What’s behind the quiet rise of homelessness in the countryside?
I have two stories about rural homelessness this week – both equally fascinating. This one tells us:
John Gray, 50, has always lived in the countryside. As a manual labourer he never learned to use a computer, which made it hard when he first applied for benefits. Gray became homeless after suffering a mental breakdown; when he was released from the hospital, he had nowhere to go.
Some of the barriers to Gray accessing help relate to this rural setting. Public transport is expensive: when Gray first signed up to receive universal credit once he got settled in at the Dairy House, he says he spent £67 on buses to his allocated Job Centre in Bath, because they couldn’t process his claim at one closer by. Advisers in the Citizens Advice Bureau in Shepton Mallet report sending people to court in taxis for fear they will end up unfairly prosecuted, with no train early enough to take them.
The Department for Communities and Local Government does not recognise rural homelessness as a separate problem. A DCLG spokesman says: “Tackling homelessness is a complex issue with no single solution, but we’re determined to help the most vulnerable in society, whether they live in towns, cities or rural areas.”
However, in rural areas, homelessness feels very different. Paddy Johnston was discovered by Dairy House staff on one of their early-morning scouting tours. He describes how he gradually found himself living rough in ever-more isolated places, fearing groups of men coming out of pubs drunk and rowdy.
“You fear retribution for sleeping rough – people aren’t very nice,” he says. “If you go into the countryside, you’re sort of away from all that.”
But there are elements that make countryside rough sleeping dangerous, too. Johnston mentions run-ins with unhappy farm owners after, unbeknown to him, he had pitched up on their private farmland. Whether in the countryside or a city, he says: “Generally, you’re in hiding.”