Kiara in substandard housing in Newham, east London. “The council and landlord just don’t care, there are cockroaches and leaks, and dangerous windows and wiring. They do nothing. Even now I must use this stick to turn off the lights because if you touch the switch, you get electrocuted”
Over the course of six years, the project covered London, Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, Brighton, Kent, Hertfordshire and Norwich.
The exhibition is a powerful plea to pay attention to the plight of homeless people.
Marc also exposes the phenomenon of “hidden homelessness,” whereby people are trapped in temporary accommodation and forced to endure horrendous living conditions.
Greg with his dog Roxy in Glasgow, “I would have checked out a long time ago but Roxy saved me so I can’t let her go. People look down on people like me, but we are people just like them. It makes a big difference if someone acknowledges you and treats you like a normal person”
How did things change for people over the six years?
The outcomes for individuals have been variable. To a large extent, it depends on the level of resources and support available in their particular local authority.
On an individual level, five of the people who were participants have died. That is a tragic waste of life and potential.
Others have been rehoused following the media coverage of Outsiders, while some remain on the street.
From a broader perspective, the homelessness crisis has worsened exponentially since I first started documenting it in 2016. Problems have been exacerbated by the cost of living crisis and the shortage of social housing.
Things are getting much worse, rather than better. I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel because there are no votes to be won by ending homelessness.
The government needs to build at least 300,000 new social housing units. They need to stop building ‘affordable housing’ and claiming that will solve homelessness because it won’t.
Sadly I have no hope that any of this will happen.
I declined to meet Prince William when he asked. I asked him to speak to one of the participants in the project instead, so she had an opportunity to tell him what she thought of his charitable endeavours.
Stephen died five months after this photo was taken in London’s Soho
Were there any particular images or stories that typify the enduring and ever‑present issue of homelessness in this country?
Everyone is an individual, so their stories differ. However, one common theme was how important early intervention is to prevent homelessness in later life.
Many of the participants were from broken homes, grew up in poverty or were abused as children and then failed by the social care system.
Stephen’s story was particularly tragic. He died shortly after I did his portrait after falling ill while sleeping rough.
I am sure that a proper intervention could have saved him. But nobody was there when he needed them the most.
He told me the hardest thing about sleeping rough is being ignored and treated like something less than human.
The project has been updated to include the homeless encampment behind the Adelphi Building, in London. What do you think this highlights?
Around 16 people were sleeping in 30 tents. Tent encampments were quite rare ten years ago and have now become commonplace.
It highlights that a different demographic is becoming homeless and that the response to this has been inadequate.
“Sireena ended up living in some of the worst slum housing in London with literally everything in her flat being covered with mould. Three days after photographing that property the mould began to grow on my camera bag”
The focus is on criminalising homeless people rather than helping them. Westminster Council agreed to meet with me to discuss the approach to this encampment.
Then they deliberately delayed the meeting and without notice evicted everyone in advance of the discussion. Local authorities lack the resources to deal with the encampments. But they also lack the will and expertise.
We risk mirroring what has been happening in San Francisco and Los Angeles with clearances and sweeps and criminalisation.
I will be doing a joint exhibition in Leeds next year called Across the Divide comparing and contrasting the UK homelessness crisis with the crisis in the US.
We’ve had over 120,000 visitors to the exhibition and many cried in the exhibition space or said they were filled with outrage. Hopefully it will have changed hearts and minds.
The exhibition was shown at the Houses of Parliament where MPs were directly confronted with the consequences of their policy decisions.
