A milestone – but not a celebration
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Trustee Steve Collett reflects on why the Whitechapel Centre isn’t celebrating its 50th year…

Our 50th year in existence has encouraged me to think about Whitechapel’s journey from its origins as a standalone day centre on Whitechapel, in Liverpool city centre, to a relatively large charity. It now provides a range of complex services for those who are on the streets, in temporary accommodation or even at risk of losing their homes. 

Like many other social and charitable institutions and organisations, the origins and mission of The Whitechapel Centre can be traced to the social, cultural and economic context of the time it was formed. Indeed, my own history of involvement in responses to homelessness in the city goes back to 1971 and, although I have only been a trustee of the charity since 2014, my direct contact with Whitechapel goes back to the earliest days of the mid 1970s. 

Cathy Come Home

The Whitechapel Centre now works with both families and single people experiencing homelessness or housing need and other support problems but its origins were very much about engagement with single homeless people. This concentration on helping homeless individuals needs some explanation. Ken Loach’s ground-breaking 1966 television play Cathy Come Home caught the public imagination and began public recognition that the post-war welfare state was failing many families. Cathy Come Home highlighted how housing and welfare authorities dealt with homelessness by splitting up families, leaving the man to fend for himself whilst children were housed in temporary accommodation with their mother or, worse still, placed in the care of the local authority. Organisations like the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and Shelter came into being during this time in order to fight for the rights of homeless families.

Alongside the general expose of poverty and family homelessness, Anton Wallich-Clifford, then a probation officer working out of Bow Street Magistrates Court, became particularly concerned about the plight of single homeless men and women who were being endlessly recycled between the streets, the courts and prisons. By the mid 1960s, his tenacity led to a number of Simon projects, particularly in the Southeast, and encouraged others to set up affiliated Simon Community projects in other cities, including Liverpool. Others drew on the original inspiration and values provided by the Simon Community to develop similar approaches – for example, the Cyrenians, St Mungo’s and the Petrus Community.

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The original day centre on Whitechapel

Whitechapel Day Centre began

So, within this overall context of recognising the links between single homelessness, criminalisation and imprisonment, the National Association for the Care & Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) set up the Whitechapel Project, an open access day centre in 1975. At that time in Liverpool, the vast majority of single homeless men and women found accommodation in the form of large common lodging houses and commercial lodgings, alongside two voluntary sector night shelters and about ten voluntary hostels. The quality of accommodation was generally very poor and the infamous 43 Shaw Street in Everton had two hundred beds distributed in open dorms with two toilets and one bath to serve the whole clientele. The estimates of single homelessness available at the time identified about 900 individuals with a further 200 in custodial and psychiatric institutions who would be homeless on release. Single homelessness was largely a male population but some 10% were women.

This was two years before campaigns for the rights of homeless people proved effective and resulted in the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act of 1977. Although establishing some basic and limited rights to advice and access to housing, it was clear that homeless individuals suffered discrimination and exclusion on so many fronts as a result of their status. One problem was access to primary medical care. This resulted in the use of hospital A&E departments for effectively obtaining basic medical care and, further down the line, bed blocking, because of the lack of suitable accommodation for patients to go to.

A life saver

Whitechapel was quickly on to this problem and, along with the Petrus night shelter, set up ad hoc access to volunteer GPs in the day centre. Inadequate as the provision was, it offered literally a life saver for homeless men and women at the time. Whitechapel was also instrumental in supporting research I was undertaking on behalf of the Liverpool Community Health Council, to identify the extent of the problem across the City (1). The final research report in 1976 demonstrated the low levels of GP registration of attendees at the day centre from a variety of accommodation providers, including the most overcrowded and unsanitary common lodging houses. In stark terms, some 8 out of 10 individuals had no access to primary medical care amongst a population with known high levels of mortality and morbidity. The situation was simply dire.

The operation of the day centre provided much needed medical services to attendees. The report argued against the negative stereotypes about homeless patients in terms of both their health problems and behaviour and made it more difficult for health service administrators – within the then Family Practitioner Committee – to ignore the problem of GP refusal to register homeless patients. The Report outlined how The Whitechapel Centre operated 50 years ago and how services were slowly developing. In line with the main recommendations of the Report, Whitechapel supported the argument that GPs must be amenable to the registration of patients whatever their address, as a reflection of their rights enshrined in the provisions of NHS legislation.

Slowly but surely services and access improved and, through further research and action by the Steering Committee – of which The Whitechapel Centre was an important contributor – our understanding of the lifestyle and systemic issues affecting the health of single homeless men and women became clearer. 

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Fifty years on…

This was 50 years ago, at the beginning of Whitechapel’s mission to help those who are sleeping on the street, in temporary accommodation or facing significant housing difficulties. The fact that Whitechapel continues to push the boundaries of what can be achieved with individuals and families is remarkable but we are not celebrating our 50th anniversary as such - how can we?

Our Chief Executive David Carter recently outlined the current situation to The Post: 

“4,800 individuals came through our doors last year ...which was a 10% increase on the year before. Since April 2024, we’ve seen that increase continue…rough sleepers represent the biggest increase: a 33% rise, now almost a quarter of the 4,800 cases …In a single month, we counted 192 people bedding down on the streets in Liverpool. That’s a phenomenal number, isn’t it?”

The ratio of male to female homeless people is about 70% / 30% but Whitechapel has also seen a worrying increase in the number of women sleeping rough. Among this cohort, substance abuse is an overwhelming factor, as well as escaping from domestic violence. However, the biggest challenge for Whitechapel in its 50th year is the continuing housing crisis and, as David told The Post, “As an organisation, we’re only as good as the solutions we can find for people. There’s an absolute dearth of accommodation – of social housing, rented accommodation… any accommodation. That means people are staying with us longer.”

From its early days in fighting for and providing access to basic medical care for homeless individuals to now, our services have expanded to meet the need. Our charity runs a wide range of health initiatives, a street outreach programme, supported accommodation, and a hospital inreach project, as well as a harm reduction service for men over 35 who wish to manage their alcohol usage. There are many other projects and services and we’re grateful to the Liverpool City Council and the NHS for their partnership. We have excellent relationships with primary health care providers and are proud of our capacity to work in partnership with agencies to deliver both health and social services which support individuals to rebuild lives undermined by homelessness. But the current housing crisis is putting all our work under pressure.

And the future? 

Our fellow citizens may not have to endure Dickensian common lodging house any more but unless housing homeless people in decent accommodation becomes a priority, and a reality, our 51st year of existence will be even more challenging that our 50th – this is why we are not celebrating.
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So rather than celebrate, what I must do as a current trustee is to acknowledge both the amazing resilience of the individuals who find themselves in dire circumstances, and the capacity and commitment of all our staff and partners in maintaining their commitment to never give up on any one individual looking to rebuild their lives and their futures. 

(1) The research report from which the extracts about the Whitechapel Centre were reproduced was:
 
Collett, S. & Stenham, R. (1977) Primary Medical Care and the Single Homeless in Liverpool, Liverpool Central & Southern Community Health Council, 73pp.

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