked, and was reminded of the line, 'How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?' This is an indictment of our society. We should not allow it to happen. It is a powerful reminder we are failing.

It is estimated there are over 9,000 people sleeping rough on our streets every night. Most likely there are more. That is more than the population of a town such as Alnwick. All happening without scorn or scandal in one of the world’s wealthiest countries. 9,000 individual human experiences, people suffering with mental health problems, addictions, abuse, or financial destitution. The average life expectancy of the homeless is forty seven. On a bitter winter night I wonder how any survive. Imagine these people crammed in a ghetto and left to rot. There would be a public outcry, but instead we continue to look away, pretend we don’t see. Their tragedy is lessened, widespread, dispersed, and easier to ignore. I have lived in Newcastle on and off for many years, and I have never seen so many people in such dire need. I lived in India in my twenties and saw this frequently. It shocked, saddened and angered me then, but I never thought it would become a common sight back home in my own relatively prosperous world. Why do we accept this? Maybe we have become desensitised, or feel helpless, guilt or even shame. Perhaps we judge, seeing the drug addled symptom and not the human suffering or the desperate cause. It is said we are all only a couple of tragedies away from the streets. Job loss, illness, a breakdown, or divorce. Many of us have friends and family to offer support, not all are so lucky. For some family is their biggest threat and the very thing they are running away from.

Society is measured by the value we place on life, not the life of the successful or the privileged, but the lives of the needy, the suffering, those without privilege. Society is judged by the warmth of the helping hand. Every person sleeping rough tonight, their value is our value. This is what defines a government, a community, what defines us all. When we reflect on who we are, as a community and a nation we should ask a very simple question. Is this the kind of society we want to live in? It's all about our priorities, our values, our decency. Is this what we have become? We are better than this. We have to be.