Jewish woman firefighter joins Prince William’s fight against homelessness
25 years after sleeping rough herself, Sabrina Hatton-Cohen is ambassador for Homewards, which is to be rolled out in six locations across the country.
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
A Jewish woman firefighter has become one of the Prince of Wales’ ambassadors in his groundbreaking initiative to end homelessness.
Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, a senior woman firefighter, has joined Prince William in his ambitious plan, “Homewards”, which will be rolled out in six locations across Britain. She is helping the prince, together with TV presenter Gail Porter, Aston Villa footballer Tyrone Mings and David Duke MBE — because each of them has experienced homelessness, and overcome it after difficult life challenges.
Dr Cohen-Hatton, 40, is today the chief fire officer of the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. But at 15 years old she was sleeping rough, on the streets in Wales. Her father, who came from a Moroccan-Israeli background, died of a brain tumour when she was just nine years old and is buried in a local Jewish cemetery.. She describes her mother as “of Jewish heritage” and has said that her family did not have much to do with the local Jewish community where they lived in Wales.
After Sabrina’s father died, domestic life grew complicated and the teenager, though continuing to attend school, left home. In her 2019 autobiography, The Heat of the Moment, she writes of how she slept in a derelict building while trying to keep her school textbooks secure and take national examinations, because she knew education was her way out. She hid her books in old boxes in the building where she and others were sleeping.
But one day one of the other rough sleepers found her books, each labelled with her “very Jewish surname” — and he attacked her, holding a lit cigarette to her arm and spewing antisemitic abuse. When he brandished a broken bottle in her face, she froze, and was eventually dragged away by a friend from the building.
Ultimately Sabrina spent two years living on the streets, joining the Fire Service in South Wales aged 18 and completing an undergraduate degree and later a doctorate. She also sold copies of charity magazine The Big Issue, which she has said “saved my life”.
A former Jewish Care Woman of Distinction, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has now joined Prince William as a powerful advocate for his bid to reduce homelessness in Britain.
She wrote on social media: “Having had my own experience of homelessness and surviving it, it means the world to be part of something that is working towards ending it. No one should experience the vulnerability and insecurity that comes without having a home and l’m excited to be part of something that will make a tangible difference. Homelessness is a complex problem, and the solutions are equally as complex. I’ve been so heartened by the way that this project, and the Prince himself, are taking a person-centric approach to this. One thing I took from our discussion was his firm focus on the human side of the issue. And that’s what gives me confidence that @homewardsuk will make a difference”.
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