Impact
In light of public reaction to the film, and following on the heels of a publicity campaign led by Willam Shearman and Ian Macleold highlighting the plight of the homeless, the charity Crisis was formed the following year in 1967.
By coincidence, another charity for the homeless Shelter was launched a few days after the first broadcast. Though it was not connected to the programme, "the film (sic) alerted the public, the media, and the government to the scale of the housing crisis, and Shelter gained many new supporters."
However, Ken Loach has said that despite the public outcry following the play, it had little practical effect in reducing homelessness, other than changing rules so that homeless fathers could stay with their wives & children in hostels.
Read more about this topic: Cathy Come Home
Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)