#LIFI24 – Who Really Cares?

Food, water, clothing, sleep and shelter are the basic human needs for survival – but who steps in when illness, age, disability or poverty leave those needs unmet?

Right now, our care system is failing both people who need care and those who care for them, forcing many into poverty and placing the burden of blame on the most vulnerable.

From foster care, homelessness and co-housing to long-term and end of life care, our panel took on one of society’s most intricate, emotive and indispensable topics.

We unpacked the current state of the UK care system – what’s happening, who’s impacted, and what needs to change?

Panellists: Kate Garraway, Goldie, Emily Kenway, Paul McNamee, and Lizzy Oma.

“Unpaid care workers outnumber paid care workers 3 to 1.” – Emily Kenway. When we use the word care, it covers a manner of parts of society; the care system, carers and community. Here are some of the key highlights from the discussion:

• “You will want to be there for a suffering loved one. We need the right to have time off work. Love is not allowed, and this is at the heart of the care problem. Wage work is prioritised. Where do we put love in our politics?” – Emily Kenway
•  “Care workers aren’t the source of the problem. The source is the funding that’s not allowing adequate training.” – Goldie
  “The system seems to be constructed to not offer proper care for long-term or complex needs.” – Kate Garraway
• “Our politicians seem to have no knowledge of what is really going on. They don’t live in the same world as the carers.” – Emily Kenway
• “Seeing this country from a distance, I’m distraught by it.” – Goldie

Related Books:

When We Walk By – Kevin F Adler and Donald W Burnes

How to end homelessness in America: a must-read guide to understanding housing instability, supporting our unhoused neighbors, and reclaiming our humanity.

A deeply humanizing analysis that will change the way you think about poverty and homelessness–for the socially engaged reader of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted.

Think about the last time that you saw or interacted with an unhoused person. What did you do? What did you say? Did you offer money or a smile, or did you avert your gaze?

When We Walk By takes an urgent look at homelessness in America, showing us what we lose–in ourselves and as a society–when we choose to walk past and ignore our neighbors in shelters, insecure housing, or on the streets. And it brilliantly shows what we stand to gain when we embrace our humanity and move toward evidence-based people-first, community-driven solutions, offering social analysis, economic and political histories, and the real stories of unhoused people.

Authors Kevin F. Adler and Donald W. Burnes, with Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija, recast chronic homelessness in the U.S. as a byproduct of twin crises: our social services systems are failing, and so is our humanity. Readers will learn:

• Why our brains have been trained to overlook our unhoused neighbors
• The social, economic, and political forces that shape myths like “all homeless people are addicts” and “they’d have a house if they got a job”
• What conservative economics gets wrong about housing insecurity
• What relational poverty is, and how to shift away from “us versus them” thinking
• That for many Americans, housing insecurity is just one missed paycheck away
• Who “the homeless” really are–and why that might surprise you
• What you can do to help, starting today

A necessary, deeply humanizing read that goes beyond theory and policy analysis to offer engaged solutions with compassion and heart, When We Walk By is a must-read for anyone who cares about homelessness, housing solutions, and their own humanity.

Available here

Terrified – Angela Hart

Angela Hart has been a foster carer in the UK for over two decades and has fostered more than fifty children. With training as a specialist carer for teenagers with complex needs, Hart’s series of books chronicle her experience as a foster mum. Terrified tells the story of a little girl who came to Angela after years of emotional abuse, and Angela’s struggle to help her find freedom from her past.

Available here

Related podcasts:

Surviving Britain’s Homelessness Crisis – Daniel Lavelle

Journalist Daniel Lavelle on his experience of homelessness and what it taught him about the impact of government cuts.

Available here

Adoption, Fostering, and tea – New Family Social

Adoption and fostering chat with people who’ve done it, from the UK’s LGBT+ adoption and fostering charity, New Family Social.

Available here

Further Help:

• Crisis Homelessness Charity 
• Shelter
• Which Charities Are Fighting Homelessness in the UK? 
• The Fostering Network
• Barnardo’s
• Marie Curie
• End of Life Care – Useful Organisations

Watch:

• So You Think You Understand Homelessness
• Changing Our Perceptions of Homelessness
• Homeless But Not Helpless
• Life In Foster Care
• A Foster Care System Where Every Child Has A Loving Home
• Making End of Life Care Matter