We may live in the twenty-first century, but for millions of us poverty is a daily reality. Here in the United Kingdom, we are appalled by the endless stories in the newspapers and on television about millions of people in other countries living in squalor, wondering where their next meal is coming from while our very own homeless are worrying about where they can find shelter and something to eat.

While England is one of the richest countries in the western world, we currently have one third of the population (eighteen million) living below the poverty line. Of that eighteen million, several hundred thousand people here are homeless. This makes no sense at all when you consider that currently there are over seven hundred thousand empty homes across the nation. It begs the simple question, why don’t we take care of our own poor and starving first, before sending millions…