Ending homelessness

Sitting in my in-box is a report on deaths among our hostel residents during 2013. I busy myself with other e-mails, mentally preparing myself before opening it. And because I know what it will contain, I focus my mind on a couple of colleagues, Dave and Dennis, both of whom were once street drinkers knocking back death defying quantities of alcohol and are now, having tackled their addiction, skilled hostel workers.  Eventually I resolve to click open the report. It includes the following grim statistics. There have been thirteen deaths, ten alcohol-related. In all but one case the specific type of alcohol that caused this carnage was lager and cider of above 7.5% alcohol by volume (abv); the super-strengths.  It’s a sickening, upsetting report. ‘Sarah’s lower intestine ceased working because of alcohol misuse, causing system failure’. ‘Rick was admitted into the intensive care unit but suffered massive organ failure due to long-term alcohol-related health problems’. ‘Alan...

When Jane, Stephen’s support worker rang me to say that Stephen was dying, I thought she meant he might be dead in two months. I said I would visit him the following week. I had last seen him six months earlier. He was slightly drunk at the time and his skin a bit blotchy, yet he was cheerful, with ambitious plans for improving his flat. I was shocked by the news and talked on for a bit, but at the other end of the phone there was one of those jarring silences when you suddenly realise that you have missed the point. ‘No, no, he’s dying now. You need to see him today’. So I cancelled my morning appointment and took the train to West Norwood. As I came off the train I could see the ambulance outside Stephen’s block. Inside the ambulance they were busy making him comfortable on the stretcher bed. A mask was clamped to Stephen’s face and his breathing was accompanied by a sickening rasp. He was a stomach-churning yellow-brown colour, the colour of someone whose liver is damaged beyond...