How We Solve The Homelessness Crisis | Matthew Torbitt

0:01You stopped waiting for permission and started building yourself, your dreams, your credit. Experian Boost could turn your on-time payments into instant FICO score gains. Every bill you paid could become proof of your power. Self-made? Absolutely. Self-funded? Experian could help you get there. Download the Experian app today. Results will vary. Not all payments are Boost eligible. Some may not see improved scores or approval odds. Not all lenders use credit information impacted by Experian Boost. See Experian.com for details. Experian. Here's a tip for you. There's a podcast out there with fans waiting to be your next customer.

0:35They tune in every week. They trust the host. And that host wants to talk about brands like yours in their own words to their audience. The problem is you just haven't been introduced yet. We're Acast, where that introduction happens. As the world's largest podcast marketplace, we let you browse shows, see who's listening, and book host-read sponsorships or run your own ads all from one platform. Transparent pricing, real-time data, complete control. Start advertising on podcasts by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

1:12I think one of the biggest problems in this country around politics and policy is the failures of politicians who don't have the lived experience or haven't bothered to spend the time talking to people with lived experience of a whole range of issues. So they're co-designing and producing policies with the people most affected. Matthew Torbett is a man who has been doing a lot of campaigning on tackling homelessness with a housing first approach. And he has experienced homelessness himself firsthand. He first came to prominence in this country for his challenge of Suella Braverman's awful rhetoric that rough sleeping was a lifestyle choice.

1:47Today in the studio is Matthew to talk about why that was so wrong and what needs to happen next. Matthew, thank you very much for coming on Bold Politics. Now you do a whole wide range of things and we're going to dive into them. I think one of the most obvious is your work on homelessness. I suppose the first place to start is how did you get involved with this and what needs to happen? So I got involved because it happened to me. I, like lots of people, ended up homeless on the street because of family breakdown. I'm the eldest of four and I always think the eldest probably gets it a little bit harder than the other set of kids because you're like the trial child.

2:25And I think therefore there's an element of strictness that the others don't always get. I didn't get on with my mum and dad growing up. I think I probably had a lot of unresolved issues growing up. My mum and dad didn't really know what to do with me, how to cope. Me and my brother would fight like cat and dog. And I talk about it a lot. And I used to blame myself a lot. And I don't blame my mum and dad, certainly not anymore. I think, you know, they are human beings. And I think life is too short to not forgive. And, you know, we have an amazing relationship now. but I think I was a normal teenager, unfortunately, and they just weren't prepared, basically, on how to deal with it.

3:00So they kicked me out, and I slept rough on the streets of Manchester for 12 months. I was groomed into a gang from there and narrowly avoided going to prison. I was sentenced to prison for 12 months, involved in, similar to county lines, but it was involved bank fraud, checking people's cards, and they called it almost like a Nigerian underworld in Manchester. and I just wanted to put a roof over my head and if I'm honest, I thought I was streetwise, I was a little bit more naive than I gave myself credit for but at that point in time, after spending time being beaten up on the street, being urinated on, being dehumanised, starving, being filthy, not brushing your teeth for a week on end, not really wanting to be here anymore, the worst part of it literally is waking up every morning and a reminder of where you are and what the situation is and you're not dreaming for a moment anymore.

3:55So I narrowly avoided going to prison and my best friend's mum took me in and his dad, his late dad, and they basically gave me another chance at life. They were a little bit more, I wouldn't use the word educated, but they were different from my mum and dad. My mum and dad were very stereotypically working class. Mum was a cleaner. She had a small business for a while, making curtains and blinds with me nan. and my dad was a postman all his life. No sort of formal qualifications, but they knew what they knew and they got on with things. Whereas my best friend's mum, very liberal, voted, university educated, read The Guardian.

4:28Mum and dad read The Sun because it was 30p and it had the football and the celebrity gossip all in one lot. And because they also had a disabled child, I think they knew what you could and couldn't access from the system. So they said, go to college, go and get education, go and get your GCSEs, go and do an access course, you'll get it for free because you're currently unemployed go and then find work go to university and go and have a crack at life so I did and I never really spoke about it because I was I was probably a bit ashamed and I thought I'd done wrong as I said and I carried that with me and it was only it was so other Braverman's fault she's got herself to blame actually because she was home secretary under her guise as being a Tory MP and she said that people that rough slept was a lifestyle choice and people that had lived in tents on city centres and whatever it was a lifestyle choice they were doing it because they wanted to and I remember texting a friend saying can you please cover this and also can you get somebody proper in because I don't think there's many MPs that could do this justice because I'd not known of any that had the journey maybe I and others had done and she said why don't you come on and talk to us about it and I thought oh I've never done this stuff before and the feedback I got and the change the pushback that we had because at the time as well the Tories were looking at passing a bill I think it was the police and crime bill or something similar they were going to prosecute people for nuisance rough sleeping and offensive smell and and this sort of vague dehumanizing language and they relented on that because we started up a bit of a campaign I started touring around doing media I thought this is all a bit of a whirlwind and I saw the action that can be taken and also the pressure you can put on politicians if you use your voice, you know, properly and vouch for people who in a way can't vouch for themselves.

6:13You're not going to get rough sleepers invited to the studio. You're not going to hear from them. You're going to hear from politicians that don't know about this sort of stuff, want to use vulnerable people as the new kicking stick of that month and, you know, use it for politics. So I became passionate about it, wanted to use my experience for change and it's taken me, you know, a long way so far. What a journey. rough sleeping what what do you think is most misunderstood about it or the thing that that people don't necessarily know what it's like to rough sleep and what's the interaction like with other rough sleepers is there a sense of community or people very kind of they're just protecting to get through the day the biggest misrepresentation is that you deserve to be there you must have done something uh you know rough sleeping tends to be i mean it can happen literally to anybody it doesn't discriminate it can be a death in the family and nobody's no longer got there can pay the mortgage, it can be a job loss, it can be literally, you know, somebody coming out as gay in the family, disowning them.

7:10It can be an old manner of things. So I think there's an assumption that you must be a bad person or you've done something or, well, you know, if somebody's not taking him in, then he must have done something quite bad. And it's not always necessarily the case because people slip through the gaps. People have a view of rough sleeping where it's the sleeping bag under the bridge or whatever else. And it takes on many different forms. The thing that I think cuts through to people the most is if I was to say to you close your eyes or say to anybody at home close your eyes and I was to have a tape recorder and I played three different keys in locks you would know your own front door everybody knows the sound of their own front door and it's a sound I don't take for granted every time I turn that key there's a little feeling of I'm home again and I think what I'd like to get through to people is people who are the sound of their own front door and that's what I think we need to get back to is that everybody knows the sound of their own front door again because everybody has a front door to put a key in.

8:09With regards to my experience there was a sense of community in Manchester it was really interesting because different types of rough sleepers would congregate in different types of communities. You'll know Manchester well obviously and down near Chinatown you would have rough sleepers that also maybe had issues with drugs and they'd all congregate together. down by the border of Salford where the train station is with the border of Manchester. You'd have had rough sleepers with mental health issues. You'd have had ones in the northern quarter, people with issues with drink. And I, to this day, don't know how people found each other.

8:40I sort of stumbled upon people and I befriended somebody that used to squat and he would take in vulnerable people and all the rest of it. So there was a sense of community, but there's also a little bit of territorial nature as well. It's almost like having a pitch. Well, I sit outside the spa on Oxford Road. so that's my spot don't you be coming sitting there because I wasn't there because that's where I you know beg for change and actually you know so there's a little bit of that as well and it depends because people are vulnerable people have got elements of total trauma so you don't quite know what you're going to get but there was this sort of I wouldn't go as far as camaraderie but definitely a sense of community weirdly and people almost looking out for one another at times yeah in many ways it doesn't surprise me I used to work on Old Compton Street which obviously the LGBT sector of London And as you mentioned there, there's lots of LGBT people who are homeless because they've been kicked out by their families.

9:31I used to work outside on the streets doing leafleting. And very often you'd see almost like at the right time the meeting of lots of rough sleepers where they come together to chat and have a tea together and then you'd see them disappear again. In terms of how other members of the public would interact with you, I'm presuming a lot of it would be people would just ignore you and that would be dehumanizing. I imagine there are probably also people who would stop and chat. you could go a week without human interaction quite easily people mean well and i think my biggest concern in the immediacy of rough sleeping is the rapid rise of a sort of cashless society and therefore people not having that change to give because people don't carry cash or change anymore you get two types of people there are those that will just ignore because that's who they are from what i could tell and the interaction that you would sort of tell from their body language there would be the other that they feel embarrassed they they wish they could do something they wish they had the change they they feel bad that they haven't they don't want to ignore you but also this is really embarrassing for me and I don't I'm just going to pretend you don't exist and sort of walk on by a little bit you get people that offer food you'd also get again maybe due to the sometimes lack of understanding um there was a there was a couple of instances I had where one fella got really angry with me because at about half two, three in the morning, I had camped up outside TK Maxx on Market Street, and you weren't really supposed to be there.

10:55You used to get turfed on because it was outside a bit of a fire exit. But this fella had offered me half a kebab, right, which I laugh about now, but I thought, I don't really want your half a kebab. I'm hungry, but also, like, I just want some food. I'd have a sausage roll or whatever it might be. And the rage, I think because he was drunk as well and whatever else, the rage of how dare I say no to his half-eaten kebabs that he'd slathered all over and whatever else and ready to fight me and all the rest of it. And then also the fella that I think obviously meant well and didn't know what else to do and the only thing he could offer me was a tin of dog food as if it'll do sort of thing.

11:37And again, was kind enough when I said, I think I'll leave it actually, thank you very much because I thought I don't want to fight, I don't want to. You didn't know how people were going to react. So people definitely mean well. You definitely see an uptick at Christmas. I think it pulls on the heartstrings, the idea of somebody not having somewhere to go when families get together and all that sort of thing. The thing that I've tried to campaign on most, and it frustrates me the media won't help with this, is lots of media will focus on it at Christmas because, again, it tugs on the heartstrings.

12:04Nobody wants to talk about January. Nobody's got any money to give. Homelessness is an all-round issue. It bites just as cold in January as it does in December. and people are then ignored again. And nobody wants to talk about the fact that this has to be an all year round effort if we're going to end this, or at least in the immediacy, try to ensure people are well looked after. And it just isn't sexy enough or, you know, maybe they don't want to do two months on the trot of that as a story or whatever. But that's the thing that irks me. I think it's great that people are generous. If we're going to be doing it, it's got to be, you know, all year round, essentially.

12:38We'll get into this, I'm sure, in a moment. but even the idea that people have to be generous in January also annoys me in the long term as opposed to we should have a government that's making interventions. Just before I go there, we're talking about people urinating, the dehumanising things that the public might be doing. But also around that time, I believe that's when the government started to make hostile furniture, as it was called. So benches with spikes on them and things like that. What was your experience of that or experiences of people around you? You'd find doorways because certainly outside, and this will be annoying for people that don't know Manchester, They started doing it outside the selfridges because there was a long load of cement blocks.

13:14And because there was cover over it, you would get people sleeping along there almost in a line because you'd stay dry. There's nothing worse than waking up with a wet sleeping bag because you get ill. It's horrible. You can't sleep. You feel horrible. We all know what it's like to be soaking wet through if you're caught in the rain. Now imagine you've not got that house to go and dry off and go and have the shower and whatever else. The council could sometimes be aggressive at moving you on, or at least council-employed workers. They might be private contractors or whatever else. It's interesting, even now, I've seen people push back and go, just leave them alone.

13:47You know, people, if you're not doing anybody any harm, just leave them to their own devices. But for me, it'd be a strategic sense of trying to find a doorway, really. Certainly amongst some of the larger listed buildings in Manchester, you'd try and get into somewhat of an alcove. As I said, TK Maxx was a great one. but you tend to get security doing the rounds and they said this is a fire exit, we have night workers, you have to move on and they never liked doing it but they were always actually okay about it I think it seemed to be quite warm, I don't know if there was heat coming from below so you tend to learn where it was good to go and you just had to hope you'd be there first essentially and have that as your spot if you will And we mentioned the media have a responsibility in January and I take that to politicians as well to keep speaking about homelessness all year round more holistically though what does need to be done about uh the whole issue of making sure that people have a roof above their head we need to change the system and flip it on its head from what it is so there's a um a concept called housing first that was brought in in the new york in the 1990s they had a load of homelessness there and it flipped the current model certainly that we still have at the moment on its head we operate on sort of a treatment first or they call it a ladder model where you have to meet certain stipulations before you're seen as housing ready so for instance if you've got mental health issues if you're a former squaddie that's been you know struggles with ptsd or i mean it doesn't matter what you've come from you're going to have mental health issues if you've lived on the street for a period of time if you've got a drink or drug issue you've got to you've got to meet these these demands and kick that before we can get you into the housing my challenge and my annoyance has always been that's hard enough to do anyway if you're in a house, 10 times, 100 times harder if you're on the street.

15:30I have tried with the government. They at least appeared to listen or at least give it lip service and then just didn't bother in the last round of funding. I worked with the Centre for Social Justice who had a costed plan for£20 million a year that was already ring-fenced by the Chancellor in the last budget. That money is not going anywhere. That money is there that can be used specifically. You could double the amount of housing first places in this country between now and the end of the parliament that would be five and a half thousand people that would have a roof over their head housing first means no stipulations it is what it says on the tin housing first there's no you're not going to meet any any anything basically we will look out for you and you'll get the wraparound care alongside it finland have used it very well they've all but eradicated rough sleeping and homelessness they have a small amount of temporary accommodation usage but other than that it's rare instances i'm always a big believer of evidence-based policy and if it seems to work you have to question why you're not doing it, particularly when the government is spending over£3 billion each year on temporary accommodation that could be freed up for whatever usage.

16:33These people could have a home over their head. Andy Burnham has been a big supporter of it and has used it in Greater Manchester. Both him, Steve Rotherham and the West Midlands mayorality trialled it for three years and they had an 88 % to 92 % success rate of people keeping that tenancy. And they are people that are saved. that is human potential that can maybe go out and do all sorts of things. I try and make the case economically because unfortunately we have politicians that just see numbers rather than people at times. But if you want to put forward the moral case, over the last 12 months, 1 ,611 people died last year due to being homeless.

17:1111 of those were children and three of them were babies under the age of one. There is no way on this earth that we should be in the fifth or sixth or whatever richest economy on the planet, and we have babies dying because they have nowhere to live. It is a stain, and actually I would say an indictment, on where we are as a society and the politics that has plunged us to this. You go into politics to change people's lives, right? You know this. And you want to make a difference. And I don't know how you can see evidence looking at you in the face and ignore it for, I don't know, is there some sort of powerful anti-homelessness lobby out there?

17:47I honestly don't know what the reason is. but it's something I believe is achievable. I think I wouldn't use it long-term, but we showed during COVID that it could be done, even temporarily. There is no reason for anybody to be on the street tonight in London or elsewhere. And I believe it is a case of political will that for whatever reason is wanting at the moment. I think that's put so well, we could probably end the podcast there, but still have other questions to ask. I always try and avoid putting forward right-wing tropes on this podcast, but I also think for the audience to hear how we might rebut some of them is actually quite helpful too.

18:21So if a Daily Mail journalist was listening to this, they'd go, but if people have drink problems or drug problems or they don't want to work, why should the state provide for them and why should they give them housing? I obviously have my answer to that. It'd be great to hear. How would you respond to that? Of course, it's all in the long run. I think look at the people that are in work and that are homeless. Is that through their own choice? Because they're earning a cross, but it appears they're not earning enough to put a roof over their head for whatever reason. and that could even be a rogue landlord as we've seen.

18:50This is the reason why lots of families end up in temporary accommodation. Housing First is shown for every pound you put in, you actually make£2 because it is less resources going towards policing because that can either be people abusing people that are homeless or even homeless people maybe with issues that are taking part in antisocial behaviour or have issues either side. They're not using the health services often. You're not calling out. They're not using the prison system because you will find many homeless people that go it is much better to be in prison than be on the street because at least you've got the roof over your head and the three square meals a day and the gym and whatever else.

19:23So that's fine. If you're on the right and a small C conservative and you want to be economically, you know, unreliable, that's up to you. But really, I thought the MO of people on the right and these sort of fiscally responsible types, small C conservatives, is to save money and to do the right thing. Therefore, this would be the right thing to do. Makes so much sense. I suppose when you say that I don't know why they are spending less money on temporary accommodation, My immediate assumption would be that there's very lucrative contracts in temporary accommodation rather than the actual hard graft of just making sure that there's housing for people.

19:55I don't know how much you've followed through that to be true. There is. You certainly see it in the asylum system. And that's another aspect of homelessness, certainly in the more modern era, because we have an asylum system that isn't fit for purpose. You see certainly in cities like Manchester, London is probably the same, but Manchester there's about a 300 % increase in asylum seeker rough sleeping because the decisions aren't made on people's leave to remain or anything else within the six-month period of them applying to be an asylum seeker or refugee. Therefore, they're kicked out of the accommodation that they're put in because that six months is up.

20:26They're then on the street with no recourse to public funds. Therefore, they're there forevermore, for want of a better word, because they don't know if they have been granted asylum or not. So that is a huge issue. In the meantime, they have these, you know, I won't name names, but I know several hotels who are making quite a trade off the back of human misery, and whether that be people that are from this country or aren't, this is why you see 10, 15, 20-year contracts going on with government, because it is easier, apparently, to kick the can down the road, but that way they're somewhere, and you've not got to think about it, than building the houses.

21:02And at the moment, we have developers sat on land that is just accumulating more worth because it's about supply and demand, as we know. and then they'll blame the idea of the economy or inflation and actually it's not cost effective to build at the moment so we're just not going to bother building. And I just think as a government, I don't know how easy it is to do and how uncontroversial it might be, but you're just going to have to start compulsory taking land off people and going, we have a population that we have to look after, right? Again, aside of the moral argument, it's going to cost us all more in the future if these people haven't got somewhere to live.

21:34So let's start building houses and not just affordable with a pretend A. And, you know, it's not really affordable. And we've just come up with this the same. They call the minimum wage the living wage. And actually you can't live on it, so it can't be the living wage. We want proper social housing. Everyone should be able to have the access to that. And, you know, listen, that was one of the better things Labour did in 1945, the idea of it didn't matter what money you were on. It was about building communities. And you could be, you know, the businessman at one end, but you had the butcher at the other, and you had the school mum at the other and all the rest of it.

22:04And that's what I think we need to get back to, because at the moment, not to go off on too much of a tangent, we have people becoming more insular, living in their phones, a total lack of community. And therefore, that has that knock on effect, homeless or not. Yeah, absolutely. My wife won't stop talking about Jerry. Jerry. Says he saved us money on car insurance. Mine too. Found her a better rate and didn't waste her time. Who is this guy? Babe, Jerry checked again and found us an even better rate, pulled 20 quotes from top insurers, showed them side by side, and helped me switch policies in the app.

22:43It's a car insurance app. Yep. Let's just... Never happened. Do yourself a favor. Visit jerry.ai slash acast. While every other channel is fighting for your customer's attention, podcasts are where they've already given it. No one accidentally listens to a podcast for 45 minutes. They choose to be here. They trust the voice in their ears. And when that voice talks about your brand, it doesn't sound like advertising. It sounds like a recommendation from a friend. Acast gives you that trust at scale. Digital precision, post-read authenticity, and performance data that proves it worked. Don't fight for attention.

23:18Buy it with Acast. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

23:27and then linking in that uh with poverty and particular shoplifting um we see uh on social media particularly often videos of people you know shoplifting and people claim this as if every homeless person or every rough sleeper is shoplifting i've got strong views but it's interesting to hear yours it isn't i mean listen there may well be rough sleepers doing it what you'll find having worked in shops is it's more organized than that this is organized gangs doing it this is food is now and actually with what donald trump is doing with regards to iran it's going to become even more expensive and therefore more lucrative to be stealing stuff i've worked in pubs people you would get regulars coming in with legs of lamb or coffee or butter or cheese or whatever it was and flogging them for a few quid they weren't homeless they were just you know rogues for want of a better word these were these were people you would find on your estate that you all knew about but that was their way of making an extra crust that's not to say it's right but the idea that this is just rough sleepers if you're a rough sleeper you're not taking 25 cheese and bacon sandwiches from from greg's right that's somebody that's got some element of business plan behind this organized or not i get the argument particularly that you get from the right but in this current climate people feel a sense of unfairness about society and if you think well i have to buy my food and i can't afford it and why is somebody nicking it i think yeah it's not fair but I would struggle to tell the mother Nick in the baby food or or the single dad who's trying to put food down his throat because he's had to give it to his kid whoever it might be you know everyone's got their reasons it doesn't make it right but it's people want to say it's all homeless people that's just plain wrong it's not it's not the case it's in many cases vulnerable people in other cases certainly a more organized element of people making a few quid yeah makes total sense and so then that leads on to a conversation that I know you've been doing a lot of campaigning on which is prisons and the fact that the prison system isn't working and often those same people who have been stealing nappy food or baby food particularly women might end up in in prisons now we obviously did an episode of this recently on bold politics but um what would your case be against prisons and and how they are or more accurately aren't working we have a prison system fit to fit to burst many prisons over 100 full that is not safe for either the prison officers or prisoners, quite simply.

25:45I've got friends inside, and they don't know if they're going to survive at the end of their sentence. One friend, for instance, currently in Manchester, his first day walking on the landing was a fella offered either a mobile phone or a knife the size of a machete. Don't ask me how they've got them in, they've got them in. And he said, I think it was 500 quid for the phone or two grand for the knife. And he said, you'll need one of them. And that is genuinely the everyday existence of many prisons up and down this country. I think the reason it's fit to burst is because I think since 1990, the maximum sentence length has doubled.

26:28Therefore, people are staying in prison for longer. I'm always a believer most people can be saved or helped. And people will say that's naive. I know that through my own experience. Not everybody. some people may be too far gone or whatever else but again I speak of human potential because I know that could have been me and if I hadn't have had the helping hand I had I can't say I would have stayed on the right path because you get desperate and what what can happen is when the sentences are harsher or longer is you've got to wait even longer to get over uh declaring it to people and there's a reason why you have to declare it you do your time whatever else I would ban the box on job applications in which says, do you have a criminal record?

27:07I think unless you're working in national security or something really serious, that's maybe different, but they'll do the checks anyway. But there is very little reason for you to put that to be rejected. What will happen is your application might be strong, but they'll have another application and go, well, he's not as good as him, but he's got that baggage and we don't know about it. What I found is when I could get in the interview room, people's perceptions would change because they would see, One, I was sorry. Two, there's context to my story and there will be many other people's stories.

27:36And actually, they might be all right. And what you'll find is, as James Timpson's shown, is most people are desperate for that second chance. They'll be a better worker than you could have imagined. The other thing I would say is that we need to use community sentencing more. Community sentencing is not a lesser sentence than a prison sentence. It still ruins your life. Everything in this era is Google-able if you do something wrong and it is in the media or whatever. you cannot escape that but it means you still see your kids and there's not that knock-on trauma effect you can still go to work and there'll be people that say well you shouldn't be allowed to how are we expecting people to come out and get on with their lives i actually heard an interesting one from a right-wing mp i'll tell you about after this i won't name drop him um but i was quite surprised at how sensible it seemed he he thought that most prisoners should be allowed out at a weekend to go and work and they could save that money to be able to get a house or a flat or whatever it is, once they got out.

28:31And therefore, you're not just releasing people with a£46 travel grant and expecting them just to find their way through life because it doesn't work like that. So again, it's almost like flipping the telescope. And I think community sentencing is a great thing. I think people like Jacob Dunn have done amazing things with regard to restorative justice and how powerful that can be in stopping people committing crime. Girl, I know that committed over 100 crimes, petty things, shoplifting, thieving, whatever. Once she was brought to heel and brought face to face with that victim and that powerful thing of going, that's the person that I've scared and didn't know because they were upstairs in their bed when I was stealing from their house.

29:09That's the person that I've upset. That's putting that human element on the crime I've committed that for me felt faceless and just something quick and easy for a few quid. I don't want to do this anymore. It works. Again, it's another thing that works. I know Jacob has been pushing very hard with it with regards to the government. again a little bit reticent to move forward with that which is a shame but they're three things I would certainly look at doing. I'd love to shout out the group as well Switchback who have been doing a lot to work with prisons inside them and indeed the Dusty Knuckle which exists in Dalspan I think maybe also in Camden I might have got the location wrong but they go into prisons before people leave to work with them so it's not such a sharp transition and then they work within the bakery to train people up with skills and then lots of them stay working in the bakery but other people then have transferable skills to go elsewhere which is good there shouldn't be a need for them right years ago you had people that did that two months before you would leave you would go and see somebody that would show you the properties that may or may not be available what happened when the coalition came in is they were all sold off for a start and those jobs were the first to go when it came to austerity and therefore you've immediately if you're thinking about a chain with links you've took that link out and that person's falling straight out then and that that's so it's amazing they're doing that and the same with switchback However, paid jobs were there for people to do as well and not need to step up and volunteer.

30:30And it's a shame that they've got to in that sense. It feels like a theme of this conversation is kind of a false economy where governments, mainly the coalition government, took cuts in order to save money. But actually what it's done is cost us huge consequences in terms of a societal fabric that holds us together. But also if you just look at it through an economic frame, it's actually cost us fortunes and is declining our society. We've seen loss of life. We've seen all manner of things. And I think what it's done is it's made our politics quite corrosive. There's a reason people feel worse off at the moment.

30:59And there's a reason that there appears to be a real anger in the country at the state of things. And I think largely it's because big decisions haven't been made and therefore things haven't got done. I also think we haven't punished people that deserve to be punished. Life felt better in the 90s because we had a 36 % debt to GDP ratio. after 2008 and we had bankers you know going willy-nilly with subprime mortgages of which nobody was jailed nobody was really punished other than golden handshakes maybe being taken away took a huge hit to the economy we've then had brexit which has wiped nine percent off our gdp and people are worse off ever more and then people could say they you know it's maybe not their fault i think they could have been better prepared quite clearly it's covid and because of that it feels like nobody's ever held accountable.

31:45There is one rule for one and one for another. And what the politics of that populist right is, blame your neighbour. So it's the immigrant, all of a sudden it's trans people's fault apparently. There's the small less than 1 % of the country that are trans. It's all their fault, all the ills and whatever else. That's what it is. And I think we have to get better at reframing and going, no, no, these are the people with power. These are the people that are making the decisions that directly impact your lives don't fall for him who's going to do it all over again against you he's not on your side and part of my working assumption is one of the problems we have is politicians even when they're well-intentioned because they haven't had life experiences like yours or it doesn't even need to be as traumatic as that because they've not had life experiences where they've had real struggle or an actual job outside of politics that there is just a huge blind spot or huge kind of grey area in what it's like to live in society at the moment.

32:42And I think that's why we keep kind of ending up in this cycle of things not getting better. I think there's definitely a professional class of politician. And in some cases, there might be a small need for that. I have to be representative of the country, which, you know, if you're looking at privately educated people, it'd be a smaller percentage of the people that are currently in parliament and were privately educated. And I think, you know, people have got foibles about if you want to send your kids to private school and you think that's the best thing to do that's up to you we live in a free and free and fair society where i saw it certainly get corrosive in parliament is i think people probably have good intentions sometimes and they're corrupted by their own parties so we'll offer you a job in the whips office or we'll give you a shadow brief but you've got to do as we tell you now we'll we'll reward you but obviously you're on our side now and you don't ever say anything out of turn and the whole whipping system is ridiculous in many ways and it doesn't allow for individual thought it doesn't allow for new ideas, to be honest with you.

33:38And that, I think, is a massive problem because people are cowed into making bad decisions, I would say, at all levels of government. I don't think you necessarily need an experience like mine. I don't think I'd be a particularly good prime minister. My agenda is to end homelessness in this country. That's my whole agenda. And there are too many people in politics, as we all know, that have ulterior motives and agendas that aren't necessarily conducive to the good of the working class or the ordinary people in this country and that that is an even bigger issue. And how hopeful are you that we can turn this around?

34:10Do you see the the vision and the plan of how the steps happen to make sure that we do end homelessness in the country? I have hope and I think I have to have hope otherwise I would give up tomorrow and there are people out there relying on us all to have hope to make a difference and the will and the political will and moral will to make a difference. I'm no royalist right. If the next king gets it and is is implementing a housing first scheme of his own which listen he doesn't have to do um but he's decided that's his pr thing and he's gonna go out and he's gonna house people and he understands it and appears to sort of go yeah this makes sense to me then how do people further down that chain who aren't royals not get it um and what is it going to take for us to get it so we have to be fearful of those that are leading the polls and that will perpetuate myths that these people are the ills of society and we go back to an era of the ragged-trousered philanthropist or the sort of 1834 poor law or whatever else it might be and that they should be punished and ignored and their feckless, work-shy layabouts and promote those voices, give them opportunities and work together to do this.

35:18I think regardless of where you come from, you deserve the support and the help. And I also think it's something where left and right can come together because I think, you know, if you're some Tory Toff type, you don't like seeing that person on the street. because you think it's not nice. Well, that's fine. You also might have somebody that goes, I hate seeing that because I care. Well, that's great. We can help the pair of you because we've got a plan to change this. We're going to do things like housing first. We're going to give people opportunities. We're going to turn off the taps of poverty, as Lord John Byrd says.

35:47I think that's also the part of it. This is a homelessness crisis, but it's a poverty crisis is where it starts. And that's where you have to start. You turn off those taps and you provide opportunities for people and that will go some way to ending the issue itself. And I've seen examples like I was in Hastings last week where they've over halved the amount of rough sleeping and while I've been there, the amount of rough sleeping still isn't acceptable but it's good to know good steps have been taken to reduce it. Are there examples around the world where rough sleeping has been eliminated entirely or good kind of international examples?

36:16Finland is the one. Finland has all but eradicated homelessness and that was also because it was a cross-party idea that okay, this is the best way that we see this happening. Lo and behold, it took its time, took about 20, 25 years, but it's not an issue anymore. And that's where you want to get to. I think my pessimist nature would be, do I see people across the different aisles of the House going, yes, this is the right thing to do? And I think for their own reasons, that isn't going to happen, which is why I think you've got to get as many people with the right progressive ideas into Parliament, and into positions of power that go, okay, yeah, no, we, despite being in different sides, can agree that this is what we want to do on this and somehow ring-fence that as the best idea because it's been proven to work.

37:00And again, I will always reiterate the point that this is people's potential. When you're talking about babies, babies that have, you know, they've not even begun, it's a stain on society. It's been an incredibly powerful conversation. We've really focused in on homelessness, which I think is important, especially with the experiences you've had. Is there anything else you'd want to mention? So I am writing a book about my own experiences. I want to use that not as a sort of misery memoir, but to sort of push back against some of the myths that are sometimes perpetuated and to sort of maybe use as a driving force to encourage people to try and join the campaign to end homelessness.

37:39We're hoping to have it out next year, but TBC on that. But I think if I can use my moderate platform to be a public microphone for others, that's something I'm going to continue doing until there's no breath left in my body, really. And if people have watched and listened to you today, as I'm sure they will have, and go, actually, I feel reinvigorated in wanting to tackle this, is there an instant place you tell them to go or a campaign they should get involved with? Yeah, I think it depends where you live. For those based in London, there is an amazing place called Your Place in Newham, amazing charity that have just opened up a new Housing First complex to house people.

38:15Newham, I think, has the worst levels of rough sleeping in London. They've done some great things in Parliament and trying to encourage MPs to get behind it. They're a great place to go and start. I think also, by a big issue, I know John Bird has been running a campaign, certainly over Christmas, many people are paying for the magazine but not taking it. And it's about going, this is not necessarily a charity donation, this is people's livelihood, so take it with you to read the magazine, you know whatever but take it from them to not dehumanize them and give them a pat on their head it's about going I'm happy to buy your service and and take it away with me so by a big issue I think you have to chat with people learn what they what they need and actually the the only final thing I would say the one thing that I always found at least helped regardless of the position I was in just say just just respond speak to them say hello sorry I haven't got the change are you okay you know whatever it is just that little bit of human interaction can make it that tiny bit easier because at least you've been seen always try and interact if you can even if you can't help at that time it's such an important point about the big issue i confess i've definitely done that in the past and i've done it with good intentions as i said oh i don't need the magazine and i've read it online or whatever but i've never thought about that before actually this is someone's livelihood and they want to give you a magazine yeah i'll definitely take that on board for sure and finally if anyone wants to know more about you how can they find out more about you i'm online everywhere at matthew torbitt uh if people wish for me to come and talk to them I've got a website, matthewtorbit.com.

39:44And if people want to email me, I'm at matt at matthewtorbit.com as well. Happy to engage with everybody of all political stripes on how we can do this together. Well, matthewtorbit.com, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you very much. Cheers, mate. I really appreciate that.

40:04You stopped waiting for permission and started building yourself, your dreams, your credit. Experian Boost could turn your on-time payments into instant FICO score gains. Every bill you paid could become proof of your power. Self-made? Absolutely. Self-funded? Experian could help you get there. Download the Experian app today. Results will vary. Not all payments are Boost eligible. Some may not see improved scores or approval odds. Not all lenders use credit information impacted by Experian Boost. See Experian.com for details. Experian. When do the images we see online become too much for us to handle?

40:38Job at Writers Theatre is an intense psychological thriller that skewers the insidiousness of the internet, the meaning of work, and the ramifications of a secret revealed. The off-Broadway sensation and edge-of-your-seat thriller about big tech and even bigger secrets is on stage at Writers Theatre April 9th through June 14th. Do you keep hearing podcast ads like this one, for example, but always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization? Well, it's easier than you think. We're Acast, and we give you the platform to do it all yourself. Browse thousands of popular podcasts, choose the shows that match your perfect audience, set your budget and launch.

41:25And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com slash advertise.