Negative Capability
inspired by Keats, can we accept uncertainties, mysteries and doubts in the broken homelessness system?
This week I spoke on a panel at a Shelter event on systems change in homelessness alongside two great lads, Mayday Trust CEO Alex Fox and Bruk Mellese. Below is an edited version of what I spoke about (you could argue I’m being revisionist, sure).
It was the anniversary of John Keats’ death the other week. In a letter dated 1817, he wrote of a certain skill;
“which Shakespeare possessed so enormously,” to accept “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason,”
He called this - or rather scholars in his wake did; “Negative Capability”.* I think of course it’s a rather ugly phrase for what is quite a beautiful idea. It’s quite easy to attempt to fix, or give advice. It’s perhaps the basis of the rebirth of the charity who employ me, Mayday Trust, who ripped up many safe contracts commissioning them to run homelessness “services”. They opted for the rather unsafe world of commissioning for people, not perceived problems. The story of this transition is ongoing - but it feels very much steeped in uncertainty, in mystery, and doubt.
Keats of course was not talking of the homelessness market system but poetry.** As a failed medical student himself, I’m not sure how he would feel about me twisting his words for my own ends, to talk about relationships in dysfunctional public service systems. I actually think he’d be quite cross as it defeats the object of his words, namely, that we should stop reaching to pour logic into everything.
But we are where we are. I spoke at the Shelter event this week about my relationship with someone I’ve been working with for a couple of years now (we’ll call her K). I work from a very privileged position, I am not tied to arbitrary outcomes set by commissioners; be they to get someone into work, or to get them through a homelessness or mental health pathway - just some of the very straightforward examples.
In short, I’m able to just “be” with the people with whom I work. Sometimes in their distress, sometimes in their joy. I don’t know anything about them when I meet them. I knew one thing about K. I knew, from the referral that they had been misdiagnosed with autism and had got lost between different competing services as a result, for years. (I’d like to make it clear that K has consented for me to share certain details, but the idea there isn’t a power dynamic in our relationship is a discussion for another time).
It turned out that services were saying it “probably wasn’t” autism. But was more likely an undiagnosed brain injury. Something that is sadly common among those who have experienced homelessness. I don’t need to explain here why it is so common, you can probably work that out yourself.
I don’t think I needed to know all this, but I was told it and I didn’t tell the worker to stop talking as she was saying it. My bad perhaps. When, in the past year K secured permanent housing, one of their support workers in a large open plan office said to me; “well the way she acts is normal for people with Trauma” (it’s funny how people always say the term “trauma” in hushed tones).
Again, I probably should have challenged this but I didn’t. I didn’t tell this worker, that I was not aware that K had experienced trauma. I know the worker would have found that weird. I’d been working with K for over a year, how did I not know everything about her? The colour of her toothbrush, her favourite Whitney song (I do actually know the latter).
Homelessness to housing, what a delightful transition
The day K was due to move out into her new home (and I gladly mean it, an actual home home); one of the support workers at the place she was staying, rang me to ask if I knew where K was. I have no idea, I replied. I had to fight the urge to reply that I was not her minder, nor carer. She replied, asking me another question I didn’t know the answer to; whether “K had moved out today as agreed”. Again, I said, I have no idea, but I assume so.
The person’s tone shifted slightly, abrupt, matter-of-fact.
What she said next has remained with me. Ok that’s great, we’ll sign her out of our service then. Bye!
I’m talking years, years - that K has been with this particular service. And this is how the relationship ends? K lived amongst these workers tapping away, day-in-day-out in the open-plan office (lobby). She relied on many of these workers to help her navigate the frankly terrifying transition out of the homelessness system into housing. Signing a tenancy is a big deal - for anyone. Moving into an un-carpeted flat is a big deal. Signing up for utilities when you haven’t had to worry about that for years - it’s all pretty big stuff.
But those relationships are gone. Dead, one could argue. My understanding is that these workers risk their jobs by reaching out to K once she has moved out. Because everything’s fixed now of course. (Again, commissioning.)
The fact is, and I don’t know for sure as I feel it would be rather rude to ask - I suspect that K had to do some financial management classes before she was deemed sufficiently “ready for housing”. I still have a lot to learn about these pathways but they never fail to surprise me. It seems though, that once K is out of a homelessness pathway, she’s pretty much on her own. One support worker remained for a few months, but I suspect she was technically not allowed to be working with K, to the extent that she was.
Commissioning sets the rules as ever. There’s a fallacy at the heart of the system - people need to be somehow “fixed” to get housing - but once you have housing, you are also fixed.
Every month is the same, before K’s PIP is due, she feels anxious. Things are particularly bad at the moment financially, as she is working on furnishing her flat. Which is of course expensive. Standard stuff, no?
So what do we do? We talk it through. That’s what we attempt to do as Mayday Trust workers. I attempt to mirror her behaviours - talk through how we go through this each month, and how it will be tough at the moment, which is understandable when she is getting her flat furnished. But that calmer shores are ahead. I do what anyone else would do to be honest in that situation, in an attempt to help calm the storm and help her to contain her understandable anxieties. But I believe you can only do that when you have trust with someone.
Anxieties over rent payments are understandable, particularly in the cossie livs. But for someone who was treated like a child for years in the homelessness system? You must sign in guests! Don’t worry about bills, we pay all that! You can leave the lights on! Don’t worry about food, pret’s delivering us sandwiches! (Of course, in the hotels, there was only a microwave to cook with, and in one I visited, not even that).
So what annoys me, is that if K does not maintain her tenancy, who will be blamed? Will it be the broken social care system that has left a disabled woman unable to work, navigate this new part of her journey on her own? Will it be the homelessness service that “signed her out”? Because it absolutely will not be the homelessness service - K to them is a positive outcome, they can gloat about her to their commissioners, she is a tick on their list - look we housed this person, I mean we left her to fend her tenancy on her own, but that’s not our problem. (Again, it’s commissioning, stupid.)
Because of course we know what will happen. K will get the blame if she doesn’t make her rent payments, and if she loses her home. And seeing as Mayday Trust are still working with her, perhaps they’ll blame us too. They’ll probably tell us off for not funding a financial advisor or something.
I still find it darkly amusing that you get financial awareness courses before you sign a tenancy, but absolutely zero support after. But anyway.
Irritable reaching
I wonder if that’s where the real work is, the real impact. A psychologist said to me recently “workers need to be supported to be with people in their distress”. But why am I always trying to explain the impact? What are we achieving, I ask myself and colleagues. What’s going to happen when our contract to do this work possibly ends? Can I force K to do a wellbeing survey? How can I track outcomes and get the right dataset back to our commissioners so we can continue to do this work?
Perhaps writing about the relationships more will help. Or perhaps I should stop overthinking it, and as our response states, allow K herself to take the lead.
(Although I would happily accept a duel with anyone who argued that our work has not helped K to maintain her tenancy. Because when you respond to people and meet them where they are, it can be people themselves that set the outcome of the relationship.)
Keats spoke of the “irritable reaching” that defeats the purpose of poetry. K doesn’t seem so bothered about explaining what it is we are doing. Maybe she just likes someone to be around. I suppose people are all that we have.
*You’ll perhaps be pleased to know I didn’t open my contribution by talking about poetry and Keats, otherwise I fear the audience, made up of a heady mix of HSBC workers, Shelter staff and people from local authorities and homelessness charities - might have condemned me for my pretention. Because that’s what my blog is for!
**There’s a scene in Bright Star where Ben Whishaw captures the meaning of negative capability so beautifully, I urge you to watch this Campion masterpiece if you haven’t!