An abstract sculpture to remember homeless people who have died in Brighton and Hove is being planned for gardens in the city centre.
Making it Out, a Brighton charity, wants to put the Stop Sign memorial in Brighthelm Gardens.
the charity, which supports repeat offenders, has applied to Brighton and Hove City Council for planning permission.
On its website, it says: “The artwork has a provisional agreement to be placed in Brighthelm Gardens in central Brighton.
“Brighthelm Centre and Church have a long history of supporting homeless groups with one of the earliest support groups operating from the crypt in the church.
“Placing the sculpture here will make it visible for millions of visitors to Brighton who walk down the hill towards the seafront, helping to bring awareness to the issue.”
The project began after a suggestion from homeless support organisation The Passage, in particular one of its staff members Greg Headley.
The charity has been working with homeless people on the design since 2021 – since which time at least four participants have themselves died.
It sent out 150 art packs to homelessness support organisations across Brighton and Hove, and ran workshops, asking homeless people for sketches, models, poems and stories.
The finished design incorporates a tree of life – a suggestion of one of the homeless people.
It sits on top of concrete bricks arranged to resemble a hunched over figure. MIO says: “The separate ‘piled’ concrete blocks instead of a traditional plinth represents broken foundations that are often a factor in homelessness.
“The tree is growing across the back of the figure with branches wrapping around trying to find somewhere a surface to anchor and seemingly surviving despite difficult circumstances.
“Leaves on the sculpture represent new growth whilst also portraying fragility.”
Doesn’t make sense , although it’s a loverly gesture, and you can afford such thing, how come you can’t fund hostels and centres for homelessness? That would prevent you splashing out money you can’t afford on sculptures.
Reading the article suggests the charity Making it Out are creating the sculpture, who aren’t involved in running any hostels or day centres.
No. But the point is, (Quite saliently pointed out in another comment) it’s probably massively inappropriate and insensitive to have someone involved in the project who was responsible for the death of another homeless person?
The issue at the moment though is that Brighthelm Gardens has been closed off to the public for quite some time, meaning current people from the homeless community are unable to access the space. People can’t simply walk through the gardens.
I get that anti-social behaviour may have been a big and serious issue in the gardens, but blocking off outdoor spaces doesn’t solve the problem, it simply moves it on.
I think the idea of a sculpture is really good in principle, just think it’s not OK for community spaces to be blocked off from public access in the way that has happened at Brighthelm: https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2023/05/19/city-centre-gardens-fenced-off-to-stop-drugs-and-knife-threats/
As a former homeless person in Brighton myself, that garden was locked up for good reason, drug dealing, aggressive begging, intimidation of old people, there is a difference between your homeless person and your drug addict scum, plus needles left all over the place, homeless people can access the church at the front door, that garden was ruined by the hostel living fraggles, not the homeless, used to sleep there on and off when homeless myself,.
So a homeless drug addict is scum,well personally any homeless person with drug, alcohol and mental health issues should be treated as human beings and given the help and respect they deserve.There is a reason why so many people become homeless to which we know nothing about.So we should never judge but give them the help which they deserve as human beings.
Hi, the gardens are open to the public, have been for a year since the fence went up. It has one entrance instead of many which has improved the space greatly, you’re welcome to come and see for yourself.
But brighthlem gardens has been open the whole time, you can walk in via the side gate, it’s never been closed simply one entrance exit like many parks so why make this false statement to a nice project?
I think that there may well be a feeling of resentment over this by some of the homeless community. The reason being that one of the prominent individuals involved in this project was responsible for the death of another homeless man years back in a stabbing incident related to drugs. I’m not going to mention names but there are still articles related to this online.
This is a massive elephant in the room and also shows a total disregard or disconnect on this individuals part in being allowed to take part in this project?
Finally. I am in no way opposed to this project as a homeless person myself I’m grateful that somebody has finally acknowledged that people need to be remembered. I’ve lost close friends and have personally witnessed two deaths. I also believe that Arch Healthcare the homeless surgery had some input as well and Dr’s Worthley, Sergeant and the team deserve credit as well?
Arch do a great job supporting the homeless in my experience of them, I agree.
Looks like builders have been flytipping?
Were the homeless community actually consulted properly? Because I don’t seem to remember anything along those lines. And I’ve been part of this community for many years.
Why can’t it be something simple and poignant not a pretentious pile of rubble that could be mistaken for building waste?
I’m not surprised that the proposed statue is getting flack. I volunteer in the Fitzherbert Hub in Kemptown. They originally fabricated and supplied the tables for the cafe. They were absolutely horrendous in design, execution and fabrication (MIG welded. Loads of wire left under tables to cut peoples legs, not very good apparently?)
I remember a very forthright homeless guy who was a coded welder and also another volunteer who also did welding having a go at one of the bosses when he visited the hub. It was hilarious.
“You’ll make a welder alright” after a silence and the guy thought he was being praised, “Yeah matey. You’ll make a welder weep!”
Think this lot are grandstanding when there has been involvement from other folks as well.
I fully support placing a statue to commemorate the victims of homelessness in this location.
The plinth is emotive and powerful. However from the one photo I’ve seen, I feel that the tree part will be easily vandalised, the branches over time getting bent or broken or rubbish hung from them. I also think that if the edges and corners of the plinth had a very slight radius there would be less chance of damage.
Well, this is Brighton. It won’t be long before the graffiti starts to appear and then spread all over it. Or maybe that will be considered part of the “design”.
What an ugly sculpture. So many corners and sharp bits, people are going to hurt themselves on that. Why can’t it be something beautiful? Like something that looks like an actual tree for example?
Living in Brighton for 15 years the thing I realised about Brighton’s “homeless” is that a lot of them are not homeless. I think most of them are in some sort of social, temporary, parole housing, but spend a lot of time on the streets.
Covid really cleaned up Kemp Town and St. James’ Street. Much better than 5 years ago.
Why not an actual tree? And a memorial plaque of some sort?
KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)
I think you will find that a lot of the genuine homeless don’t want to be in these Hostel/Supported Accomodation setups because of the prevalence of high levels of drugs and violence. I’m lucky my time on the homeless circuit is nearly at an end. A lot of these places are just run as an “Industry” purely for profit. The welfare of the clients is a secondary consideration. This also bourne out by the way the disabilty benefits system works to let clients with severe addiction problems have huge amounts of cash to squander on drugs. That should be conditional on being genuinely committed to doing rehab?
I for one felt much safer living on the streets. But then like a lot of old school homeless, you will find older clients that don’t have addiction problems have the same mindset.
It’s nice to see this memorial has provoked a debate though?
I think you make some very potent points about supported accomodation in the city. From several articles covered on here, and conversations over had with people in and around the services, the same issues around the for-profit nature of the industry certainly appears to be echoed.
I think it makes a strong argument to bring those services in-house, and work with independent organisations for scrutiny.
Thank you Benjamin.
It’s a combination of an Industry and also Whare Housing clients, often very volatile clients with very complex social issues (Storing up all kinds of problems for the future) With the whole incentive of maximising profit first, most supported housing on offer just wants the path of least resistance in terms of say move on options and give scant regard to clients needs. In essence it’s just driving square pegs into round holes and setting clients up to fail. Then a lot of them end up back on the streets in a quintessential revolving door setup.
I’m afraid to say that I’m sick and tired of hearing the same old mantra by successive political parties and also local politicians about ending homelessness in the UK. I don’t believe this at all after my experience of supported housing. My observations of the Brighton setup is that there are too many vested interests at risk if you were to end this crisis. Proprietors of these businesses are making far too much of a profit to want that to happen and there is a massive amount of corruption involved (very unhealthy relationships between proprietors and council officials)
I won’t mention names but one of the places I was in the proprietor/director used to openly flaunt her wealth in front of clients. Boasting about holidays, acquisition of second or third homes. She was even confronted about professional standards or lack of them by a client. Her arrogant/complacent reply to this was “If you want professional standards then you are with the wrong organisation” Unfortunately for her I have a covert recording of this very revealing conversation. If and when something grotesque happens in one of her establishments I will give this to the appropriate body.
Also don’t be fooled by the CIC moniker. There is nothing altruistic about CIC’s. It’s very nice means of building up a property portfolio utilising the housing benefit system. The only organisations that I really have any time for are charities (and even then some of them have questionable motives, because they have been captured by they system down here)
Finally in this last week I’ve lost yet another friend who died in supported accomodation. This person had a diagnosis of Autism yet was placed in William Colyer House, which my estimation was a totally inappropriate placement (Grace Eyre would have been far more suitable because they specialise in Autism) This just illustrates the square peg in a round hole approach. That will be yet another unnecessary death to be added to the memorial if and when it gets off the launch pad?
Looks like a broken TARS.
This sculpture looks bloody awful,it looks like left overs from a building site or something picked up from fly tipping.I could of come up with something far better then this.It needs to be pleasing to the eye and a fitting memorial for all the homeless people who tragically lost their life’s.