Five deaths, then another, followed by two more—all within just a few days in a city of only a few dozen thousand residents. “Coincidence,” some rationalists or cynics might say, essentially placing the blame on the victims themselves.
When you haven’t experienced poverty firsthand, it’s perhaps easy to ask incredulously, “How could someone possibly sleep in a room with a burning coal brazier?” But when you’re sleeping on an inflatable mattress on the floor of a workplace—because the alternative is sleeping rough—the bitter cold leaves little room for careful consideration.
When temperatures drop below freezing and the cold penetrates to your bones, your only concern is finding warmth, overshadowing any potential danger that might cross your mind.
The police investigating these incidents will question the property owners and managers: “Why were these people sleeping there? Did they break in? Was someone illegally renting the space to them? Did someone offer them shelter because they had nowhere else to go?” These questions are appropriate from a law enforcement perspective, but beyond the police investigation, these issues require analysis by other specialists.
Where do the young delivery riders who bring food to our homes—whose jackets proudly declare them “partners” of various platforms—sleep after their shifts end? What about the lad who cleaned your garden for ten pounds, the Black worker in the back of the restaurant, or the Nepalese woman who cleans three houses daily and is considered “illegal” because she was supposed to clean just one for £320 per month? Where do all these people live, and under what conditions?
For the family of five, we have found some answers: construction work on the premises without permits, makeshift electrical installations, a heater, television and perhaps other household appliances at supposedly discounted prices and questionable quality. Investigations continue, focusing on these appliances. Soon we’ll discover which one sparked the fire that claimed five lives. This case file will close, as will the others.
Meanwhile, the social divide continues to widen, the underclass grows larger, people find improvised solutions to avoid homelessness, and with each tragedy, we express shock while simultaneously asking, like modern-day Marie Antoinettes, “Why were they sleeping with a burning brazier in the room?”, “Why didn’t they buy one of the many flats available on the market?“, “Why didn’t they install safe central heating instead of choosing a portable heater?”