Why don't we care about homeless children all year round? | Blaise Tapp

We are now fully locked into the Season of Goodwill, a time when people are prepared to talk to those they ignore the other 50 weeks of the year.
A homeless youngster. Picture posed by model. Credit: Mikael Damkier - stock.adobe.comA homeless youngster. Picture posed by model. Credit: Mikael Damkier - stock.adobe.com
A homeless youngster. Picture posed by model. Credit: Mikael Damkier - stock.adobe.com

The goodwill that many display for a handful of days in December is usually quite easy to find.

While it is better than nothing, we would be much better served if we paid more attention to the injustices which society could probably fix quite easily if more of us made a fuss. The best example of this was the news that 135,000 children will be homeless this Christmas.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Apart from the inevitable news coverage that followed the release of these shocking figures by the homeless charity Shelter, it hasn’t seemed to register in the public’s consciousness.

In the run-up to the general election, issues such as homelessness and child poverty have been raised by those seeking our votes, but they certainly haven’t been given the prominence they deserve.

T hese children are the unseen victims of homelessness – they live in temporary accommodation rather than alleyways and underneath viaducts. Because we can’t see them, it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

These children – 183 a day – end up in bedsits, hotels and hostels, not their homes. Every child deserves a happy life, a full stomach and, most importantly, a roof over their head. Yet society is not outraged when this happens on an industrial scale.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In response to the Shelter figures, the government was quick to point out it provides local authorities with £1.2bn a year to deal with homelessness. While this certainly helps, it doesn’t stop children from ending up in this situation in the first place.

Longer term strategies are needed and these will only be delivered if those in power get the message that the public at large won’t stand for such moral outrages anymore.

I am not holding my breath. While many of us are keen for others to see our kinder side, our good deeds are usually easy to carry out.

Making a fuss about children we haven’t met, in places most of us haven’t visited, isn’t something most of us will consider.

Even if it is Christmas.