Homelessness

I wrote this piece in January but wanted to post it here as Crisis had such an affect on me. Homelessness is an issue all year round; its not only unbearable in winter and at Christmas, but 365 days a year...

“Homelessness-

It’s not about not having a home. It’s about something being seriously fucking wrong.”

Stuart Shorter- A life backwards.

“I’m just going to get a cup of tea Miles.”

“Alright, I wait down here.”

I didn’t go back. That was my goodbye, a lousy lie about a cup of tea. I told myself I was doing the right thing for them, for Miles, Emile, Marcus, Miguel, Sean, Mickey; for all the friends I made at the shelter over the time I had volunteered at Crisis this year. But sitting back at home, in my warm house with my family, I realised it was more to do with the fact that it made it easier for me. That’s when the crying started. I could see that I was afraid of goodbye because it was a real one; not, lets swap numbers, or I’ll add you on ‘Facebook.’ It’s goodbye. I’m going back to my nice life and you’re going back outside. The platform that I met these people on crumbled as we turn the heating off on the last night so they could begin to get acclimatised to the cold again. The limbo our friendship balanced on was over, and I felt I was abandoning my friends. Over the Christmas period, crisis at Christmas run shelters all over London for eight days. Eight days of hot meals and hot showers. Doctors, dentists’ options, hairdressers, even masseuses are all available to the guests. There are people there from the council, housing system, benefits, solicitors, translators, immigration advice. Everything from the venue, food, to the professionals and helpers are all volunteers or donations.

Its not the first time I have worked with homeless people, I didn’t walk in naïve- I’ve make the same mistake before, making bonds and friendships that you can’t take outside of the shelter, for the good of everyone involved, I couldn’t do it any other way. But what still shocks me is the hopeless realisation that homelessness cannot be simply solved by putting a roof over these people’s heads. The fact these people have no address is not even half the problem. Spending time with them has made me see there’s so much more to it than that. Homelessness is a state of mind. There are numerous types of homeless people; there are those that have suffered a temporary set back; their wife has left them, they’ve gone bankrupt, loss of a loved one. These are the ‘reachables’; they are the most likely to get off the street, with a bit of help. Next are the youths, that have run away from home, or that have graduated from care and have no idea what to do next and where to go. There are the ex-convicts and ex-army persons that struggle with the sudden change, of their days not having routine and regime. The elderly; those with no children, grandchildren or pension. No one to pay for a care home and somehow they slip through the net and die quietly on the streets. Then it gets more complicated; next are those who simply don’t know how to function in society. They have learning disabilities, they can’t read or write and more often than not they have alarmingly serious mental health problems. They are socially inept and consequently suffer from chronic poverty, unable to rise above their circumstances without proper care and support. (Drugs and alcohol are laced within all these levels, sometimes being the reason for people’s homelessness, sometimes a by-product.)

The east-London shelter this year was run in an un-used office block in the docklands; three floors of open space, floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking out over the Thames. The cold, bright mornings were visually stunning; the sun rising over the river to the city gave the top floor with all the camp beds a healthy, hopeful glow. It’s a lot easier to appreciate the beauty in a cold sunrise when you’re sleeping on the right side of the glass.

The second floor had all the advice areas, showers, and activities. There was a mini cinema set up and boxes of games, chess, scrabble, monopoly. The arts and crafts area was at the opposite end next to a table serving endless cups of tea and coffee, then the bottom floor had the kitchen and large cafeteria. Something that people don’t always appreciate when thinking of the homeless, Is how boring it can be. Drugs enter the equation for some as a way to warm up, or a way to fill the endless hours of life on the pavement. These people never tired of games and simple entertainment in the days I spent with them, although its rather frustrating being beaten by at scrabble over and over again when your opponent is blatantly making up words and double word scores, but you can’t say anything, because- he’s homeless. Give him the double word score, make it a triple.

The small group of guests that spent two days dominating the painting area all live under Waterloo bridge; veterans with years of service under their belt. Dominic was in the army for twenty seven years, Ian, fourteen. They planned to hang the poster from the bridge where they live.

“CAMP HOPE.” I read.

I’m painfully embarrassed when a family member tells me that “they’re proud of my generosity, my generous donation of my time,” and it’s not due to modesty. I want to wash their pride off me because it makes me feel sticky, it feels fake- my supposed generosity. I’m left with an overwhelming sense that my time it not enough; it’s a hopeless situation and me spending a few days talking and playing scrabble with them and painting pictures feels like a bit of an insult.

It’s Miles I can’t seem to forget. We’re the same age but at polar opposite ends of the earth. He seemed to have fallen so far in such a short space of time, he doesn’t believe that he could ever dust himself off and start again. There is nothing he values in his life. Everyday is a pain in the arse he says.

“What am I supposed to do, I don‘t know how to do anything but burgle houses. Fuck, I can barely write my own name.” His dad had died when he was nine, his mother re-married and his new stepfather liked to hit him around the head with frying pans and other kitchen utensils when he thought no one was watching. Miles started playing up at school, causing trouble, then stopped going. Took drugs, smoked weed in the park and got drunk often; then came petty crime, stealing cars up to burglary, leading him to prison, and now he just spent Christmas in a homeless shelter. So fast a fall, so hard a climb.

Any advice I give ends up sounding condescending and he tells me to stop lecturing him, playfully punching me on the arm. I look through the small collection of photos he passes to me, photos that were stuck on his wall in prison. He was released four weeks ago. I pick off the lumps of blue-tack looking carefully but I don’t recognise the boy playing in the sand with his parents.

I don’t see how I can have both, be friends with them without being one of them; how I can care about a homeless person from the comfort of my own home? The contradiction surely poisons the intent. We’re separated by what side of the door we are on and the separation is the size of the grand canyon. As I’m writing this, it’s snowing, and I think of my friends and how cold it is. I feel a pull to be outside, to be sitting with them because being warmed by my central heating whilst I miss them and feel sorry for them feels too strange, but being a martyr sounds ridiculous. It’s insulting to give up what I have when they don’t have anything. I’m sick with contradiction.

I don’t know what side of the door to stand, and actually, whichever side I am, it doesn’t make a difference; it doesn’t solve the unfathomable tangle of these peoples lives, laced with misfortune, abuse, drugs. And there’s no in-between. Although Crisis could be seen as one; an in-between or a platform where two obscure sides of one coin meet. One of the lead volunteers of our particular shelter, Ben said that the main feedback that he got from the ‘guests’ every year was how nice it felt for them that for eight days, “they were talked to like human beings, not rubbish on the floor.” In my time there I gave smiles and hugs out like sweets and was never afraid or wary, although I’d be lying if I said I’d feel the same way giving away affection or a hug to a homeless person on the street. But really, what’s the difference? What a useless contradiction that is.

I thought helping others at Christmas would make me feel good, but actually I feel terrible. I change my mind a hundred times a second as to whether to call up and volunteer for an extra shift; the shift of closing day where we give them their last breakfast and gently get them to leave. I want to go back, suddenly these people are the only people I want to spend time with. How many times over the last few days have I laughed as Sean or Mickey said something funny because it was something true. They say exactly what they’re thinking, exactly what they mean, because if your not part of society, then there are not constraints of society; ways to behave, basic social etiquette. All of that goes out of the window when there’s no roof.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to abandon Miles, or to disappear on Miguel. And I bet I’m not the last. And I’m struggling to face that fact sitting with a box of Kleenex in my living room, let-a-lone abandoning them to their face. They don’t need a Hollywood goodbye. Me crying is a bit useless, and spending more time with these people serves to make me feel better, not them. So I don’t call, I don’t go back.

The phrase the tip of the iceberg springs to mind- I’m sitting on the tip, and I now can’t pretend that the little piece I can see, is all that there is, because by sitting here, I’ve acknowledged that there’s more, much more. I don’t know what to do with that, I’m marooned. I’m struggling with the sight of human suffering, but more because of the fact that it goes past suffering, they’re surviving. Or rather, it’s these people’s version of living. Its life, and hearts beat and lungs breathe no matter how lonely and lost you are. To me, that seems like a tragedy.

The tears flow and flow for hours. Men aren’t good with tears and my dad is no exception. I know how much he hates to see me cry and he would give the world to remedy it. He makes me cups of tea with lots of sugar. He pats me on the head and gives me some money, “There there,” he says to me stroking my hair.

I keep imaging Miles waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me to come back with my cup of tea, the money is crumpled tightly in my palm and I cry harder. Humans are contradictory creatures, and I am a useless mess of contradiction and tears.