BBC Radio 4 2016-10-20

Good Morning,

50 years ago the film Cathy Come Home was broadcast on BBC1. Directed by Ken Loach it told the story of a young woman’s descent into poverty and homelessness and was so realistic many of its 12 million viewers thought they were watching a documentary. The film was called ‘the most successful piece of socially reforming drama on TV.’ It was discussed in Parliament, and the BBC switchboard was jammed by people wanting to give money. The charity Crisis was formed as a direct consequence of the drama. For years the actress who played Cathy was stopped by people in the street trying to press money into her hands.

50 years on and Ken Loach has made another film – called I Daniel Blake - about a disabled man’s struggle with the benefit system. Whilst it’s won the Palme D’Or at Cannes, and garnered great critical praise, Loach himself doubts the film will have the same impact. Indeed, he wonders whether a Cathy Come Home would even get made now, let alone cause the outrage it did. Partly because viewers, he said, ‘would rather wallow in fake nostalgia,’ but also because he thinks society has become more indifferent. Quoting scripture, this avowed atheist, says ‘we have lost the sense that we are our brothers and sisters keeper.’

Even people of different political persuasions agree that many of the problems raised in that film have not gone away. Tonight there will be around 3,500 people sleeping on the street. There are currently 75 thousand households living in temporary accommodation. Meanwhile, the amount of social housing built every year has dropped dramatically since 1966.

Could it be that our idea of what a home is has changed? That it’s less a basic human right and more something we earn the right to? An asset we manage as well as a place we live in? Many factors contribute to homelessness but the expense of property is certainly one of them. I’m relatively well-off, and I’m starting to worry about how my children are going to get on the property ladder; but what about the children whose parents aren’t even on it?

In the film, when Cathy learns from social services that she has no home she is humiliated by their indifference. ‘Why are you laughing? She cries. ‘Do you have a spare room in your house I could use?’ In scripture indifference to poverty is seen as worse than contempt and the prophet’s tongue is as unforgiving as a director’s lens in pointing to its consequences.

When Jesus speaks of God’s eternal accommodation he is encouraging people to provide for the basic needs of others. If we are to avoid becoming indifferent, we need to make room for this issue, if not in our houses, then in our imaginations. And it is storytellers like Loach who can do what the statistics can’t – put us in the place of people who don’t have what most of us do.