Mind the gap

Oxford's always been a magnet for strolling players, poets, peddlers, beggars, chancers, the indigent and the aspirant. Not only the seat of learning but a source of income whether hand-outs from idealistic scholars and clerics or employment in colleges and car factories. Now there's work to be found on construction sites and in tourism and in catering (all those coffee bars).
Unless you're an asylum seeker of which Oxford, as a City of Sanctuary, has a substantial number - including a detention centre not far away from which 'illegal' immigrants are deported back to the places of unsafety from which they fled.

I don't know  what category this slack rope fiddler falls into. He's one of a number of folk who practice their skills and sell their wares along Oxford's main retail street,  providing entertainment and prompting shoppers to dip into their purses.
For asylum seekers there's an organisation, largely staffed by volunteers, that attempts to meet their needs. If you care to read more,  here's the story of just one of them taken at random from several more. It's very easy to drop a few coins into a hat but much harder to spend unpaid time and energy to support less visible people in need.