Jeremy Swain: mentor, friend & inspiration

I was devastated this week by hearing that Jeremy Swain had died after a short illness.

Jeremy was a great friend, mentor and colleague who had a huge influence on my working life. No one has shown me more about what good leadership looks like.

Jeremy had worked for homelessness charity Thames Reach for 30 years. He was Chief Executive from 1999 until 2018, when he was appointed by the government to lead the Rough Sleeping Initiative.

First encounter

The context in which I first met Jeremy contains many ingredients that would be relevant to our relationship.  It was early 2000 and I was manager of Centrepoint’s Cold Weather Shelter on Wardour Street, Soho and Jeremy visited with a group of other CEOs.

At that time, most of our residents had serious addictions to heroin or crack, and begging was the number one source of income. It became common for residents to use the duvets we had given them as props to aid their begging. We took a decision to not allow residents to leave the building with shelter bedding.

As our visitors entered the reception area, I was explaining this policy with two duvet-carrying young residents.  Neither of them was exactly happy with me.

In contrast to others, Jeremy was genuinely interested in the dynamic he witnessed. He wanted to talk about the realities of front-line work rather than fairy stories, what creates authentic change and how to overcome the obstacles which keep people sleeping rough.  He listened in a different way and asked better questions.

I knew he was someone I wanted to stay in touch with.

Challenging

A few years later, Thames Reach launched the campaign Killing with Kindness about the lethal dangers of giving money to people begging.  It was the best campaign of its kind.

Jeremy was invited to speak on this subject at an UNLEASH event (later to merge with Housing Justice) at St Martin-in-the-Fields chaired by the legendary priest, theologian, and founder of Centrepoint, Rev. Kenneth Leech. Jeremy spoke with passion and conviction to a room full of Christian ministers and activists who mainly either disagreed or who were sceptical about the campaign.

It was one of many times when I saw Jeremy prepared to take a room on and challenge woolly or lazy thinking. He used statistics and evidence but also told personal stories of people he knew.  And whilst he was direct, he laced everything with humility, self-deprecation and humour.

Different beliefs

Jeremy was an atheist and so at a fundamental level we had very different core beliefs. But I loved how he relished this difference, often asking me about my faith and wanting to know how it applies to the work. He was genuinely open-minded to appreciate the strengths in what faith produced.

When I joined the West London Mission in 2010, I invited him to speak at our Annual Staff Conference. Even just inviting him ruffled feathers but, along with a Thames Reach client who came with him, he spoke brilliantly. He had a great gift to challenge any self-satisfaction or cynicism within homelessness sector.

When I was first started writing, I sent him The practice of grace and truth with homeless people and he could not have been more encouraging. He subscribed to this blog and often wanted to talk about the issues that I raised.

Colleagues

In 2018, when Jeremy had been appointed to head up the Rough Sleeping Initiative we had a coffee together to talk about his new role. He explained that he was recruiting Specialist Advisers to focus on different areas and asked me to join the team to focus on faith and community groups.

It was a real honour to be asked to join a great team and to work closely with Jeremy and see him shape the national approach to rough sleeping.  His positivity for the role of church-based work deepened and he became a champion for Housing Justice and their network of night shelters.  These relationships would become critical during Covid where Jeremy was at the heart of the Everyone In initiative.

Great leadership

Jeremy’s tragic death leaves a huge void for so many of us.  Just look at Thames Reach’s Linked In page to see the hundreds of comments of appreciation, love and respect. There are so many references for the time he invested in others and the inspiration he gave.  We send love and condolences to his partner Tish and their family.

Jeremy was a great leader because he was full of warmth, generosity and genuine concern for others. And this grace was complemented by a deep conviction for the truth about what helps tackle rough sleeping and the bravery to speak his mind. Its the kind of leadership we should aspire to.