Forget about burning a £20 note - Oxbridge's attitudes towards homeless people tells a very different story

In the early hours of February 2, Ronald Coyne, a member of the Cambridge University Conservative Association,  spots a homeless man.

Stumbling down the street, he feels the urge to pull a £20 note from his wallet. He attempts to burn it in front of the homeless man.

Days later, these events - captured in a grainy Snapchat story, are plastered across the front pages of national newspapers. All dwell on Coyne’s attire. Clad in bow-tie and tails, he becomes the archetypal Oxbridge bête noir. Callous. Cruel. Elitist. But this incident does not reflect the majority of students’ attitudes to the issue of homelessness in Oxford.

It certainly is an issue, mind. The past half-decade or so has seen the number of rough sleepers spike rapidly. On any given night, some 3,600 people resort to sleeping on the street. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Between July and September 2015, 68,560 people were recorded as living in temporary accommodation such as B&Bs and hostels. It is emblematic of the difficulty councils face in finding emergency support and accommodation for the homeless. Capacity problems often force those who seek help onto the street. These are overwhelmingly single men who are not categorised as ‘priority need’.

If you walk around any of Oxford's main streets, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by this problem. I speak to John. Thirty years old, he became homeless at 16 after his mother died. Paul’s story was one of alcohol abuse and debt. It culminated with rough sleeping. Likewise Michael.

Although there are fewer women on the streets, their direct experiences also offer an important perspective on the impact of gender on homelessness. Sally does not have the money to buy sanitary products. She instead resorts to using ripped pieces of cloth. As the majority of homeless individuals are male, most shelters lack basic amenities such as tampons or sanitary towels.

The condition of these shelters also raises questions about personal safety. Female rough sleepers often report feeling unsafe, or how they have been victims of assault in such places. Or, as Sally puts it to me, ‘Shelter?! You’re having a laugh’. She draws on  her cigarette before snorting. I choose this point to make my exit.

It is half-past eight on a Monday evening. On Cornmarket Street, volunteers from the Turl Street Homeless Association (TSHA) are already handing out food and hot beverages. Formerly Jesus Homeless Action, the group was initially founded by students from Jesus College. The TSHA can currently call upon student volunteers from over 20 colleges. It was one student, Li Chieh Lu, who drove its evolution. Lu tells me that there are discussions ‘to expand to other areas…such as collaborating with the [Oxford] night shelter, as well as other student outreach groups’.

The TSHA’s expansion in function reflects the positive reception by students towards organisations and campaigns to help the homeless. Lu believes this is because ‘volunteers often bring their friends along, some of whom then decide to join us’. Indeed, I could not help but be struck by the enthusiasm and kindness displayed by the volunteers I witnessed on Cornmarket Street.

It is little surprise then, that real bonds are formed between volunteers and those they help. For Jan and Mary, two rough sleepers from the Netherlands, the hot drinks of the TSHA are ‘a blessing’. ‘Some of you kids even buy us pizza!’, exclaims Mary. Pizza is not offered by the TSHA; that there are individual students willing to perform these charitable acts attests to an alert social conscience among Oxford students.

The student dimension to volunteer work is significant. In Lu’s opinion, ‘many students see the work we [the TSHA] do, and acknowledge it as a good thing…but do not get involved because of time commitments’. This means that there exists an even greater obligation for local government to provide support for the homeless.

At the same time, Oxfordshire County Council is currently considering a 65 percent cut in vital services from 2017-18. These include housing, mental health, and social care. On top of the 38 percent cut to the same funding areas in 2014, there is now a distinct possibility that basic services which keep people off the streets will be closed. I ask John* what he thought these developments would mean for him and other rough sleepers. ‘We’re going to be stuck ‘ere, aren’t we?’ he says flatly, pointing at the pavement.

This squeeze on local government funding has stretched the provision of homelessness support to breaking point. The voluntary services offered by the TSHA and Oxford Homeless Action are welcome short-term panaceas. However, such groups are reliant upon volunteers. What about a long-term solution? Paul* finds little optimism in the future. ‘Things will get worse’. There is a pause. ‘But maybe those ones what are down in the squat have the right idea’.

Paul is referring to the Iffley Road squat. This disused Volkswagen garage was turned into a shelter by fourteen rough sleepers. They have been living in the building since January. It even has its own cooking and washing facilities. But for Sandra Phillips, one of the fourteen founders, this action represented a final straw. In a recent interview with the Independent, she spoke of the squat being a response to the closure of Lucy Faithfull House last year, a hostel with 61 beds.

This plight has certainly captured the imagination of Oxford students. Their names feature heavily on a change.org petition calling upon Wadham College, which owns the building, to refrain from evicting the squatters until spring. The Iffley squat has also provided the OUSU campaign, ‘On Your Doorstep’ (OYD) with a fillip. Photoshoots and petitions have succeeded in capturing student imaginations, as evidenced by the spike in likes received by OYD’s Facebook page.

While all of this demonstrates there is certainly no lack of altruism from a sizeable segment of Oxford’s student population towards the homeless, an awkward paradigm emerges. Structural changes in local government have meant that support is moving towards a model best describable as ‘stretched voluntarism’.

Yet these acts of kindness rarely attract the radar of national news outlets. Quick to pen scathing op-eds which depict Oxbridge students as cold-hearted toffs straight out of an Evelyn Waugh novel, the activities of groups such as the TSHA or OYD are ignored in favour of lazy stereotypes. The generosity and selflessness apparent in the activists I came across clearly show that Mr Coyne's note-burning antics are the exception, not the rule, in some of the UK's finest university towns. 

* Some of the names featured in this piece have been changed to protect the identities of interviewees.

Ioan Phillips is a student at Oxford University.