TACKLING ROUGH SLEEPING: why does it take a pandemic?

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In this episode:

Thousands of rough sleepers have been given a place to stay during the lockdown. If we can do it in a pandemic, why not the rest of the time? We talk to Matt Downie from Crisis and Maggie Brunjes from Homeless Network Scotland about how we can build on the last few weeks to end rough sleeping for good. Then Danny Dorling discusses what this shows about our ability to tackle injustice and why he thinks the world was slowing down even before the current crisis.

Guests

Matt Downie (@matthew_downie), director of policy & external affairs at Crisis  

Maggie Brünjes, chief executive of Homeless Network Scotland

Danny Dorling (@dannydorling), professor of geography at University of Oxford

More info

Reports

• St. Mungo’s: Rough sleeping and homelessness during the coronavirus crisis (Apr 2020)

• Crisis: Government response to homelessness and COVID-19 (Apr 2020)

• Crisis: Coronavirus Homelessness Action Plan Scotland (Mar 2020)

• Danny Dorling: Homelessness and public health (2018)

News and articles

• HuffPost: Govt asked councils to house all rough sleepers. What happened next? (Apr 2020)

• Guardian: The sacked hospitality workers sleeping rough (Apr 2020)

• The Times: Homeless swap the streets for hotel suites during lockdown (Apr 2020)

• Maggie Brunjes: Can rough sleeping in Scotland get a fresh start? (Apr 2020)

• Danny Dorling: Growing injustice: six myths about inequality (June 2015)