"When you are living in a hostel, you don't have any value in your life. You don't have belonging. You hit the lowest point imaginable in terms of self-worth and how people view you. I was living in a hostel for seven years but football helped me get through because I had a focus. It enabled me to leave the hostel and feel like I lived in the real world. For the duration I was in a hostel I didn't tell people. It was the fear of being judged.”
People, ask, “How did you play football for England while living in a hostel for years?”
“But if I didn't have football, I wouldn't have got through that period. Living in a hostel, you see the choices some people made because they had nothing and didn't have that focus or motivation. Football saved me." The words uttered are from a top footballer, 39-year-old Fara Williams, who plays for the Women's Football Team England. Williams speaks of how she managed to cope with homelessness in an interview with the journal 'The Big Issue,’ a charity newspaper which helps create work as vendors for homeless people.
In some poignant moments she reveals how her team mates offered psychological and material help by offering her a chance to have a shower, some rice, as well a stay overnight at their homes. This was important because "the hostel was not a clean environment." During that interview, Fara Williams also expresses her concern about mental health problems the homeless go through and how those who suffer can often be too embarrassed to ask for help or suffer from such problems without realizing it.
Many people will identify with how Fara found solace in playing football. As a history teacher at Glasgow university once told me, "Football is not just a game for people here. It is like a religion!"
The historian T.M. Devine wrote that from the turn of the 20th century dancing and football represented a form of escapism as well as performing a role in forging part of an identity for many working class people throughout Scotland. But why did football seem so alluring to so many people in contrast to other sports?
Devine stated, “Football did not require any expensive equipment and could be played on almost any surface, an important consideration in towns where massive physical expansion often reduced space for recreation. There was also more to it than this: 'to the worker with magic on his feet, football offered a way out of the industrial system; to him for whom the magic was only in the mind it offered a few hours of escapist release.' The workers became football mad.' {‘The Scottish Nation 1700-2007,’ by T.M. Devine, 2008 Edition, London and New York: Penguin Books}.
Devine might have mentioned how many women met and organized their own football teams before the Second World War. When the late Queen Elizabeth the Second visited Glasgow she was a little surprised to notice how so many young girls played football with the boys.
Fara Williams certainly would not be surprised to see so many young Scottish girls playing football on the streets with the boys. And Fara Williams is currently working for charities which help the homeless as well as also raising awareness about mental health issues. She is working along with Prince William to help end homelessness in Britain. In this respect, she has a lot of work on her hands.
The latest figures indicate that homelessness among young people has shot up over the Christmas holidays. Research by the Charity Center Point estimated that as many as many as 135,800 young people in England approached their local councils for help. And those are only the people who were not embarrassed to approach the council to ask for help. Others remain awkward about asking for aid.
In addition, the charity organization “Shelter” has found that as many as 130,000 children are homeless in England.
The reasons for so many young people becoming homeless are clear. Young people suffer from distinct disadvantages: they are more likely to be doing low paid jobs at a time when the deemed minimum wage is lower for those under 23 and those under 25 receive less welfare benefits. Young people have less savings and less work experience. They can also be in a catch 22 situation where they can't get experience because they have never worked and can't get work because they lack work experience. Soaring rents, higher inflation, abysmally low wages and the notorious no fault evictions law renders young people highly vulnerable to homelessness. This is not to mention a deep sense of alienation at feeling abandoned and misunderstood by their elders.
Witnessing and working with young homeless people, a coalition of 100 charity groups asked the public to sign a petition to draw attention to the predicament of so many young homeless. If you read their appeal you will notice how quickly dated it has become.
The appeal states that “In 2021-22, 129,000 young homeless approached their councils for help. Yet no one is talking about this and there is no national plan to end this ahead of the general election,” states the author of the petition, Polly Stephens.
Now the figures have risen to almost 136,000 young people approaching councils, from 2022-2023. The letter of appeal states that if they receive 10,000 signatures the government will be forced to respond to the petition, and if they obtain 100,000 signatures the petition will be considered for debate.
Unfortunately, the petition has gathered approximately 3,600 signatures and the deadline for signing is 21 March 2024. But I think it still not too late for the petition to gather 10,000 by the deadline. Never say die.
The frustrated author states in the letter of appeal that no one is talking about young homeless people.
This disaffection is understandable. But our heroine Fara Williams is certainly talking about those issues. And many more will surely raise their voices !
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Author’s notes
1. See the moving article “From Homeless to Lioness: an Interview with Fara Williams,” in ‘The Big Issue,’ 31 July 2023, pages 28-29.
2. ‘The Scottish Nation 1700-2007,’ by T.M. Devine, 2008 edition, London and New York: Penguin Books. Devine is one of Scotland's best historians and writes in a lucid and highly informative way about all aspects of Scottish life such as how the Scots in Glasgow adored ballroom dancing and football during the interwar years. Much the same might be said of parts of England.
3. The petition addressed to the British parliament about fighting the young homeless is still available on the internet.
4. We recommend readers click into the on-line Journal of the British Newspaper ‘The Guardian’ as they almost often publish detailed and well-researched articles about the homeless and readily reveal their sources to readers. We appreciate and acknowledge the great job those journalists are doing to raise awareness of the homeless who otherwise are more often never heard.