Brits can feel superior to their American cousins when it comes to homelessness. London streets do not compare to San Francisco’s. As for attitude, the US can make us look positively enlightened — even liberal folk make “homeless guys” the butt of their jokes, and sermonise on the “bad choices” that put people in this terrible position. Brits, by contrast, are quicker to accept the idea that the market is not faultless, that a run of bad luck, or mental illness, or the need to flee domestic violence can start a spiral that ends with life on the streets. To Brits, Americans fret over a problem for which there is a ready solution: the welfare state.
But our surface-level progress masks a bigger problem. It is true that Britain does not have as large a proportion of rough sleepers as many other countries in the developed world. That said, this figure is rising, particularly in London. A record 4,000 rough sleepers were counted in the capital between July and September last year.
