Thousands of posh brand employees sleep rough in the UK. In other words, they are homeless despite working full-time at posh brand shops. Channel 4’s Dispatches investigators discovered that many posh brand employees sleep in the streets.
Datshiane Navanayagam, a Dispatches reporter, discovered the shameful truth when she went behind the scenes. She reported on two homeless hostels.
Navanayagam was stunned to discover how many Britons with full-time jobs are homeless. A surprising proportion of homeless employees work in the country’s posh brand stores.
While hundreds of thousands of rich customers live in multimillion-dollar homes, posh brand employees who serve them sleep rough.
Posh brand employees sleep rough
The reporter revealed that thousands of workers across the country have nowhere to live, especially in large cities. They have nowhere to live because they cannot afford to rent their own place.
Many of these homeless workers, Navanayagam found, worked at high-end retailers, i.e., posh brand shops.
Kallum, for example, who works as a security guard at Bond Street’s Prada, sleeps rough after work.
He works for Firstcall Services Limited, a security firm. The firm pays him £8.50 per hour. Although he gets slightly more than the minimum wage, he cannot afford to rent a place of his own.
After work, Kallum either sleeps on friends’ couches, seeks out homeless shelters, or simply sleeps rough.
Kallum said:
“By day I’m a security guard. At night I’m homeless. I never have enough sleep for the next day or feel refreshed enough to get up and go to work.”
Washing at McDonald’s toilet
Some homeless Britons are professionals who cannot afford, for example, rent deposits.
Emma is a teacher in adult education. However, she is homeless. She says she became homeless when she and her husband split up.
The Sun quotes Emma, who said:
“I have been asked to look for deposits that I can’t actually make. I have been requested to pay about £2,000. Nobody keeps £2,000 on hand just like that.”
Emma says that she washes in a MacDonald’s toilet.
According to Channel 4’s Dispatches, many posh brand shop employees are on waiting lists for social housing. While they wait, however, many of them do so with nowhere to live.