'I just want a normal life': How do we end rough sleeping?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2023
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sky News has been following Ian's journey as a government promise - to end rough sleeping by next year - looks in serious doubt.
It was a target set by the Conservatives in their 2019 election manifesto - but a report by the Kerslake Commission is warning it will be missed, blaming "chronic and unresolved" issues in the housing system as it reports a 26% rise in rough sleeping compared with last year.
The commission was set up in 2021 to learn lessons from the response to homelessness during the COVID pandemic - the same year, an estimated 741 homeless people died in England and Wales. Most were men and drugs, alcohol and suicide were the likely related causes.
On the Sky News Daily, Sally Lockwood speaks to our producer Sarah O'Connell, who first met Ian when he was a teenager, to find out about the challenges he has faced over the years.
Plus, Sally is joined by Emma Haddad, chief executive of the homelessness charity St Mungo's - the secretariat of the Kerslake Commission, as they discuss the wider problems and what they think is needed to end rough sleeping.
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Podcast producers: Soila Apparicio and Alex Edden
Senior podcast producer: Annie Joyce
Podcast promotion producer: David Chipakupaku
Editor: Wendy Parker
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Uber drivers. Have you seen your pay go down while your fees to Uber go up? |
| 0:05.0 | All because of an algorithm that reduces your take-home pay, making you work more for less. |
| 0:10.0 | We believe Uber's dynamic pay and upfront pricing is unfair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's why Worker Info Exchange has launched the dynamic pay claim to seek compensation for drivers who have lost income. |
| 0:21.5 | If you've driven for Uber at any time since 2020, it's time to stand together. |
| 0:26.8 | Find out more at dynamic pay.org. |
| 0:30.0 | Sorry to interrupt your day, but I've just been diagnosed with dementia, and I'm going to need your help. |
| 0:37.2 | I'll need help when I can no longer button a shirt or recognise my own family. |
| 0:42.7 | My daughter will need help too. |
| 0:45.0 | I worry this could ruin her life. |
| 0:47.8 | And we will all need help to find a cure to end the devastation of dementia. |
| 0:53.1 | I can't do this alone. It will take a society to beat |
| 0:57.6 | dementia, Alzheimer's Society. Spare a little change please. Spare a little change please. |
| 1:11.0 | How often do you walk past a homeless person in the Spare little change, please. Spare little change, please. Spare little change, please. |
| 1:12.5 | How often do you walk past a homeless person in the street? |
| 1:15.7 | Do you find yourself wondering how they got there? |
| 1:18.7 | If they're okay. |
| 1:20.1 | Or do you not really see them at all? |
| 1:23.0 | On this podcast, we're going to tell you about Ian Harrison. |
| 1:26.7 | How he ended up rough sleeping as a teenager, |
| 1:30.1 | how he's still on the streets after 17 years, and what his life's like day to day. |
| 1:36.5 | And a warning, this won't be easy listening for everyone. |
... |
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