Let's act to Bring Sarah Home

As the maker of the documentary Evicted, I was very moved to read Rosie Brocklehurst's letter yesterday. I hope her rage at the injustice suffered by the families in our film is shared by the 2.5 million people who watched it (in its "too late a slot") on Wednesday. When we were editing the film, we wanted to be sure the plight of the families we followed was representative of the 100,000 or so families living in temporary accommodation in Britain. We called all the housing and homelessness workers and advisers we had been in touch with during the 12 months of making the film and described the experiences of the families we focused on. They unanimously agreed the scenes we filmed were being replicated the length and breadth of the country every day.

I echo Ms Brocklehurst's call for a new homelessness campaign - Bring Sarah Home - and was touched by her description of her as the symbolic granddaughter of Cathy. Since finishing the film, Sarah's plight has not improved. Her family is still in temporary accommodation, seven months after they were evicted, and poor Sarah, far being found a place at a local school, has been put on a vocational course for young offenders (she has never been in any trouble with the police). Instead of studying for her GCSEs, as she talked about in the film, she is spending three days a week with 22 convicted street robbers, burglars and car thieves.

But as a result of the film and news coverage, the local education authority has offered either to pay for a taxi to take Sarah to her old school, or to find her a place in a new school. Her mother was delighted. Sarah, once again showing extraordinary maturity for a 15-year-old, was more sanguine: "They're only interested now because I'm on the telly. Where were they when I really needed them, when we were evicted?"

For the bigger picture, I can only defer to the experts, charities like Shelter and Crisis, which say we need to build at least 20,000 more homes a year to end the scandal of child homelessness. But on a simpler level, what I have seen over the last year is that no one is speaking for the children of homeless families. Children are far more severely affected than adults, but have no real advocates. When eight-year-old Chloe returned home to find her parents in tears, locked out of the only home she had known, she lost far more than just a roof over her head. At such a critical stage in her emotional development her ability to trust her parents, any grown-ups, the world in general has been shaken to its core. Her confidence and stability may never recover.

I hope that Sarah, representing Cathy for a new generation, may encourage policymakers, charities, and frontline workers to spare just a moment's more thought for the 130,000 children of the homeless in Britain today. I hope that more people will protest at the plight of Britain's homeless children - and I hope Rosie Brocklehurst keeps screaming.
Brian Woods
True Vision