The First Female Archbishop, The Church of England and Homelessness

Dame Sarah Mullally has recently become the first ever female Archbishop of Canterbury. To mark her appointment, a new book exploring ten urgent challenges for the Church of England has been published. Our CEO Jon Kuhrt contributed a chapter on poverty, homelessness and the role the church can play. Below is an excerpt.

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Susie was one of the homeless people you walk past, huddled, sleeping rough in a shop doorway. Growing up in a traveller family where life was tough, she married young to a man who turned out to be violent and abusive. She ran away, but got drawn into addiction, criminal behaviour and imprisonment.

"I think the drugs were to block things out...most of the time I would wish I was dead."


Today, Susie is thriving in supported accommodation run by Hope into Action, deeply involved in her local community. After being discharged from prison, she was accepted into one of our houses linked with Norwich Cathedral, supported by volunteer befrienders Jessica and Nonnie, and her Empowerment Worker, Rach. That network of support led her to attend her local Church of England church, St Catherine's, regularly.


"If not for Hope into Action, I wouldn't be alive today. I was giving up on life...I have a really good life now, all because of my Empowerment Worker and my church community."


Susie isn't just a recipient of support. She's a contributor. She helps other families affected by addiction, ran a 5K to raise funds for Hope into Action and quit smoking after 54 years in the process. Most significantly, she chose to be baptised.

Her story is remarkable. But tragically, the circumstances that led her there are not. Rough sleeping rose by 20% last year. Record numbers are living in temporary accommodation. In 2024/25, 1,611 people died homeless in Britain.

Understanding Poverty: Three Layers

Susie's story illustrates both the reality of UK poverty and the unique role the church can play. For over 20 years, Jon has used a three-part framework to understand what poverty really means. Whilst these three factors are seen in extremis within homelessness, they are present in deprived communities across the UK.


The Poverty of Resources

The most visible layer: material deprivation driven by the cost of living, debt, unemployment and insecure zero-hours work. In 2025, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reports that over 21% of the UK population are living in poverty today, including 4.3 million children and 1.9 million pensioners. Organisations like Trussell, with its network of foodbanks, and Christians Against Poverty have grown rapidly in response.


The Poverty of Relationships.

All stories of homelessness involve broken relationships. Often people have nowhere to go because they have no one to go to. In Susie's case, domestic violence triggered her homelessness. Such abuse traumatises people in far-reaching ways. When the safety net of a loving family frays, more people fall through it.


The Poverty of Identity. 

We are living in a time of epidemic low self-esteem, anxiety and mental health problems which affect people's ability to work and make ends meet.

For Susie and countless others, addictions are driven by the need for distraction, a form of self-medication to deal with emotional pain and trauma. This poverty of identity undermines someone's very sense of self: an inner poverty far harder to change than external needs.


This three-way model shows why homelessness is much more than houselessness. Houses are vital resources, but homes are places of relationship and identity. It is why we believe, at Hope into Action, that homelessness ends in community.

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At our conference on 20th May Rooted: Homelessness Ends in Community, Jon is leading a seminar with Rachel Arnold of the Crossroads Project, on Re-thinking Poverty and Our Response which will pick up on these themes.

The book Archbishop Sarah Mullally and Ten Urgent Challenges for the Church of England is published by DLT (2026)

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