Nimbyism, it’s an ugly word and a complex concept. As an acronym for “not in my back yard”, the connotation is that we know there’s a problem, we just want it to be somewhere else, aka someone else’s problem.
Georgie forwarded me a fascinating article this week from the I paper, it’s an opinion piece outlining the writer’s emotional and cognitive journey through believing they’re a stand up liberal, to being faced with a homeless man setting up camp outside her block of flats, then plotting to have him moved on and finally realising the thing we know very well at KCAH, this is a man with very few options making the best of the situation he’s stuck in.
It’s worth a read: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/raging-liberal-homeless-man-doorstep-4367679
It’s very natural to feel that sense of nimbyism when confronted with an issue that makes you feel uncomfortable and you feel is encroaching on your home. I believe there’s truth in the old idiom that “an Englishman’s home is his castle” and if we gloss over the gendered nature of the phrase, at the heart of it I see a duality.
Both the writer and their subject are trying to maintain a home that makes them feel safe. The difference is that the homeless man is a victim of systemic failures.
As a single adult the theory is that they should be able to “sort something out” and as such they are at the lowest priority for statutory help, but in a world where services are squeezed, the housing stock is low and private rent is unaffordably high, being able to just sort something out by yourself is increasingly difficult and we exist to fill the gap.
The door to our back yard is always open, the welcome is always warm and our support is always free.
If you find yourself in the same place as the writer, do what they didn’t; say hello, have a conversation and let them know where to find us. Drop-in is open every weekday between 10am and 12pm for new registrations.
