The homeless spikes. What’s really going on

In this issue…Anti-rough sleeping spikes became a story this week, a symbol of what is wrong with attitudes towards the poorest in society. There is a wider issue about spiraling costs of bedspace for the homeless, especially in London. Housing costs are ballooning for everybody. Adam Forrest digs into the details to see the hidden costs of homelessness and what the next steps should be.

More great writing and interviews this week:

Elliott Gould is a Hollywood heavyweight. A powerful figure from the early 1970s, and now stealing scenes in the great TV show Ray Donovan, he doesn’t do a lot of big interviews. Especially not like this. Covering meetings with Elvis, recent chats with ex-wife Barbra Streisand, shaving Groucho Marx and a guide to living, this is a marvellous, picaresque interview by Peter Ross. Enjoy it.

You’ll also enjoy our Letter To My Younger Self. War Horse creator and former children’s laureate Michael Morpurgo talks of early ‘shame’ at his parents divorce and a love of the music of words.

John Bird went to Berwick and came away with new thinking on joined-up services and provision for those outside of the system.

Brendan O’Neill, meanwhile, gets stuck into the faith schools debate and argues in favour of them. Get ready…

There has been a rise in strange taxidermy. Steven MacKenzie looks at the man who turned his beloved dead cat into a helicopter. From there, it’s a strange odyssey.

Rik Mayall’s death gave a lot of people pause. Jane Graham pens a heartfelt tribute to the great man.

Our featured vendor telling their story in My Pitch is Stephen Wylde, working in Wells. He’s currently living in a tent, walks three miles to get to work on his pitch, but he likes where he’s working, likes the sanctuary of Wells Cathedral.