a food bank but not the status as national food bank fenlon doesn't have any food banks but has a well developed direct and decentralize food distribution system more happy messages to egypt says thank you alexander for the program to be looking forward to watching the show next week with a vital issue in our contemporary life well thank you grant to says great choice of subjects we can definitely learn from all our northern cousins magazine says i've been to finland and to north korea to learn how to do things differently for a start there's no letter because they have a local taxation system so people know if they don't like to their principality has to pay for it to be uplifted people need to be accountable and here they are not targets is going to finish education myself and my goal it ought to start this at 7 in finland my son in scotland started school it 5 i compared the school work and noticed that in her 1st year she had caught up and actually overtook my son's education my opinion. as a 7 year old can take loads more instructions and information and the school system is more efficient and fitment thomas says i've lived in finland for the last 20 years for me it's as a model for the potential of a small independent nor the nation of 5000000 people making its own choices and priorities and finally thomas says development of the individual seems to be central whereas in many other countries the emphasis seems to be more for the benefit of the state well thank you for your message and i'm sorry if i was unable to reach out we had a great response in fact the face that views for one of our shows was over 326000 people watching now an estimated 2 o'clock 8400000 people in england are living in an unaffordable and secure or unsuitable home according to research commissioned by the national housing federation their research estimated 3600000 are living in an overcrowded tool 2500000 are in hidden high schools accountable for to move i told including his shearers adults living with their periods 1700000 are in unsuitable housing such as older people stuck in homes that cannot get a rented 1500000 i don't poor quality homes and 400000 are homeless or at risk of homelessness including people sleeping rough or living in homeless shelters these dramatic figures illustrate that there is much more to the highs in crisis than rough sleeping however and quite discreet is fully as a journal has in crisis escalates so rough sleeping on the streets of one of the u.k.'s major cities rises with it but there are plenty of people not prepared to walk by on the other site a swat team conjure up images of hollywood action movies but there is a swat team operating in london in the heart of the great city and did intentions are much more peaceful this is alex's report. well randi here we are just off the strike and one of the richest cities in the world so tell us what's going on here i mean people think you know. they have. with serving the less fortunate in central london with food clothing we have medical provisions and we signpost as much to be found and swore a business was good and i want to. see welfare and the way in this team and the sikh welfare and we have this team yes. the things that mean selfless. and. i mean obviously what you're doing is practical action to help those who fall on hard times are unfortunate but how much is your religion. a driving force unless you know if i can disclose something i don't like to use the word for legion i have a responsibility to humanity to protect and just so this is my driving force to why we should be doing what we're doing religion doesn't necessarily make you a good person. but they look course. presbyterianism has a certain justification by good works as it does absolutely so you know it's a driving factor it does drive us to do what we do value values values values values compassion truth forgiveness. so tell me about your team i mean you've got people 7 mules you've got the dentists and. takers. the tempus is interesting nobody actually volunteers to go to a dentist. so tell us about your team who's helping out here tonight so we've got we're here 4 times a week just on this spot we're out 27 times a week in 19 locations in the u.k. with 7 about 4000 meals so this is just one of the sports where in the central london 152025 volunteers we've got the food. going on we've got a little clothing going on we've got the medical team. the medical team today we have a dentist because we have a pharmacist with us and we have some hygiene pots and we've got some students with us as well and the whole point of this is so when we 1st came out here we were serving food so we were kind of ok we're feeling the stomachs of hungry people they were asking us very close to the closing side then they were saying i need to see or i want to i want to help. so we started to signpost. the most recent thing that i noticed we noticed was people in pain but there was suffering in silence when the question was asked why do you not go to a doctor why do you not go to the hospital the mental health issues or they've lost faith or they've just given up just giving up so we thought you know what we're going to do it like we've bought the concept of the food from the sikh temple the length to the streets and what we're going to take the medical profession because food is very much part of of the sikh faith i'm in the communal eating is integrated more probably any other faith group is integrated into the article safest place an absolute vital role to bring people together you know you can break down so many areas with food to sit together you sit on the same level you know whether regardless of your faith what you look like what you eat whether you believe in god or not so make no difference social status coming you're welcome let's say listen together mental health is a major major issue if we can tackle mental health we can make some way forward to actually looking at why people actually ending up in the streets in the 1st place so you know there's so many different stories being abused when you were young loneliness drives you to depression drives you to gambling drives you to whatever else they could do so you know it's a can of worms you opening up a can of worms by saying how can this how much homelessness you must. to give them to the scene. to the people you're volunteers experience we need to kind of reflect ourselves we need to look. into a lot of resistance to some issues within their own personal lives which they feel they need to give back and they receive feel good factor something good in society and it's going to benefit me too. so there is. this this be real about this you know. trying to do a good deed in return there is something that we all have to. thank you thank you. tarpon pharmacist dentist. turned into this project so yes i was a volunteer the 1st time i helped was actually in the food side and the right people asked me he goes actually you're a qualified pharmacist you've got background in doing charity work and things of that so how about you heading up the health care service with a project for response what is the challenge to begin with we didn't know to what level of care we could go out and deliver to the homeless but we've we've actually managed to strike a really good balance we're providing health care services to the homeless now on a weekly basis in multiple locations. so we your professional background listeners are very practical interventionist absolutely health care service absolutely so we we focus on disease treatment as well as prevention so of the prevention interventions we actually provide hygiene products so we provide toothbrushes toothpaste to shoes so they can clean themselves in terms of treatment we actually provide medicines we actually provide some basic level of treatment as a target you know in a profession where the you don't nationally get a queue of people who are still really hard exactly to tell me about the practical dentistry that you're applying on the street so obviously we're limited to the extent of what we can do but our primary aim here is to make sure people who usually don't have as easy access to health care can get some access and some information of course like prevention is key but also when these people have the issues that they do have we all know to say can be quite agonizing we eventually all pagans bodies got was national called to try to direct them to the appropriate place and was we can we try to give away the pain relief we can best very rarely that quite a few people have quite an acute problem to try to the best we can for them here and direct them to nearest of emergency services available which are best experienced that you've had when you're going to wait until vention number if you manage to get there been tainted to say well no i mean. a really good example is we have a guy who's sleeping rough on the subway and he came to us with the bites what he thought was a rat in the mollies hands and when we looked at his hand it was actually you know there was a rush going up his arm those yellow pos coming out was awful and it been like that for days for him he didn't have access to chief he didn't have access to medicines from the pharmacy and the only place you could go which he knew there was long waits and he was any so he actually came to us as the 1st port of call but we actually dressed him up we had a nurse with us between his when we dressed him up and then we thought he needs a month's worth it so we actually looked him over to any at u.c.l.a. and the care he needed i'm told was the worst experience you if i was going to walk to your dental chair or when here it's having something to talk quite troubling because obviously paying attention affection can get quite large on the key problems from is the can thoughts actually a teacher airway which is quite a severe thing to happen so there was one person we actually had to call the united states to pick him up from here fortunately our hospital densher in surgery in my background so i knew exactly what city stabilized in the meantime we got them seen straight away a local. patients very grateful they came back a few weeks later saying thank you very much guys they kept me in for a few days 5 young spot it really looked often to prevent them getting something which could have become dramatically worse and the reason why they came to us is because of a sort of distrust of the habs going to hospitals because last year only i sat by the ethos behind the swat team was called. the we're here we are we're just off the street and one of the richest cities in the world. and yet we've got people for access to primary health almost in many cases people access to food and the basics of life there's more to be shared the usual professional expertise practical action i mean for me as a practice and see my faith has a huge bearing on it motivates me to come out here with with the community and actually serve the community and live a life of service of the me that that's what i try to. where it's in the n.h.s. service here will spend time giving there is a real sense of doing giving. everybody these are cases that same principles or dollars as quiet as the principle of looking after your fellow people treating everyone as one regardless of their faith of the background to indiscriminately look off to everyone and do as much as you can i'm fortunate blessed i've managed going to say if i can sacrifice my time to help others i'm more than willing to do on a regular basis how is it in terms of public policy we can get to a situation where everybody has a home to go to what is by any standards a rich powerful country from what we can see we can see we see people coming from all sorts of backgrounds in terms of ending up in this situation the thing is no one has ever got into it intentionally so 3 misfortune in passing tragedies what we find a life choice or life choice exactly we find is there is times the big blockades of when health care is a big push from the ground will charge you to make sure that people are aware you don't need to have a fixed abode to be able to register with a g.p. it's awareness more than anything i say lack of awareness from all the members of the homeless community about that idea they do have a right to access to care and that they need to push for that right a little bit more in certain cases guys thanks for what you take very much there for sure. but what's your role in this project and it's a blast role and i'm so glad to have the opportunity to manage the warehouse so every weekend we have to cook edinburgh volunteers that come and help us and we tidy up and arrange all the donations that come in for such a cord to materials is going through your case quite a lot is thousands of cops food containers beings and then we arrange the boxes by van where we have 3 vans the guy from the warehouse as well the health care section. organizing nonperishable foods as well and also free and it was quite a logistical operation of ours so you said you were blessed to be working on this project what you mean by that. i don't think it's it's not charity that is one it's a lot of time and it's such a blessing and like i gained so much trauma i don't think people realize that it's not she me helping is me gaining something from it and now feel really blessed to be a part of i suppose making a difference to humanity that's a great message thank you so mike who. joined us after the break where we'll move from st action to academic study however this is a university course where the difference join us that. i am i am. what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or some want to. have to go right to the press it's like that before 3 of the more people. i'm interested always in the waters about how. we've also discovered that there are genes in our bodies that protect us from aging we call these longevity genes and there's a set of genes that we work on in my lab at harvard called the sort to and and for those to work effectively to slow aging and prevent us from getting diseases they need a molecule called an 80. welcome back to the alex salmon show and our continuing studies on the housing crisis many of us to study how you think but the kick state university housing project is a very special course fine site why let's look at the how the issue of homelessness is being tackled outside the capital city of london i'm delighted to be joined by becky had what's the signal lights of the social work and social care invested david daly someone who was homeless and those studying for a muscular and creative writing and lucy davis someone whose 1st film was the age of 16 and i was studying for the bat solidify it's so this science absolutely splendid it so you thought you the best one of the country's smallest universe to say that this is an area you should be taking a direct interest in this is an issue which is something i could be mia could do something about yeah we have a very small university and we are very keen that the university of tits or is much more involved with the local community anyway and i. the same time as we were trying to think of what we could do to ways that we could make that happen we were approached by the local homeless terrorist say oh i like to talk to the people affected by homelessness courts don't care about who all. thought i did is about how we could work together collaboratively and that is where the project was born i got it they would use someone you spent a quarter of a century in teaching the truth and then fell on hard times just now you find yourself back in academia doing their master of arts and creative writing so tell us about. how you became homeless yourself became homeless in about 2014 where various personal circumstances just let's what downfall and somebody said earlier on about how things can you can lose things very quickly so i did i ended up losing everything so i became problems with addiction and prose with homelessness about it because about a quite a long career i did trial and there was something in me says you can't be too nice literacy like but it's quite difficult you get into hell quite easy again i was of course as you know and let you know 24 you were a peaceable education teacher and love to your home base was liverpool and god telling me you know you've secured job you well respected job but did you ever think you know things by disintegrate as if that that's a really good question because nobody every month and it will happen to them know where you are you know were able to stand how quickly can happen as well it's not it's no longer become a long process but sometimes it can take place unless in the year or you needs a tragic event a family followed by another tragic event all of a sudden everything you know how to which being just myself just fell apart i felt opposed to you kind of disintegration the and and i did lose everything she had rob oh yeah and then what happened then i moved down here to be because i had some friends down here and then i got involved with i do some volunteer work trying it. well how my feet on the sofa i want to go back and be it's schoolteacher over again and then i got hosts on pillow that they came out they stepped out and help me you know i just don't pose a challenge yakking with this or the homeless many many great authors of always said you know this that the past experience give them the greatest what does the fact the your life has said highs the lows the system how you you transmit that to the page the crazy right thing that's always been an interest of mine have always been a reader look on a thing and yes i know you know george orwell and dickens and this guy i think know them aspired to be like that but over the course of a year i would just go absorbed back into education after being in there for a quarter century later he said but education in a different format 2nd you know university education isn't the same as the 2nd just rules a 6th form so i had some core skills some transferable skills as well so once i got into working with the heat working with the with the with the cohort i was just i was back where i belong and occasion to where mr lucy davis you were 16 years old when you you spent your 1st night as a rough sleeper. tell us about go back to that night and what you felt a sense of everything i knew coming crashing around me as sense of shit panic complete disorientation complete. lack or my anchor point points that something we learned about the nexus course was suddenly just completely torn away. so sense of hopelessness feeling lost betrayed and completely uncertain this what's going to happen to me now so simple will happen to you that all i saw is his 1st round very sort of friends i knew from the 1st surf miller abuse going through marley's to please staying from place to place on floors of wherever people would have me and then i end up living in a van on the side at the age 27 by lance in college. and then from there kind of built my life back up into up until about 34 years ago when i found myself homeless again and oversample where my most recent stint was stone pillow was last year i worked very hard in the question it industry candles by. then i had some difficulties with family and some mental health problems as well which caused me to lose up the everything that i'd worked hard to achieve that being 30 now. so as i said i found myself going for a stone pillow for the for the 3rd time. accessing their services the work they do is brilliant helping us and people like me to rebuild their lives and now you've arrived at a position you really have a bachelor of arts and that would go over as a 16 year old sleeping rough things yourself if you stay well be embarking on a university course now i never would've ever dreamt that i would find myself getting into the opportunity to study fine art or to see university the very idea of studying was as a fleeting romantic idea that i'd have every now and then that not coming from a traditional academic background i never would have dreamt in a 1000000 years that i would and so suddenly is well out of nowhere and i'm yeah i'm doing it back to the university and sees it's really a. when barry people think of universe this is ivory toes a little bigger over the toes in the case of the smaller over the toes in the case of just but how do you see your rules university. assisting people over in the bottom of the waves to for something quite different is this an active thing that you're saying this is a purpose i wonder for purposes other living the 2 so to us that concept of the ivory tower is something we want to break down the thing that struck me so the 1st time i met the guys who guys who became members of our of our britain not our access course it was on a resilience course that my boss and i were running and stump i had asked us to run it so we didn't know what to expect we just knew that we had some people coming out that in and homelessness who were going to be in a room and we were going to a training and as i listened to the insightful things and i know that sounds patton i think but i i can't think of another way of saying it as i listen to what they were saying i could i just i said to my boss off with all of these guys could be starting with us you see most of your fellow students are people 10 years younger than you or so to feel the occasion to give them a share. this is really important for your future everyone is an individual and we all grow as individuals very differently and if one color has to learn their life lessons in their own way the wonderful thing about the fine art course i'm doing is it's actually a very broad mix of age. the oldest she's actually 70 and incredibly useful so we don't i haven't really found myself with a load of teenage is your strewn all but we're all a wonderful mix. yeah guys if you have prime minister for the day let's say we've got boris johnson the so that we for the for no we. should of masters for a bit what would you be saying david would be your action on this issue for most of us what we like to do stand up for the house of commons and say do you know what's going on down in just this university you know what's happening what's going on look out people's lives are being saved we've had occasion to transform and we're homeless is being is being addressed down there with little phones just people who are motivated people who want to make a difference people want to see people progress and succeed and that's what i like to say for the commons and lucy your prime minister i thought pointed to prime minister for the day we're going to do what i would say is that i would like to elect becky as prime minister and other my reason for that choice is because we need more people like becky on this planet in power whichever way you want to put it because if it was not for her she had determination and complete belief and infuse the as in all of us on the access course i don't believe any of us really would have gone for all stuck with it becky you have been appointed to oversee the not just by myself but by lucy so what are you going to do for it so the 1st thing i would do is fill parliament with people who actually care as opposed to people who are there for themselves and their own agenda 'd and the 2nd thing i would do is i put some funding into projects like this one so we can give people coming out of homelessness hope that life can take a different direction and my dream would be that all universities offer something like this and it's not too lazy to done it without me. guys apparently you prime minister of the plan do this present you with the excitement quit this is scott ish is garlic actually a quick wins a loving cup and what you do issue well traditionally whiskey but soft drink will do just as well but has to be scottish nothing else works you put it in the creek and you pass it right and all your classmates and celebrate the success of the university of 2 sisters homelessness project thanks again thank you very much i new decade a new government but i know it's crisis the statistics from england and wales point to a crisis which is getting worse not better every shift in social security every delay in planning every change and household for mission has ensured that 1000000 stay in poor unsuitable accommodation even in scotland where policy changes have seen a sharp reduction in homelessness over the last 10 years the statistics have now started to turn in the wrong direction and the rapidly rising build of a new generation of council high saying has not been enough to fully to place the collapse in private building since the financial crisis of a decade ago and as the housing market tightens across england due to shortage of supply then thousands more fall off the cliff to homelessness and the cities we've featured those taking practical action to combat to listen this every success you have had in the storing a homeless person to society should be a cause for celebration for the streets of london to the university halls of chichester people are doing their best and often their best has fairly good comes however you cannot solve a housing crisis without building houses and the hard fact is that construction is still far below the levels before the financial crash in the recent election little or nothing from the featured debates focused on housing we will have to hope that this does not mean that the cattle are nothing follows in terms of pup. action but for now for me alex and all of the team is good bye and we hope to see you next week. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy. let it be an arms race. spearing dramatic developments only i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very. time to sit down and talk. dozens of world leaders dignitaries are in jerusalem for a holocaust coming and what will be israel's largest air for a diplomatic incident the gathering comes just ahead of the 75th anniversary of the red army liberating switch the infamous nazi death camp we've talked to a holocaust survivor. and me i will never forget to me every