I like many others spent last week observing Mental Health Awareness Week. Fresh out of that, I feel we must acknowledge Britain’s shameful poverty crisis as the key driver of mental illness on this country.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, acknowledged in an opinion piece for HuffPost last week that “having decent pay, a stable home and a powerful sense of community are essential for our wellbeing and sense of purpose, but far too often they aren’t there when we want them”.
Although these words are accurate, I can let you know that, as a bishop and the founding father of anti-poverty and anti-addiction charity Church on The Street, what I see on a each day basis is much more extreme.
Decades of austerity, the after-effects of Covid-19 and lockdowns, and cuts to public funding have culminated in a rustic where moms lie awake at night, their bodies racked with fear because they can’t feed their children, families share a single toothbrush and garments between generations, and fogeys routinely skip meals in order that their children can have something to eat.
As Christians, we worship a God who’s deeply concerned concerning the poor and vulnerable: In Psalm 109, we see the words “For he stands at the appropriate hand of the needy. to avoid wasting their lives from those that would condemn them”, and in Psalm 113, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.”
It is sweet to speak about mental health, but when the structural framework of our country: the systems which can be imagined to help our residents live with a basic level of dignity, are so eroded by government cuts that there could be no meaningful change, we Christians have an obligation to act, and, within the words of the Apostle James, ‘be doers of the Word, and never just hearers of it’ (James 1:22-15).
How we vote matters, how we use our money matters, and the way we use the gifts that God has given to every of us matters – we must use these resources to lift the burdens of those around us, and protect the vulnerable. The Bible calls us not only to assist individuals, but to call out the systems that keep people trapped and address the necessity for justice and social reform, as we see in Isaiah 58:6-7:“Is not this the type of fasting I even have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it to not share your food with the hungry and to offer the poor wanderer with shelter — once you see the naked, to clothe them, and never to show away from your personal flesh and blood?” Research from the Mental Health Foundation shows that children and adults living in households in the bottom 20% income bracket in Britain are two to 3 times more prone to develop mental health problems than those in the best. Before human beings may even give their mental energy to things corresponding to future hopes, goals and dreams, they will need to have their basic, physiological needs met – food, water, shelter and clothing. And yet 354,000 people on this country are homeless, including 151,000 children, in line with the charity Shelter, 13.6% of UK households live with moderate to severe food insecurity as reported by the Food Foundation, and 5.5% of individuals are living in clothing poverty despite the undeniable fact that we throw £140m price of ‘perfectly good’ clothing away, in line with Sol Escobar, the founding father of tech for good social enterprise, Give Your Best. It is not any surprise that we have now a mental health crisis within the UK, and that it’s the poorest who’re suffering essentially the most.
The level of poverty I see in my hometown of Burnley alone, where Church on The Street operates, is really shocking. The increase in destitution over the past five years of welfare and public service cuts is such that many individuals are degraded beyond recognition – it’s utterly heartbreaking.
People are so poor that they’re eating out of dustbins, just foraging on the road for anything to steal, sell or use. Their mental health is at all-time low, and hunger and drug addiction from the pressure of poverty is so severe that folks cannot maintain the fundamental level of functioning required to use for the limited advantages they may receive, or carry on top of essential medical appointments. It’s a level of desperation that I just have never seen before. If the federal government doesn’t prioritize alleviating poverty and homelessness we cannot call ourselves a humane society.
If we profess the name of Jesus Christ and want to like God and honour His word, we must take radical motion to alleviate the suffering of the poor and pray for an end to destitution – a word that mustn’t exist in twenty first Century Britain.
A month after his bestselling autobiography, Blown Away: From Drug Dealer to Life Bringer, was published, Pastor Mick Fleming was consecrated Bishop of Church on the Street in Burnley and of The International Christian Church Network. COTS is a Christian community dedicated to helping others, particularly those that find themselves homeless, struggle with addictions, or are on the bread line.
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