Turning Tides - Elephant in the Room Appeal
The Elephant in the Room appeal calls on the community to confront the growing homelessness crisis that many now walk past without a second thought. Why are we no longer shocked?
From powerful poetry and thought-provoking webinars to student-led art projects, local homelessness charity Turning Tides has encourages community-wide action to raise awareness and funds. Read about the full Elephant in the Room appeal below.
A Community Coming Together
Poetry: As part of the appeal, local West Sussex poet, Liz Verlander, has created a moving and powerful poem now featured on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_5pvQDxybnQ?si=Xa76ihU2EPCW_k2q
Elephant Auction: Turning Tides will be auctioning an Eduardo Paolozzi Elephant Sculpture at the Henry Adams at their auction in Chichester on 26th March.
Webinar: Schools, colleges, churches and local businesses can get involved with talking about homelessness using Turning Tides’ webinar on YouTube, with discussion points to raise awareness, help understanding and find out more about what to do when you see someone sleeping rough. Understanding Homelessness: A Webinar for Groups, Businesses, Colleges & Schools in West Sussex
Local College Support: Northbrook college is also supporting, students from their Future You program, are giving incredible support with an art project, with an Elephant they have designed and will be photographing around Worthing, followed by a bake sale to raise funds.
Let’s Talk about The Elephant in the Room
Homelessness Must Never be Normalised
We need to face the Elephant in the Room; homelessness has become such a familiar sight that, too often, people are walking past without seeing the human reality. Once, seeing someone sleeping rough was shocking. Why are we no longer shocked? Turning Tides’ Elephant in the Room appeal challenges this uncomfortable reality, asking people to stop, reflect and recognise that homelessness has become the issue no one wants to talk about, despite its increasing visibility. Do we choose to look away, to assume someone else will help, or to blame the person experiencing homelessness rather than ask how they got there?
Homelessness can happen to anyone. Relationship breakdowns, bereavement, mental health crises, job loss and rising living costs. On top of this, systemic issues are driving more people into homelessness: hundreds of thousands of empty homes, over 155,000 in the Southeast alone, increasing pressure on mental health services, too few affordable homes being built (especially for single adults), and a significant reduction in social housing. Yet stigma persists.
Operations Manager, Niall Read said “Homelessness socially excludes some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is like being on the wrong side, on the outside looking in, seeing what everyone has but somehow not being able to reach it. By engaging, making contact and acknowledging those who find themselves sleeping rough, we can all create pathways and connections to bring people in allowing them to feel valued and to make changes.”
Through Elephant in the Room, Turning Tides is asking local residents, businesses and organisations to face the issue head-on, talk openly about the realities of homelessness to help raise awareness and vital funds so the charity can continue providing pathways out of homelessness for people in the local community.
