Ending homelessness

It is the last meeting of the Saturday Club before Christmas. Next week it’s the Christmas meal. Roy, the elected head, has negotiated a price of £12 a head with a restaurant near Leicester Square. ‘That’s turkey with all the trimmings’ he explains. The group is just about scraping by financially. Members are pleased with the deal Roy has struck. There is an end of term feel to the Saturday Club. An apprehensive mood prevails as each member ruminates over what the festive season may bring. The conversation revolves around memories of best and worst Christmas days. Each person, it seems, has something in common; they have all experienced a Christmas day when they have been on their own. Patrick describes spending Christmas day 1973 in a derelict house without windows in Deptford, south London.  A new arrival to the country from Ireland , he was unaware of the services available to the destitute and tried to sleep away most of the day, waking to find himself gently keening f...

The supplicants’ hands are outstretched as they patiently wait to be chosen by the soup run volunteers distributing food on the Strand. I stand and watch in the gloaming and see Barry amongst the crowd. My heart sinks. Thames Reach housed Barry four years earlier. ‘Whatever happened to the flat?’ I ask Barry after the opening pleasantries. Barry frowns with irritation and explains that he’s still got ‘the gaff’. I’ve plainly insulted him. ‘Well I can see the food’s good’ I continue, trying to make amends. But I’ve only succeeded in digging myself in deeper. Barry is moving from irritation to anger. ‘I don’t need the food’ he splutters, sending a shower of crumbs in my direction. We’re not homeless, we just come uptown for the crack’ (meaning conversation, not drugs). He waves his arm to indicate his circle of friends who look equally insulted at being considered ‘the homeless’. I skulk off before I find more than crumbs coming my way. Later, Barry comes to mind when I search ‘homeless’...

‘It was the mini-milks that did me’ explained the bespectacled Raymond. I had asked him about the highs and lows of his time sleeping rough on the streets of central London. You won’t be surprised to hear that Raymond’s reminiscences covering the highs were somewhat on the thin side, whereas the lows….. ‘There were five lads and none of them could have been more than fourteen. They said they were going to get me a surprise from McDonalds on The Strand. I hadn’t eaten for more than a day and was hoping for a Big Mac. Instead they came out with a tray of those little milks for the teas and coffees with the tops all peeled off and threw the lot over me. I was soaked and as it was milk I knew it would smell too before much longer. I went off to the Passage (a day centre) to plead for a change of clothes. I felt at my lowest. It was a bad feeling having the piss taken out of me by kids.’ In my experience the petty indignities suffered by people sleeping rough often leave psycholo...