Lifestyle Choices

I still can't past that claim from our former, unlamented, Home Secretary Suella Braverman that homelessness if a 'lifestyle choice'.  I mean, what sort of twisted thought processes might lead to such a conclusion?  Does she really think that people wake up one morning and decide that they are going to leave their house and go and live on the streets, instead?  Are there really any cases of middle class businessmen swapping their four bedroom detached house, company car, pension scheme and wife and two kids for a park bench?  Perhaps she thinks that those of no-fixed-abode are akin to those colourful tramps of yesteryear, (although I suspect that they mainly existed in books and films, rather than real life), who have opted for a life on the road, free from the rigours of everyday life, chopping wood in exchange for a meal, etc.  (Mind you, I'd think that she'd have a problem with all those 'cash in hand' jobs they did, failing to pay tax on their earnings.  After all, tax evasion is only for the filthy rich and multi-national corporations according to current Tory philosophy).  Sadly, of course, today's homeless are mainly the victims of mental health issues, domestic abuse and economic circumstance, or, as many like to call it, government policy.  It also isn't something that people willingly enter into as the result of a conscious decision: it is more often than not a long, slow descent, starting with unemployment, low wages or just general poverty, as an individual slides out of permanent housing, to temporary accommodation, through the charity of friends and families via 'sofa-surfing', to the park bench or shop doorway.  There's no easy way back, either, as the lack of a permanent address makes it difficult to claim benefits, let alone secure paid employment.

But exactly what is there about modern homelessness that Braverman might think would prove attractive to anyone as a 'lifestyle choice'?  The fact that if you have no home or job you don't have to pay taxes, National Insurance and the like, yet are still entitled to be treated on the NHS for the hypothermia you are likely to suffer from in the Winter?  The freedom from work, social and familial ties, perhaps?  The lack of responsibility for a family or the payment of rent or a mortgage?  Maybe, in her mind (and those of too many of her Tory colleagues), the involuntary homeless are one and the same as those types who spend their time squatting in disused buildings, (usually on the dubious pretext that they are only trying to put to use empty spaces in the face of a lack of actual homes).  Rather like those loveable vagabonds, the pre-war 'knights of the road', these squatters are predominantly middle class, with parental homes they could go back to, but choose not to, most of them working or claiming benefits, (the squat providing an address) opting instead to move from empty building to empty building, as the owners evict them.  Now, that is something closer to a 'lifestyle choice', but it certainly isn't the 'lifestyle' of the homeless people whose tents Suella Braverman wanted confiscated and destroyed by the police.  But hey, they're making the streets look untidy, which upsets Tory voters and we can't have that, can we?  Despite Braverman's departure from government (for the second time), you can be sure that the government's attitude to homelessness won't soften.  Why should they care about the homeless?  One of the other consequences of not having a home is that you don't have a vote, either.  Which means, with an election looming, they are of no use whatsoever to the Tories.