[Music]
[Applause]
my dad and I live in an airport that’s
because we don’t have a home and the
airport is better than the streets in
the opening lines of Yves buntings fly
away home we learn about a little boy
named Andrew and his dad they live
amongst the crowds in a busy pre 911
airport Andrews mother has passed away
and his dad works as a janitor in the
city they save up for the day when they
can finally leave the airport and have
their own home again I first heard this
story as an eight year old when my
teacher read it to our class it was the
first time I realized I wasn’t alone
when we think of homelessness typically
we think of people sleeping and begging
in the street but many homeless people
are hidden some are out of sight and
night shelters and hostels yet the
majority of homeless people are hidden
because they sleep in their cars stay on
friend’s sofas and still continue with
their daily routines as if they’re
living situations or stable fly away
home gives us an example of a family we
don’t see in society I didn’t live in an
airport but just like that little boy I
experienced hidden amla sness I was
raised by my single mom and my older
brother Jim what happened to us happens
to millions of people every day the
income cliff my mom worked but the rent
and daycare bills
exceeded what she made her salary was
not enough for us to live on but
according to the US government her
salary was too high to qualify for
assistance the income cliff is also
known as the low wage trap every year
struggling moms and dads keep low-paying
jobs in order to continue receiving
government benefits because they know
taking a higher paying job will not
provide enough to cover their bills my
mother knew there was no upward mobility
from a lower paying job if you never
take a higher pay
taking this step from poverty into the
lower middle class is difficult painful
and requires persistence my family lived
in poorly built apartments in the
suburbs of Maryland we ate a lot of
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
because they weren’t costly my mom drove
a 1988 mercury tracer we weren’t buying
expensive things we simply could not
afford to live when the rent went up we
had two options move or be evicted this
is how we became homeless in a world
where social media allows us to see what
people are wearing when people are
eating and where people are traveling
there are still parts of other people’s
lives we don’t see there are three
things in particular I’d like to talk
about today we don’t see what official
figures can’t show us we don’t see
people’s personal histories and we don’t
see how we can engage with hidden
homelessness the first thing we don’t
see is what official figures can’t show
us in February 2017 the independent ran
an article by Gaia Marcus entitled to
combat homelessness we need to count the
hidden homeless – Marcus lamented the
invisibility and visibility of homeless
people unrecognized by authorities it
all comes down to who is counted as
being homeless she wrote as a result we
have two groups the counted or the
hidden and uncounted homeless okay
now the numbers we have on the counted
homeless have limitations some figures
reflect the number of homeless on a
given night while others reflect the
span of a year some figures reflect the
number of households while others
reflect the number of people when I
searched for homelessness in the UK the
primary articles listed only gave me the
numbers on England I had to do separate
searches for Scotland Northern Ireland
and Wales within the counted homeless
they’re divided into two groups in
priority need and intentionally homeless
sadly hidden homeless
is not a fully acknowledged category in
fact there isn’t even an agreed-upon
definition of homelessness of hidden
so before I get to the next slides which
we’ve already seen a preview of I want
to make it clear that I am in no way
comparing the data between the US and
the UK
the data is collected differently
because my family experienced
homelessness in the u.s. it’s important
to understand these numbers so in 2016
ninety four thousand four hundred and
sixty-five households in the UK were
counted as homeless according to the
government’s statutory homelessness
reports in 2017 five hundred and fifty
three thousand seven hundred forty two
people were counted as homeless
according to the US Department of
Housing and Urban Development
but these official figures do not
include people finding temporary
solutions to their housing problems by
sleeping with family members and friends
staying in their houses by sleeping in
hostels and B&Bs squatting and sleeping
rough though it wasn’t the first time my
family was homeless the time I remember
most clearly was the beginning of
primary – or first grade in the u.s. I
woke up dressed in my uniform and went
to school when my classmates and teacher
didn’t see was that only the week before
my mother brother and I had slept in the
hallway of my mother’s office my brother
carefully placed cushions from office
chairs onto the floor to give me a
makeshift bed
we slept away from the windows and doors
where no one could see us if they passed
by at this point you might be thinking
Rachael why didn’t your mom reach out to
a charity and find help my mom had a
full-time job at a commercial real
estate firm with a full-time job in a
car most charities did not consider our
need great enough we were turned away on
more than one occasion so who is counted
as being homeless in the US cities and
states count the number of people
applying for housing charities that run
night shelters and transitional housing
count the number of people they help but
first hand counts also occur men and
women volunteered to count the homeless
living on the street
some of them even dressing conspicuously
so they can walk amongst the homeless
undetected they do this because in the
u.s. in order to qualify for federal
funding local government has to conduct
a count at least every other year for
services for the hidden for for the
homeless so federal funding won’t come
to those cities unless they do these
counts
unfortunately counters miss and mutant
they miss people because they can’t see
every one hundreds and cities are missed
according to the National Alliance to
End Homelessness it’s estimated that at
least four million six hundred and ten
thousand are living in hidden
homelessness in the u.s. that number is
far greater than the 554 thousand that
are counted homeless okay here in the UK
local government counts the number of
people applying for housing charities
and night shelters count the number of
people they help crisis a charity doing
phenomenal work to end homelessness
estimates that there are roughly 66,000
hidden homeless households in the UK and
that’s in addition to the ninety four
thousand five hundred pound homeless
households so here we see the difference
between the counted and the hidden and
in the UK the difference between the
counted in the hidden grate the hidden
uncounted homeless need to be recognized
they don’t show up in official figures
but as I’ve shown today it is possible
to recognise the hidden homeless next to
official figures the second thing we
don’t see is people’s personal histories
these photos are from Independence Day
July of 1990 I was three at the time and
my brother was 10 these look like
regular old family photos swimming
handstands playing in the pool but we
were homeless when my mother took these
pictures we had just lost our apartment
and placed all of our belongings into
storage so we were staying in a budget
motel from the outside people may look
fine but the reality people are living
is much
more complex there’s a common
misconception the people who are
homeless are homeless for the same
reason it’s assumed that everyone who’s
homeless has a problem with addiction
while that is true of some there are
many reasons for homelessness including
loss of a job escape from abuse a death
in the family and an overall loss of
resources loss of resources does not
just include money it also includes
child care proper care for mental and
physical disabilities and affordable
housing
July of 1998 was the first time we slept
in our car
I was stretched across the back seats
with a pillow and blanket the seat belt
buckles dug into my back so my mom
tucked the blanket around the buckles to
make me more comfortable my brother Jim
lay in the passenger seat his knees
tucked toward his chin so his feet were
off the floor and my mother reclined in
the driver’s seat the heat of July was
unbearable I can remember my mom
cautiously turning the manual cranks to
crack the windows slightly so we could
get a little bit of a breeze at night we
parked at rest areas along the i-95 toll
road which had 24-hour access to
restrooms dozens of drivers pulled over
to shut their eyes for a bit or get fast
food with our clothes and toiletries in
the back of the car we blended in well
as we slept when I think about that
summer I remember how displaced I felt
all the time this is not the type of
anecdote you shared a cocktail party as
you can imagine it’s also not a topic
that comes up in conversation or at
least regular conversation what does
come up in conversation is when people
start to talk about places they lived
and everyone else’s list is short and
your list is long I’m married to a proud
army brat who moved houses many times
when the subject of moving comes up he
gives his answers confidently until last
year I was the opposite I glossed over
how many moves I’ve been through I said
things like I grew up around Washington
DC but I never said the words
I moved 13 times by the time I was 13
years old according to the homelessness
monitor an exhaustive ongoing study here
in the UK one in 10 adults in the UK has
been homeless at some point in their
lives and according to the US Department
of Housing and Urban Development 14
percent of the American population has
been homeless at some point in their
lives which brings us to the last thing
that we don’t see we don’t see how we
can engage with hidden homelessness one
of the unique challenges my brother and
I had was that we went to private
schools on scholarships and we were
constantly surrounded by wealth in a
place where seemingly everyone had money
we were two kids who went in and out of
homelessness and we were dressed in
uniforms just like everyone else I
realized something about the experience
of growing up in hidden homelessness
everyone assumes you’ve always had a
home we live in a place where it appears
everyone has more than enough but the
data says our peers have struggled there
are people among us who have experienced
hidden homelessness recently someone
came up to me and said Rachel I know
exactly what you’re talking about I
slept in my car when I had nowhere else
to go and I had to hold it together and
not cry because that’s exactly how I
responded the day my teacher read fly
away home how can we help people who are
hidden we can engage with hidden
homelessness by getting curious we need
to ask questions important uncomfortable
questions and then we need to listen to
the answers if we can create a culture
of honesty about hidden homelessness I
believe we’ll start to bring it out of
its strange and shameful obscurity if we
can allow people to be open about the
experience of hidden homelessness we’ll
start to see real data that can help
people who are hurting there’s another
way we can engage with this issue we can
think about its definition I mentioned
earlier that there is no agreed-upon
definition of
homelessness without a proper
explanation of this issue it’s difficult
to discuss and to eradicate so I wrote
one hidden homelessness is the state of
living in need of permanent shelter
finding temporary shelter out with the
recognized housing of local and national
government and charities if you leave
here today knowing what hidden
homelessness is you’re much more likely
to care about it in the future there are
several people who took the time to care
about my family’s struggles my aunt
Margaret has been at every major event
in my life she even came to Grandparents
Day when I didn’t have a grandparent who
could show up my aunt Amy and Uncle Bill
watched us during the summer once we got
older so my mom didn’t have to pay for
child care my church youth leader Suzie
invited me over to her house to watch
her children but she ended up mentoring
me and giving me outlets to test my
creative abilities but the primary
reason I’m standing here today is
because my mother went without haircuts
she never bought herself new clothes she
even went without meals in order to feed
us first
she put Jim and I into good schools she
didn’t graduate from university but both
of her children have my brother started
bussing tables at 14 years old in order
to help pay the bills he received a full
scholarship to university playing
Division one tennis they taught me that
hard work is a part of life but they did
something else they gave me the luxury
to imagine to think of a world or when
people are hurting they’re seen in
looking past what official figures can’t
show us and truly seeing people and
considering their personal histories and
in understanding how we can engage with
hidden homelessness it is my hope that
hidden homelessness will that have been
a part of my past so it doesn’t become a
part of someone else’s future thank you
you [Applause]
[Applause]
my dad and I live in an airport that’s
because we don’t have a home and the
airport is better than the streets in
the opening lines of Yves buntings fly
away home we learn about a little boy
named Andrew and his dad they live
amongst the crowds in a busy pre 911
airport Andrews mother has passed away
and his dad works as a janitor in the
city they save up for the day when they
can finally leave the airport and have
their own home again I first heard this
story as an eight year old when my
teacher read it to our class it was the
first time I realized I wasn’t alone
when we think of homelessness typically
we think of people sleeping and begging
in the street but many homeless people
are hidden some are out of sight and
night shelters and hostels yet the
majority of homeless people are hidden
because they sleep in their cars stay on
friend’s sofas and still continue with
their daily routines as if they’re
living situations or stable fly away
home gives us an example of a family we
don’t see in society I didn’t live in an
airport but just like that little boy I
experienced hidden amla sness I was
raised by my single mom and my older
brother Jim what happened to us happens
to millions of people every day the
income cliff my mom worked but the rent
and daycare bills
exceeded what she made her salary was
not enough for us to live on but
according to the US government her
salary was too high to qualify for
assistance the income cliff is also
known as the low wage trap every year
struggling moms and dads keep low-paying
jobs in order to continue receiving
government benefits because they know
taking a higher paying job will not
provide enough to cover their bills my
mother knew there was no upward mobility
from a lower paying job if you never
take a higher pay
taking this step from poverty into the
lower middle class is difficult painful
and requires persistence my family lived
in poorly built apartments in the
suburbs of Maryland we ate a lot of
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
because they weren’t costly my mom drove
a 1988 mercury tracer we weren’t buying
expensive things we simply could not
afford to live when the rent went up we
had two options move or be evicted this
is how we became homeless in a world
where social media allows us to see what
people are wearing when people are
eating and where people are traveling
there are still parts of other people’s
lives we don’t see there are three
things in particular I’d like to talk
about today we don’t see what official
figures can’t show us we don’t see
people’s personal histories and we don’t
see how we can engage with hidden
homelessness the first thing we don’t
see is what official figures can’t show
us in February 2017 the independent ran
an article by Gaia Marcus entitled to
combat homelessness we need to count the
hidden homeless – Marcus lamented the
invisibility and visibility of homeless
people unrecognized by authorities it
all comes down to who is counted as
being homeless she wrote as a result we
have two groups the counted or the
hidden and uncounted homeless okay
now the numbers we have on the counted
homeless have limitations some figures
reflect the number of homeless on a
given night while others reflect the
span of a year some figures reflect the
number of households while others
reflect the number of people when I
searched for homelessness in the UK the
primary articles listed only gave me the
numbers on England I had to do separate
searches for Scotland Northern Ireland
and Wales within the counted homeless
they’re divided into two groups in
priority need and intentionally homeless
sadly hidden homeless
is not a fully acknowledged category in
fact there isn’t even an agreed-upon
definition of homelessness of hidden
so before I get to the next slides which
we’ve already seen a preview of I want
to make it clear that I am in no way
comparing the data between the US and
the UK
the data is collected differently
because my family experienced
homelessness in the u.s. it’s important
to understand these numbers so in 2016
ninety four thousand four hundred and
sixty-five households in the UK were
counted as homeless according to the
government’s statutory homelessness
reports in 2017 five hundred and fifty
three thousand seven hundred forty two
people were counted as homeless
according to the US Department of
Housing and Urban Development
but these official figures do not
include people finding temporary
solutions to their housing problems by
sleeping with family members and friends
staying in their houses by sleeping in
hostels and B&Bs squatting and sleeping
rough though it wasn’t the first time my
family was homeless the time I remember
most clearly was the beginning of
primary – or first grade in the u.s. I
woke up dressed in my uniform and went
to school when my classmates and teacher
didn’t see was that only the week before
my mother brother and I had slept in the
hallway of my mother’s office my brother
carefully placed cushions from office
chairs onto the floor to give me a
makeshift bed
we slept away from the windows and doors
where no one could see us if they passed
by at this point you might be thinking
Rachael why didn’t your mom reach out to
a charity and find help my mom had a
full-time job at a commercial real
estate firm with a full-time job in a
car most charities did not consider our
need great enough we were turned away on
more than one occasion so who is counted
as being homeless in the US cities and
states count the number of people
applying for housing charities that run
night shelters and transitional housing
count the number of people they help but
first hand counts also occur men and
women volunteered to count the homeless
living on the street
some of them even dressing conspicuously
so they can walk amongst the homeless
undetected they do this because in the
u.s. in order to qualify for federal
funding local government has to conduct
a count at least every other year for
services for the hidden for for the
homeless so federal funding won’t come
to those cities unless they do these
counts
unfortunately counters miss and mutant
they miss people because they can’t see
every one hundreds and cities are missed
according to the National Alliance to
End Homelessness it’s estimated that at
least four million six hundred and ten
thousand are living in hidden
homelessness in the u.s. that number is
far greater than the 554 thousand that
are counted homeless okay here in the UK
local government counts the number of
people applying for housing charities
and night shelters count the number of
people they help crisis a charity doing
phenomenal work to end homelessness
estimates that there are roughly 66,000
hidden homeless households in the UK and
that’s in addition to the ninety four
thousand five hundred pound homeless
households so here we see the difference
between the counted and the hidden and
in the UK the difference between the
counted in the hidden grate the hidden
uncounted homeless need to be recognized
they don’t show up in official figures
but as I’ve shown today it is possible
to recognise the hidden homeless next to
official figures the second thing we
don’t see is people’s personal histories
these photos are from Independence Day
July of 1990 I was three at the time and
my brother was 10 these look like
regular old family photos swimming
handstands playing in the pool but we
were homeless when my mother took these
pictures we had just lost our apartment
and placed all of our belongings into
storage so we were staying in a budget
motel from the outside people may look
fine but the reality people are living
is much
more complex there’s a common
misconception the people who are
homeless are homeless for the same
reason it’s assumed that everyone who’s
homeless has a problem with addiction
while that is true of some there are
many reasons for homelessness including
loss of a job escape from abuse a death
in the family and an overall loss of
resources loss of resources does not
just include money it also includes
child care proper care for mental and
physical disabilities and affordable
housing
July of 1998 was the first time we slept
in our car
I was stretched across the back seats
with a pillow and blanket the seat belt
buckles dug into my back so my mom
tucked the blanket around the buckles to
make me more comfortable my brother Jim
lay in the passenger seat his knees
tucked toward his chin so his feet were
off the floor and my mother reclined in
the driver’s seat the heat of July was
unbearable I can remember my mom
cautiously turning the manual cranks to
crack the windows slightly so we could
get a little bit of a breeze at night we
parked at rest areas along the i-95 toll
road which had 24-hour access to
restrooms dozens of drivers pulled over
to shut their eyes for a bit or get fast
food with our clothes and toiletries in
the back of the car we blended in well
as we slept when I think about that
summer I remember how displaced I felt
all the time this is not the type of
anecdote you shared a cocktail party as
you can imagine it’s also not a topic
that comes up in conversation or at
least regular conversation what does
come up in conversation is when people
start to talk about places they lived
and everyone else’s list is short and
your list is long I’m married to a proud
army brat who moved houses many times
when the subject of moving comes up he
gives his answers confidently until last
year I was the opposite I glossed over
how many moves I’ve been through I said
things like I grew up around Washington
DC but I never said the words
I moved 13 times by the time I was 13
years old according to the homelessness
monitor an exhaustive ongoing study here
in the UK one in 10 adults in the UK has
been homeless at some point in their
lives and according to the US Department
of Housing and Urban Development 14
percent of the American population has
been homeless at some point in their
lives which brings us to the last thing
that we don’t see we don’t see how we
can engage with hidden homelessness one
of the unique challenges my brother and
I had was that we went to private
schools on scholarships and we were
constantly surrounded by wealth in a
place where seemingly everyone had money
we were two kids who went in and out of
homelessness and we were dressed in
uniforms just like everyone else I
realized something about the experience
of growing up in hidden homelessness
everyone assumes you’ve always had a
home we live in a place where it appears
everyone has more than enough but the
data says our peers have struggled there
are people among us who have experienced
hidden homelessness recently someone
came up to me and said Rachel I know
exactly what you’re talking about I
slept in my car when I had nowhere else
to go and I had to hold it together and
not cry because that’s exactly how I
responded the day my teacher read fly
away home how can we help people who are
hidden we can engage with hidden
homelessness by getting curious we need
to ask questions important uncomfortable
questions and then we need to listen to
the answers if we can create a culture
of honesty about hidden homelessness I
believe we’ll start to bring it out of
its strange and shameful obscurity if we
can allow people to be open about the
experience of hidden homelessness we’ll
start to see real data that can help
people who are hurting there’s another
way we can engage with this issue we can
think about its definition I mentioned
earlier that there is no agreed-upon
definition of
homelessness without a proper
explanation of this issue it’s difficult
to discuss and to eradicate so I wrote
one hidden homelessness is the state of
living in need of permanent shelter
finding temporary shelter out with the
recognized housing of local and national
government and charities if you leave
here today knowing what hidden
homelessness is you’re much more likely
to care about it in the future there are
several people who took the time to care
about my family’s struggles my aunt
Margaret has been at every major event
in my life she even came to Grandparents
Day when I didn’t have a grandparent who
could show up my aunt Amy and Uncle Bill
watched us during the summer once we got
older so my mom didn’t have to pay for
child care my church youth leader Suzie
invited me over to her house to watch
her children but she ended up mentoring
me and giving me outlets to test my
creative abilities but the primary
reason I’m standing here today is
because my mother went without haircuts
she never bought herself new clothes she
even went without meals in order to feed
us first
she put Jim and I into good schools she
didn’t graduate from university but both
of her children have my brother started
bussing tables at 14 years old in order
to help pay the bills he received a full
scholarship to university playing
Division one tennis they taught me that
hard work is a part of life but they did
something else they gave me the luxury
to imagine to think of a world or when
people are hurting they’re seen in
looking past what official figures can’t
show us and truly seeing people and
considering their personal histories and
in understanding how we can engage with
hidden homelessness it is my hope that
hidden homelessness will that have been
a part of my past so it doesn’t become a
part of someone else’s future thank you
you [Applause]
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