A ROUGH sleeper hostel boss has compared the trauma of homelessness to that of soldiers after battle and believes the issue needs to be looked at through a "new lens".

Jonathan Sutton, CEO of St Paul’s Hostel, wants to make Worcester a place where all forms of homelessness are “rare, brief and seldom recurrent” but believes society needs to experience a ‘paradigm shift’ first.

Working alongside Christian initiative Vennture, Mr Sutton is considering creating a recovery pathway that would put the “person at the centre” and better recognise all the reasons why people end up on the street.

He said: “Homelessness is more than just a housing issue, yet the response seems to treat just the housing problem and other silos try to treat other symptoms.

“The causation is often trauma, from early life or childhood adversity.

“A new lens through which we understand the ‘homeless problem’ – what the Americans might call a ‘paradigm shift’ – is necessary,” he continued.

“The lens is trauma. This trauma is not unlike the post-traumatic trauma some soldiers develop after battle.

“Therefore creating recovery pathways that heal the trauma, not re-traumatise, or signpost someone to a different service because they don’t quite fit the criteria, seems a logical way to organise the collective response,” added Mr Sutton, a former serviceman himself.

The recovery pathway was tweeted about in response to the Worcester News’ report on city homeless man Ryszard Krawczyk who had been left in limbo after refusing temporary accommodation in Birmingham.

The 39-year-old had been accepted onto a week long employability course for construction and did not want to leave the city.

The city council then agreed to extend his emergency accommodation at the YMCA, in Henwick Road, beyond the obligatory three nights which he’d already had as part of the No Second Night Out scheme.