Guli Frances-Dehqhani: The bishop tackling England's housing
發表於 : 週六 7月 31, 2021 11:43 amGuli Frances-Dehqhani: The bishop tackling England's housing crisis
Housing the poor and destitute used to be SLOTXO what the Church of England was all about, but in recent years
it has arguably become better known for selling off land to the highest bidder.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Frances-Dehqhani, is determined to do something about that.
As England's first Bishop for Housing, she is spearheading efforts to build affordable homes on church land and
campaigning for long-term solutions to what Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby believes is one of
the biggest crises facing the country.
As a former refugee, Bishop Guli understands the importance of a stable, secure home.
Her family was forced to flee Iran - where her father Hassan Dehqani-Tafti was an Anglican bishop - in 1980,
in the wake of the Islamic revolution.
"I arrived in this country, aged 14, initially as a refugee, someone who had just lost home in the fullest sense of
its terms - both our physical home, which was confiscated by the authorities, but also home in terms of where
your roots are, your country of origin and so on," she tells me.
The family settled in Hampshire, and slowly came to terms with the fact that they would not be returning to
their home country.
She came to appreciate that home is "where we find our place of belonging, it's where we feel safe,
where we can build stability and community," she says.
"It's all of those things, and I suppose in my teenage years I experienced the kind of profound injustice of
having that torn away, frankly.
"And the journey for me has been about using that in my role, and in my ministry, in such a way that is
life-giving, rather than turning me bitter and angry and in on myself."
She made history in 2017, when she became the first woman from an ethnic minority to be ordained as an
Anglican bishop and later this year will take up a seat in the House of Lords.
Housing the poor and destitute used to be SLOTXO what the Church of England was all about, but in recent years
it has arguably become better known for selling off land to the highest bidder.
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Guli Frances-Dehqhani, is determined to do something about that.
As England's first Bishop for Housing, she is spearheading efforts to build affordable homes on church land and
campaigning for long-term solutions to what Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby believes is one of
the biggest crises facing the country.
As a former refugee, Bishop Guli understands the importance of a stable, secure home.
Her family was forced to flee Iran - where her father Hassan Dehqani-Tafti was an Anglican bishop - in 1980,
in the wake of the Islamic revolution.
"I arrived in this country, aged 14, initially as a refugee, someone who had just lost home in the fullest sense of
its terms - both our physical home, which was confiscated by the authorities, but also home in terms of where
your roots are, your country of origin and so on," she tells me.
The family settled in Hampshire, and slowly came to terms with the fact that they would not be returning to
their home country.
She came to appreciate that home is "where we find our place of belonging, it's where we feel safe,
where we can build stability and community," she says.
"It's all of those things, and I suppose in my teenage years I experienced the kind of profound injustice of
having that torn away, frankly.
"And the journey for me has been about using that in my role, and in my ministry, in such a way that is
life-giving, rather than turning me bitter and angry and in on myself."
She made history in 2017, when she became the first woman from an ethnic minority to be ordained as an
Anglican bishop and later this year will take up a seat in the House of Lords.