Learning to 'see'...

In the Guardian today, there are some exquisite black and white photographs of homeless people taken by Lee Jeffries - view them here

In his Facebook profile here Lee explains how he started taking these beautiful images of homeless people and that he tries to get to know the story of each subject before he photographs them. He talks about really 'seeing' the person rather than passing by the familiar. It's a strange world where homeless people have become invisible. A year or two ago there was a documentary - I think it was called Return of the Tribe - which showed a small number of Papuan New Guinea tribesmen coming to Britain to see our totally different culture. When they learned about homeless people, they were totally shocked. The concept simply does not exist in their culture; community is so strong there that the notion of resources not being shared - from food, to shelter, to companionship - seemed utterly bizarre to them. We could learn a lot from them. Lee Jeffries photographs of raw humanity help to get this message across.

Sweet-toothed Dawn in a not so sweet situation

This evening, on my way along Victoria Street to Victoria station, I saw a woman sitting next to a Pret in a sleeping bag. I had been walking along thinking how freezing my fingers were, so when I saw her I stopped and asked if she wanted a sandwich or anything. It must be horrible to be out in this cold and insanely windy weather.

She said she had stitches in her mouth and pulled at her lip with spiny dirt-covered fingers to show me, and asked for a capuccino, which I brought out to her with loads of sugar - something I've learnt over the years of working with homeless people or doing this sort of ad hoc thing is that they invariably have an extremely sweet tooth.

She started talking about a hostel around the corner that she'd been offered a bed in by "outreach workers", but she couldn't get the bed because they were asking for a service charge of £8. She's been on the streets for 3 months now, taking showers occasionally at a day centre. That means she's been sleeping rough all over Christmas, through the harshest time in our climate. She was extremely thing - huddled up in multiple jumpers and jackets, with just tiny bird-like wrists and those dirty fingers sticking out, and cheekbones jutting out of her face. I'm not sure how old she was, 30s or 40s. She said she is from Wales, and came up to London with "a man" who proceeded to beat her, hence the stitches. She ran away from him 3 months ago and since then has been living rough. Her parents are dead and she doesn't know anyone in London.

She was very worried about the hostel. She said that if she didn't pay the service charge, she wouldn't be allowed in, and would lose the chance of a bed for the next 8 weeks. She seemed to think that the reason they were charging her was to check she was serious about wanting the bed, which sounded like a very odd policy to me.
The hostel was St Mungo's (not to be confused with the Harry Potter institution), and once I've published this, I'll be getting in touch with St Mungo's to see if this is really their policy, or if she was spinning me a tale in the hope of striking eight pounds worth of gold.

BBC On the Streets

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00vtwp1/On_the_Streets/

Click above and you'll go to the BBC Iplayer page for a documentary called On the Streets, about London homeless people. It's extremely good - it just lets the people tell their stories and follows them in their day to day. It's so interesting seeing the kind of comradery some of them have developed, and all the individual personalities and ways of coping, from alcohol to quantum mechanics...

There are so many stories in this, it would take me an age to write it out, so just watch!

Soup runs: a poisoned broth?

In today's Evening Standard, the free newspaper in London, there's an article called "Do soup runs harm rough sleepers?"


[click here to read it]


It asks whether soup kitchens are actually creating more problems than they solve. The councillors of Westminster want to outlaw soup runs, because they say it attracts homeless people to the area.

[click here to read about Westminster council's homelessness strategy]


Apparently, Westminster Council proposed banning soup runs across the whole of London in 2007 but were unsuccessful.

That argument in itself is fairly disgusting; perhaps rather than pushing the problem into another borough, they could work out why the people are homeless in the first place (there are roughly 1600 rough sleepers in Westminster per annum). Other newspapers are choosing this angle, pointing out that Westminster is one of the richest council's in the country, behaving as a reverse Robin Hood.

But interestingly, the prestigious St Mungo's (which itself began as a soup run in 1969) and Thames Reach, both London homelessness charities, are also backing this new ban. They say 'food handouts serve to keep people on the streets longer'.

Thames Reach has an article from 2007 on its site, written by their Chief Executive Jeremy Swain called "The Problem with Soup Runs". (click here to read it)

Jeremy's basic argument is that services aimed at rough sleepers ought to be more comprehensive than a basic handout of food: that they out to be brought indoors, where advice on accomodation and work etc can be properly given. This is clearly an ideal to be aimed for.

But the banning of soup runs goes against a gut instinct of those of us with a Home Address. It is a visible sign of charity; a mealtime easing of hardship and of the conscience of those of us with a fridge full of food at a place we call 'home'. This quandary is much like the International Aid question: a lot of aid clearly contributes to corruption, with figures proving this, and continued lack of improvement in countries where huge sums are flooding in. But does that mean we can comfortably turn the other cheek?

For me, the answer is this: we can't turn the other cheek, but we can coordinate and clarify our actions and aims. Very few people, except severely mentally ill cases, actually want to sleep rough (especially through the winter). With that as a basic premise, one can assume that soup runs alleviate some immediate discomfort, but with that soup needs to come a menu for escape from the streets.

Where the streets are paved with gold...

Today the free newspaper in London, the Evening Standard, has a central article about some homeless men in Ealing, who spend their nights in bin stores in order to have some shelter from our freezing winter temperatures.

Here's the link:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23914819-london-2011-homeless-men-forced-to-sleep-in-bins.do

People "sleeping in bins" is undoubtedly shocking in 21st Century London (and a great eye-grabber for headline writers) but what is more interesting in this story is the focus on immigrant status.

The men profiled by this article are largely Indian. The charity profiled is aimed at helping Sikhs (though they are clear that they do not do so exclusively). The stories told to us are those of immigrants, with or without visas, who've come to London, England because they believed our streets were 'paved with gold', and they thought they could make enough money to survive here whilst also sending some back to their families.

For me, the interesting question is not personal to these men, as unfortunate as their current situation is. It's the fact that this narrative is an endlessly repeating one; that they might make their fortune here near Big Ben. I've spoken to several homeless men who thought that, only to be rudely awakened upon arrival. They often don't realise that yes, you can get ahead in a cosmopolitan, vibrant city like London, but not if you turn up with nothing. Sleeping with the rats is one pay-check away for these people, if they manage to get that in the first place.

The most important question of all is this: What is going on in the world that men leave their wives and children, their parents, their language, their climate... and travel, often in dangerous conditions, halfway around the world, because they believe life is so much better here?

We have a globalised world, and a globalised problem. The only truly ethical way to stop these men ending up homeless on our streets is to rectify the disparity between their hometown and ours. Our streets ARE paved with gold to them, compared with where they're coming from; the irony is that even once they've made it here, society still won't let them get hold of any.

The Electro Wars

This post begins very normally, but gets more interesting, so read on!

Today I was in a small shopping centre in North West London and I ended up having a cup of tea with a homeless man.

His name was Jhan (pronounced Jan), which he said was originally Bavarian, though this didn't sound quite right to me and he had a very definitely English accent, so I'm not sure how true that was.

Anyway, he looked like your stereotypical homeless man; wild grey/white hair and beard, thick jumper and old battered coat, possibly from a shelter handout a while ago, big heavy boots, overlong nails with dirty underneath them and the obligatory two or three overstuffed carrier bags. Jhan had three rings on his fingers, all silver-coloured, one with a petroleum like stone and the others just silver bands with celtic-influenced symbols on them. And his teeth were surprisingly healthy looking.

We sat down for our tea. He's the first homeless person I've known who doesn't take sugar in his tea. He had asked me if I was from the area, and so I asked him in return, and he said he'd been wandering about; that he'd just been in Lincoln. Lincoln's been all over the news in the last few weeks because of the extreme snow there, so I mentioned that - but he didn't seem to know what I was talking about.

Then he said he'd just come from Chelmsford where he'd been visiting his daughter. While I was saying something inane about that being nice, he mentioned she'd passed away. Oh. A few sentences later I asked if there was a cathedral in Chelmsford, and he seemed to have no idea why I'd brought the place up, and repeated the word "Chelmsford" to himself several times like it was totally alien. I reminded him that he'd just brought it up, and he apologised and said he was drunk, but to be honest I didn't believe him. He didn't seem drunk at all. I think perhaps he was embarassed by his memory lapses and tried to cover them up by saying that. Then he said his daughter would be 12 now but she had died when she was 9. Again, I think he was slightly confused when he said this because he next told me that he is 49: if he's 49 then I'm still in primary school. Even hard-living and drinking don't age someone that much: his face was so lined and his hair the petering out frizz of old age. Several times in our conversation he seemed to be living in a different era, and would often sound quaintly old-fashioned.


Then it got more interesting...


He asked me if I was a "blitz temp". At first I thought he was imagining himself in the 1940s, but it quickly became apparent that that wasn't the case. He started to mention "the electro wars" and I slowly realised that memory wasn't the only problem he had.

He asked me "Are you one of those rebuilt dames?" and I told him I didn't know what he meant, to which he replied "You're well done, I'll give you that." I suppose I sort of half-nodded and swiftly tried to change the subject.

My next subject topic seemed to be a slight error! There was a small baby at the table opposite us, so I said, "Oh, look, what a little baby." And he agreed and then said "Isn't it terrible what they do to babies nowadays?" I agreed and asked what in particular he meant. "You know Cirencester? Well, there's this big building there and I looked in and they had all these babies, with wires in their heads, and they were feeding them on fitness drinks." I made some noises about the evils of protein shakes, and then drew attention to the 2 aquariums of beautiful fish near us.

He said he remembered them from a long time ago, and that he thought fish were very intelligent. Now, this is something I agree with, so we had a nice chat about how wonderful they are. Then he told me about a pigeon that he'd had a conversation with a few weeks ago - and for once he sounded suitably incredulous about what he was saying - and how it had sounded just like a normal person, and he wondered if it was 'the ghost' speaking to him. I'm not sure if he meant the Christian Holy Ghost or a ghost of a dead person, because at some point he did also mention people coming back from the dead.

Other snippets included him saying that he used to fit kitchens, then central heating, then work on vintage cars, then antiques dealing. He also told me not to go in ambulances because "you never know which way they're going to go".

On my way home I was thinking about Jhan and his mental health. I suppose he'd be labelled a paranoid schizophrenic, though I am in NO way an expert. So how should he be taken care of, rather than wandering the streets? He is definitely homeless: he has nowhere to sleep tonight and said he'll try to find a warm place "to huddle" but that it's difficult because he gets a hard time from drunk people and "these", said with a gesture of rubbing his fingertips, which I thought might mean the cold. If someone's not a danger to themselves or others, and has no family to fill out paperwork and fight for the place in some sort of sheltered housing, I suppose that is what happens to them. It seems a shame that to get a roof over his head tonight he'd have to harm someone.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

Every year Radio4 do a Christmas Appeal and this year it's the homeless charity "The Connection" at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London.

I just watched the video below, a 2min slideshow of pictures taken by one of the young men they've helped, 24 year old Jamie, and it made me think about something which surprised me when I first started working with or talking to homeless people...

It's not always the immediately obvious things which get to people sleeping rough in the end. We all know that if you're homeless, you don't have a toilet, you don't have a bed, you don't haave a front door etc... and can perhaps envisage how horrible and inhuman that can feel.

But it's easy to omit the things we barely notice. Mirrors for example. These people can go months without seeing their own reflection. Most passersby look straight through them, used to seeing the slug-like sleeping bags marooned on the pavement. But add to that not being able to look in a mirror, to have that little confirmation of 'yes, I exist, and this is me, with crooked teeth or a mole on my cheek.' Just invisibility, even to your own eyes.
I remember a long time ago talking to a couple of old men, who'd been homeless on and off for longer than I'd been alive, about how no one knew their names. Nobody had a) asked them their name and b) had cause to repeat that word back to them, for a very, very long time. What do you become without your name and your face?

An end to 'Benefits Culture'?

I just found this short film from 1989 (i.e. near end of the Thatcher govt) featuring war photographer Don McCullin turning his attention on the dispossessed of the London streets. Some stunning photography and interesting interviews.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8471292.stm

If you don't have 15 minutes, scroll forward to 05:40... pinpointing the government's objective to "end benefit culture" as a catalyst for more young people on the streets of London. Funny how little can change in 20 years.

I found this film through this blog, about a soup run in Brighton (with a strong Christian bent):
http://brighton-soup-run.blogspot.com/2010/01/newsnight-celebrates-its-30th.html

Sculptor on the street

There's a homeless guy who I've seen around Kensington for a few months and the other day I saw him near Victoria train station, on Grosvenor Gardens. The reason I know it's him is because he always has this strange object with him.

When I first saw him, a few months ago this year when it was warmer, I was sitting outside a cafe near closing time. He went just inside the cafe door asked if they could spare an almond croissant, in a loud, consciously cockney beggar type way. The girls working there said no. He begged them a bit more, saying they were just going to throw it out anyway, but they stood firm, eventually giving him a cup of water. In his hands he had a sort of dirty-greyish-whitish lump. I thought it was a rock then.

But the next time I saw him, lounging in a doorway in the same area, the lump has grown considerably in size. Before it had been just slightly bigger than his palm; now it was a good few inches bigger. I wondered if he was sticking chewing gum people have discarded onto it.

I saw him again a few weeks after that and the strange lump now had spikes sticking out of it. I can't remember if they were twigs or metal things, but it looked like a balding blowfish anyway.

And the last time I saw him was the Sunday before last near Victoria. He had the lump still, spikeless again but again larger, by a few inches. Next time I see him I'm going to ask him about it.

I love London, but London does not love me

I was speaking to a couple of homeless Polish men recently.

One of them said he was very tired: he's working as a porter for a Mayfair hotel, for which he has to get up at 5.30am to receive deliveries. He had been to work on the Friday from 5.30 til the evening, and had then slept for two hours that night because he couldn't get a hostel place and was out sleeping rough, and then went to work from 5.30 all day again. I guess it must be cash in hand, otherwise he'd need a bank account and therefore an address. He said London isn't what he expected. He had a little bit of the dinner the shelter was serving up and then conked out on the camp bed.

I had a much longer conversation with the other guy. He said he's scared of the BNP. Not because of the possibility of them getting some political power (which even he didn't think was going to happen) but because of their influence on the ground. He said he encounters people who, as soon as they hear him speak Polish, or with his accent, they hurl abuse, or their fists, at him. Apparently he's encountered some charities or social services people who won't help him because he's not British.

He said he loves London but London does not love him.

God Loves You *update*

{This is an update for this post: http://justaplotofearth.blogspot.com/2009/12/god-loves-you.html}

So, yesterday I had an hour and a half to kill, but no cafes to go to because it was the Bank Holiday and everything had closed already.

So I decided to go to Victoria train station to sit in their foodhall bit and do a bit of reading. As I was going up the escalator, I happened to turn around, and behind me was God Loves You man.

I was fairly surprised.

I told him I knew him and explained why; it took him a while to place me but I think he eventually did. We went to a table and sat down. There was a family next to us delighting in a KFC chicken bucket who looked a little taken aback. His denim jacket was much more torn than in December, and his hair a little longer and more knotted, but aside from that, he looked much the same. He didn't smell at all and his hands were only slightly grubby.

And so, he has big news: He is off again this week to Israel, hoping to complete the pilgrimage he attempted last year. He showed me the Eurostar ticket, tucked safely between the pages of his Bible. It was a new Bible, the Jewish Bible, and he had underlined, highlighted and annotated it comprehensively, mainly in blue and pink. This time, he says he will either make it to Jerusalem, or come back in a box. He is going through several Muslim countries with his Jewish Bible and a Jewish Bible quote written on his backpack. He laughed and said that they're going to kill him. I think he quite likes the idea that there is an end in sight, of some sort.

As we were chatting, I noticed a tattoo peeking out from under his right sleeve. I asked him what it was of. Disconcertingly, he proceeded to partially undress, and showed me a fantastic inking all the way up his arm and shoulder - patterns intertwining around three dates and a face, and the letters RIP, with a name emblazoned below. They are the birth date, death date, and cremation date of his wife. She was 23 years older than him and died of cancer in 2002. She wasn't religious but had been becoming interested in it close to her death, but he had told her it was a load of bollocks; this was, of course, before his conversion.

There's something rather charismatic about him, something knowing; the way his eyes crinkle at the sides and his willingness to talk about how many sugars he likes in his tea (about 12 as far as I could see) as much as about the Mark of the Beast. I worked out that he's about 44, but you couldn't work that out just by looking at him with his overgrown straggly hair and beard, and slightly stooping gait. He said he tries to eat as little as possible.

He has lots to say about religion; not all of which I could follow due to my own lack of Bible knowledge. He believes that no matter how Godly one's life is, if one doesn't observe the Sabbath (on a Saturday) then one's back is turned on God. He calls the Catholic Church the Harlot Church, says that Jesus was the same as the angel Michael, that there isn't a heaven and hell as such but different realms of sleep until the Second Judgement.

When he talks about this, although it's hard to follow, it's not like the ramblings of a mad man; more like how any intelligent person might speak about something they've only just understood and feel passionately about.

I suppose I won't encounter him again; hopefully he'll make it safely to Jerusalem and live out his days as a sort of holy man there.

To Robert... whoever and wherever you may be

I never spoke to this person myself, which I regret.

I first saw him when I was 18, and I was far too nervous about approaching him.

This was partly because of the sense of dignity he gave off.

I was told by somebody else a couple of years later, when I saw him again, that his name was Robert. All I knew that first time was that he was taller than average, and of quite big stature, in an impressive way. He had a very dogeared, dirty suit on, and when he sat down and crossed his legs, which was invariably how he sat, the trouser leg rode up so that I could see large, dark red sores up his legs. His hair was an unkempt salt and pepper. He had an Independent newspaper under one arm.

I saw him a few times after that, always with the Independent, which he'd then sit down and read in silence.

The shelter that I saw him in was only open over Christmas, and on the last day, I was on the servery helping to pack up. As we were closing the doors, he asked somebody if they could pass him out a cup of water. I was nearest the tap so passed it out to him.

That small moment was quite an epiphany for me. Just a cup of water - something so basic and yet he can't get it. It hadn't occured to me before that something so simple as a drink of water was out of reach for him, now that London has basically no water fountains. I went home to my nice warm house and mother, and felt a profound guilt.

I didn't see him for the next couple of years.

When I next saw him, it was terribly sad. He was wearing a suit again, possibly the same one; at any rate it was more dishevelled than I remembered. He was bearded. His posture was a world away from the dignified bearing he'd had previously. But it wasn't the hunching that was the most shocking thing; it was his pallor - he was yellow. I can only assume he had cirrhosis of the liver. His degeneration was a big shock.

I felt even less able to speak to him now, older and more confident as I was, he was in no state to be chatted to. He had to be helped to a chair, and helped out of it at the end of the day. That was the day somebody told me his name was Robert and that he had been an engineer.

I don't know where he'd come from, what had happened, or where he is now.

For a while I had a silly, romantic notion: He bore a resemblance to a favourite artist of mine, who died in the year I saw him for the first time - this artist, Robert Lenkiewicz, was also something of a practical joker, and just the type of guy to pull off a fake-death. And of course, they shared the same first name. I suppose it was my way of making this terribly sad human story swallowable; more of a fairy tale.

Broken Britain

A couple of years ago, in a homeless shelter, I met a young man, a boy really, who really seemed to exemplify 'broken Britain'.

He said he was 17, but I didn't believe him; you had to be 16 to get into the shelter (otherwise social services have to be notified) so I think he was playing it safe.

He wasn't particularly clean, but not massively unkempt. He seemed really suspicious about everybody around him. He had shortish brown hair, and was quite tall and skinny, and had really wonky front teeth.

He was living in a squat somewhere. As we chatted, he seemed to loosen up, probably because we were a similarish age. He was from Plymouth where he'd been living with his mum, but had moved to London a couple of years ago to live with his dad - he didn't say why he made this change.

It seemed that he hadn't really liked London, had struggled here a bit and missed his mates, and at some point he'd gone back to his mum in Plymouth. But again, that hadn't worked out so he'd come back to London but not told his dad. He spoke to his mum from time to time. He told me he makes around £40 a day - he didn't say what from, but I guess it must have been drugs or stealing. I asked if his mum asks how he's earning that money - he's told her he works on building sites.

That was about 2 or 3 years ago - he's one of those people that I have a horrible feeling about, that he's dead or in prison or has descended into doing terrible things to other people. Hopefully not.

It's Just Life.

I met a Polish homeless guy in Kensington recently.

There are a surprising number sleeping rough in that area - I would have assumed such an affluent neighbourhood would 'clean them up', or, shock-horror, donate some of their wealth to helping out their destitute neighbours.

Anyway, this guy was sitting in the cold (it was during the snowy patch at the end of 2009) with a cup out for begging money. I had crouched down next to him to tell him about a shelter he could go to if he needed to.

Like practically every nomadic, homeless type of person I've encountered, once I showed him I was friendly, he had plenty to say. His English wasn't great. He has children back in Poland, but said he can't go back there because if he does, he'll get sent to prison!! I'm not sure why - there seemed to be money involved in it though. He makes a little money now by 'doing pizza papers' which I finally worked out meant sticking take-away pizza leaflets through doors.

He said he's an alcoholic, and isn't sure what he's going to do from here: at the moment, he's quite inclined to go back to Poland, and just go to prison, and 'be finished'. I think I must have pulled a sorry face or something because he patted me and said "It's ok, it's just life." And then started talking about cutting his leg off.

Frequent Flyer

I just met this guy on the tube two days ago. I've learnt how to spot someone destitute now - though perhaps he wouldn't appreciate that word being used about him - dirty fingers, unshaven, lots of layers of clothing - scavenged and kept in the safest place; on him, and multiple bags stuffed with everything else he owns. There's also often a particular odour that people have after not washing for a while - I can't really put my finger on what it is, but it's very distinctive and always makes me think of the colour yellow.

Anyway, this guy got on the Piccadilly Line tube where I got on, and sat down opposite me. I smiled at him sheepishly, and he seemed pleased to see a glimmer of friendliness. He had a cut on his hand that looked quite bad - the sides of it were all raised up like it was getting infected. I said to him that it looked pretty bad. People in our carriage who saw me speak to him looked like I'd just revealed a tail.


We got chatting.

He's Australian, from New South Wales, and is called Richard. He came over here in March 2009. He's going back in February 2010. He works on building sites usually but said that this time he hasn't had much luck with work. He looks about 55. I asked why he came over here, and he said that in 2002 (or was it 2003? I can't remember) he flew 17 times between various countries - to Israel, South America, America - all over - and so he now has loads of frequent flyer free airmiles to use up!!! So he popped over here for a year.

He's travelled widely - he said his hardest time was in Peru but didn't go into detail. He said he often crashes at a friend's but this year he ended up spending Christmas night in a graveyard in Pimlico because there was no transport so he couldn't get to the friend's.

I hope he carries on travelling safely.

A side of compassion, please

A couple of years ago I briefly met a man who was sleeping in the doorway of a Prada shop in central London. He had a pair of chef's checked trousers in his rucksack, which I saw peeking out, so I asked if that was what he worked as; he said yes, but he'd recently been fired because they found out he was homeless.

Linguist in disguise

This is just a short one - I encountered this guy twice, and he didn't seem to have a very good memory because he couldn't remember meeting me previously, despite it only being an hour or so ago.

His name was Carl and I'm not sure how old he was; he could have been 30, 40 or 50, I don't know. I also don't know what was 'wrong' with him - a smattering of autism? tourrettes? - he had tics and obsessions. He spoke like it wasn't a very easy physical process and his body moved awkwardly. I was with a French man and an Italian woman when I met him. When he realised that was where they were from, he started saying words in those languages. He later did the same thing to a Chinese speaker. It was a really interesting insight into someone who comes across like their intellect is somehow not fully operational, like their body, but he retains all these bits of languages.

He said something to me which was slightly hard to make out, but the jist of it was that if you read and work too much, your brain burns out. I wonder if that's what happened to him.