Family relationship breakdown – due to illness – blamed for three-fifths of youth homelessness

Last Updated: December 10, 2016By

Young homeless: Brookemorgan, pictured, went to live in a Centrepoint hostel when her relationship with her Mum broke down [Image: Centrepoint].

Which of you will be ignorant enough to blame the mother for suffering with depression?

I’d like to hope none of you would. But the mood in the UK is one of ignorance, stupidity and selfishness so I have serious doubts.

The simple fact is that the problem is societal, systemic. If the mother had proper care and treatment for her illness, then perhaps the relationship with the daughter would not have broken down and the daughter would not have become homeless.

But the help wasn’t available. It has been legislated away by the Conservative Party (and their friends the Liberal Democrats, during the Coalition Parliament).

But the Tories and the Lib Dems don’t get any of the blame. It’s always the victim’s fault in Tory Britain.

Homelessness – so the old assumption goes – is all about addiction, abuse or someone’s own self neglect.

Brookemorgan Henry-Rennie, 18, knows to her cost just how different the reality can be.

“When mum had depression, it was like living with a dead person – she didn’t eat, talk or get out of bed,” she explained.

“I was too young to understand what it meant. I just wanted her to snap out of it and when she didn’t, I was very resentful.

“We stopped talking and our relationship broke down completely. Eventually she asked me to leave.”

Brookemorgan is now a resident at a south London hostel run by Centrepoint, the youth homelessness charity.

And her story is not unusual. The reality is that, as Centrepoint has found, family relationship breakdown is the cause of the plight of six out of every 10 homeless young people.

Source: ‘Mum’s depression pushed us apart’: Family relationship breakdown to blame for 60% of youth homelessness 

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

latest video

news via inbox

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

5 Comments

  1. casalealex December 10, 2016 at 6:16 pm - Reply

    Here you go, Maggie May, what a girl!

    “It ain’t us guv, blame anyone else except us, we ain’t done nuffin wrong, we are the good guys, and we are gonna carry on cheating and lying our way through the next four years of hell!”

    They champed at the bit during the election campaign, with subterfuge, distractions, blatant lies, fear mongering, etc.. just waiting to fulfil the plans they have been holding back until they were in a position to implement them.

    Well, to all those who have been fooled, or even agreed with them, a week is a long time in politics, and another four years is an eternity; so batten down the hatches, pull up our drawbridges, prepare for a long siege, and pull together in the hope we might recover from the catastrophic policies being meted out by this regurgitated totalitarian regime on the people in this country.

    BLAME BLAME BLAME
    NO SHAME SHAME SHAME

  2. Barry Davies December 10, 2016 at 6:49 pm - Reply

    I think the problems go back further than that when the tories decided to close the mental health and learning difficulties hospitals losing thousands of beds for care its the community whilst allowing the numbers of nurses to drop, although more were needed to make care in the community work, having failed in those areas the tories are now trying it with general care, which has made it even harder for people with acute mental problems to get the help they desperately need.

    • Mike Sivier December 10, 2016 at 8:41 pm - Reply

      Don’t you mean “having succeeded”?
      The aim is always to deprive the poor of what they need.

  3. joanna December 10, 2016 at 8:16 pm - Reply

    This is truly heartbreaking, I don’t have any family ties, but to lose such relationships to depression must be horrifying!!! And trying to come to terms with the ensuing loneliness is going to have a ripple effect!!!

    Why are the Tories doing this to us all Mike? What could possibly be their endgame? (if they have one)?

    • Mike Sivier December 10, 2016 at 8:38 pm - Reply

      They just like having power over other people. It isn’t about money – they have lots. It’s about keeping money away from people who need it and could use it well, for the benefit of everybody.

Leave A Comment