OPINION | From Champion to Caricature: Sharron Davies’ Tone-Deaf Crusade Against the Homeless

By James Murray-Hodcroft | The Hodlines | 21 June 2025

Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE sparked backlash after posting this image of tents lining a San Francisco street on X (formerly Twitter), arguing that the decriminalisation of rough sleeping is a “huge mistake.” Her remarks led to suspension from a homelessness charity for which she served as an ambassador.
(Image via @sharrond62 / X)

I tend to keep my thoughts on Sharron Davies’ increasingly blinkered worldview to myself. After all, everyone’s entitled to an opinion; even one that seems marinated in selective memory and unapologetic detachment from reality. But occasionally, someone’s expression of “personal truth” is so devoid of compassion and so saturated in privilege that silence feels like complicity.

This week, former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE was suspended from her ambassadorial role with a leading homelessness charity after tweeting a photograph of rough sleepers in San Francisco, alongside the claim that “Decriminalising rough sleeping IS a huge mistake.” Her grievance? That unhoused people are cluttering once-beautiful streets with tents, making areas “dangerous” and “no-go.” The tone of the post wasn’t just harsh; it was pointedly dehumanising.

Let’s pause for breath.

There was no mention of systemic failure, rising rents, mental health crises, domestic abuse, or childhood trauma. No effort to acknowledge what someone with no home is actually supposed to do when it comes time to, bear with me here, sleep. Davies’ main complaint? That the sight of homelessness spoils her city breaks.

How very 1980s-aristocrat of her.


CAPTION:
In a haunting vision of what might become, Karen Allen’s character Claire Phillips is reimagined as a cold-hearted socialite in the ghostly future of Scrooged (1988). Once the compassionate centre of Frank Cross’s world, she appears here transformed, prioritising appearances over humanity. The scene resonates uncomfortably in 2025 as, after reading Ms Davies Tweet, I immediately drew parallels between the character’s chilling detachment and real-world figures whose rhetoric echoes that same icy disregard for the vulnerable.

(Paramount Pictures / Scrooged, 1988)

As someone who was once homeless myself, I find this narrative not just offensive, but dangerous. When a figure with an MBE and a blue tick devotes her energy not to solving homelessness, but to lobbying for the criminalisation of its most visible symptoms, we’re no longer talking about opinion. We’re talking about harm.

Sharron Davies was once a beacon for young people who dared to dream big. Now, it seems she’s trading that legacy for a second act as a professional culture warrior. The chlorine has cleared, and what remains is a woman more concerned with maintaining the visual purity of the pavements than with the dignity or safety of the people on them.

What could she have done instead? Use her platform to amplify the voices of those affected. Share the lived experiences of rough sleepers. Raise funds for shelters. Advocate for housing-first policies. Or just, radical thought, listen.

Instead, we get a modern-day “let them eat cake” moment dressed in activewear.

The charity was right to suspend her. When your public image directly conflicts with the core values of the cause you represent, you step aside, or you get shown the door. This isn’t about censorship. This is about accountability.

Davies is, of course, free to speak her mind. But don’t confuse free speech with freedom from consequences. Especially when that speech implies that the solution to homelessness is simply to make homeless people illegal again.

That’s not leadership. That’s not brave.

It’s lazy. It’s cruel. And it’s bullshit.

Is calling out cruelty now more important than protecting celebrity egos?

Drop your take below. 

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