Category Archives: Guest stories

meet a guest Serge

I ended up sleeping on the street because I had a disagreement with my uncle. I realized I was actually homeless – I barely had enough to eat – it was a very harsh situation. I met a friend who told me about a youth centre where I could get help and luckily, they referred me to Shelter from the Storm. SFTS helped me get a proper job with a great hotel chain and they’re training me to be an engineer. I’m doing ESOL lessons at the shelter and things are really looking up. I’m looking forward to getting my own place and I’m so grateful to the shelter for helping me get from a really bad place to where I am now. Serge

 

meet a guest Francis

I came to the UK in 1970. My parents were already living and working here, they’d left me to be brought up by my Grandma in Nigeria. I was eight. I lived with my uncle in St Albans and I looked after his three children aged four, five and six even though I was only a child myself. I was supposed to be home schooled, but that didn’t happen. At 16, I ran away and my education really started. I worked during the day and studied at night finally achieving a  Masters in Economics from Lancaster University.

I was living with my girlfriend in her father’s flat in Grosvenor Square when we got burgled. They took all my tools for my work as a plumber and all my ID – my passport, driving licence and my CSCS card. When my girlfriend returned to her family in Russia I stayed in a backpacker hostel. After four months when my work and savings dried up, I slept in the doorway of 40 Grosvenor Square. I was there for 6 months till I was picked up by outreach workers who took me to a hub in Lewisham, but you had to sleep on the floor with strangers and I didn’t feel safe so I  returned to  Grosvenor Square. After a couple of months, a private security firm drove us all out of the Square and I moved to a car park on Vauxhall Bridge Road – I spent 4 months there till I was picked up St Mungo’s who placed me in a hostel in Maida Vale. This is when I got caught up in the Windrush Scandal and my nightmare began, my stolen passport was stamped with my Indefinite Leave to Remain and the Home Office had no records proving my status. Without my papers and right to benefits, I couldn’t stay in the hostel and they asked me to leave. I went back to my car park till I was finally referred to Shelter from the Storm in November 2017. All this time I’ve been trying to sort out my status.

I don’t understand why people like me have been subjected to this treatment – I’ve been made to feel I don’t belong even though I’ve lived here since I was a child. I’ve worked and paid taxes since I was 16 – more than 40 years. Shelter from the Storm has been great, but I’m so frustrated and desperate to get back to work – I can’t think, I can’t plan, I feel without hope.

I believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel, with the help of my MP Emily Thornberry (who’s been amazing) my solicitor and Shelter from the Storm I should soon have my independence again.

 

Alan – Philosophy Forum

Why The Philosophy Forum Helps Me:

My name is Alan and I am 38. I live in London and I’m homeless at the moment.  I started going to the philosophy group at Shelter from the Storm where I’m a guest. Three weeks ago I went in to the forum thinking I would not enjoy or benefit from this group but how I was wrong! This group has helped me so much in my thinking and helped with seeing day to day things from a different angle. The philosophy forum gives me confidence and self- belief.

We have a different topic every week and they push my mind and thinking process to a different level. It brings a healthy debate in my mind and also teaches me that it’s not all about my opinion being right because I think there is no right or wrong really in philosophy.  I would stand in front of anyone to say that this group should be back to hilt and can help many walks of life. I can see this helping really anyone and it will add something worthwhile to them- a healthy mind is a powerful tool. I think philosophy group brings that.

Thank you

Alan Glynn

 

meet a guest Barbara

I’m a Hoxton girl. I was born in Sillitoe House on the Colville Estate. We had no electric, just a little gas cooker on legs and gas lights. Mum, dad and 5 children in 2 bedrooms. We moved out of there to a 3-bed maisonette, which we thought was very posh – height of luxury. It had electricity! We didn’t realise mum had to put money in the meter and we’d run around playing the lights. My dad was a Long-Distance Lorry Driver, my mum was an office cleaner and a School Dinner Lady. The neighbours were a bit snooty about mum working and leaving her children, but mum believed she was giving us a better standard of living – and she was. We were never hungry or cold or without shoes or winter coats. We all had bronchial problems and the old Metropolitan Hospital advised us to move out of London. We did a Council House exchange and moved to Haverhill in Suffolk. I missed London so much – I’m a London girl!

After 7 years in Suffolk we came back to live in Edmonton. I got a job at Villiers Shoes – it was owned by two brother who’d escaped the Holocaust – they had their numbers tattooed on their arms.  We sold old stock High Street brands.  My job on a Monday morning was to clean off the brand names with methylated spirits. I earned £11 for a 6-day week, but I always had all the latest shoes.

I got married at 17, my family were dead against it but gave in eventually. He had a motor bike, long hair and a leather jacket – bit of a ‘Greaser’ I suppose. He was a huge man, very violent – physically, verbally and emotionally. I ended up in hospital three timed with broken ribs, black eyes and broken nose. The rest of the time I just put up with it – put on a brave face – put up and shut up. After he’d been violent, he always said he loved me and promised he’d never do it again. I was 21 and we were all going to a party. He was going to be late, so I went on without him. When he finally arrived, I opened the door to him and the next thing I knew, I was coming round in Chase Farm Hospital. He’d knocked me out and I was in hospital for three days.

I went home to mum and dad, they never said, “I told you so”. It was 1978, I was 21 and I didn’t have another relationship till 1990 when I was 33. I was a canteen assistant and he was a removal man. We were very happy together, we didn’t drink or smoke but we enjoyed going to the pub for the Darts club – bit boring I suppose, but we liked it. With hindsight, I suppose I was a bit of a dogsbody for him and his family, but I didn’t mind, they were my family too.

Things took a turn when his mum fell ill. Me and his mum got on really well, I was her main carer and saved her life a couple of times. My partner became very anxious and difficult around his mum’s ill health and it put a huge strain on our relationship. I suggested we try to talk about it. He refused to discuss anything and said “If you don’t like it, you can **** off –  it’s  not your ****ing house.” I popped out to get his mum’s medicine and pension and when I returned, he’d locked me out. The family tried to mediate, but he just wouldn’t budge. After 28 years, he just wiped me from his life – rubbed me out. When my niece finally made contact so I could collect my ID and belongings, his sister said, “We don’t want anything to do with her – she’s out of our family, she’s out of our lives.” I was in total shock, we’d had a really good strong relationship until his mum’s illness. His whole personality seemed to change .  I was absolutely devastated – I was heart broken.

I sofa surfed with friends and family for 17 months. One day I’d just had enough of imposing on everyone and I left to live on the streets. I stayed in Libraries all day, I’d shower at my sister’s and friends would give me food. I stayed awake at bus stops all night.

One day I was at the bus stop outside Mildmay Library and a woman from the flats opposite came over with tea and toast and said, “Excuse me, but are you homeless?”  I asked why and she said, “Don’t be embarrassed, I’ve been there myself” She told me to go to the Manna in Canonbury.

I’d been on the streets 5 weeks, all during The Beast from the East.  I wasn’t frightened, I’d just come to the end – I never thought of killing myself, I just didn’t care what happened to me anymore. No one realises how mentally and physically exhausting it is on the streets. Will I be safe, will someone attack me, when will I eat, will I fall ill – you’re constantly on alert. I pitched up at the Manna on the Tuesday and by Friday, I’d got a bed at the shelter. I was in pretty poor shape, I’d lost loads of weight.  My first few days were very emotional. I hadn’t slept in a bed for 5 weeks.  People were so kind and supportive – didn’t judge me. I had a shower and got my clothes washed, had a lovely, proper cooked, hot dinner – there was company, people who cared.  I could finally relax and feel human again.  The Counsellor at the shelter really helped me get some perspective on the things I’ve experienced.

We’ve finally sorted out my paperwork – it was a real shock to have to prove my existence for the last 28 years. I’m waiting for an assessment for supported housing – my own proper little home for life – maybe a little bit of a garden? I’d love a garden, I’m good with a garden. It will be the first time in my life I have ever lived on my own.  After 61 years, I can’t wait.

 

 

meet a guest Dominic

Dominic lived off the Grid – relationship break-down and deteriorating mental health led to his homelessness.

I was born in London and then my family moved to Wales.  I studied Engineering at Cardiff University where I had a fantastic time.  I graduated and moved back to London to work for British Telecom, but I couldn’t see myself there for the next 40 years.  I got a job as a temp at Our Price Records, which I loved and ended up as the Manager of Virgin Megastore at Tottenham Court Road.  It was the days of Brit Pop, I earned great money and I bought a house in Watford with my partner. We did up the house and we got married in 1995. Our first daughter was born in 1998 and our second girl in 2002.  We were together till 2006 – 16 years.  In 2001, I had testicular cancer which was successfully treated.  We sold the house and moved to Lincolnshire. Sadly, in 2006, my wife went on holiday with the kids and she told me she wanted to separate.  She asked me to leave the house before she would return.  I pretty much hit rock bottom, and my brothers came to pick me up to take me back to Wales.  I was still working, but I’d been depressed for about 4 months before her ultimatum and with hindsight, I guess I didn’t realise how unwell I was.  At home in Wales, I went really downhill and my doctor prescribed anti-depressants. After a while, I just upped and left Wales and moved back to London to live on the streets.  I’m not a drinker or a drug taker – I just lived off the Grid.  I used Libraries, Day Centres, Gyms for a shower, a hell of a lot of walking, the Bendy Busses were great, you could hop on and the drivers were really kind and let you stay on all night and sleep – the 29 was my favourite, it went from Trafalgar Square to Enfield and back again.  Nobody realised I was homeless.  I stayed in a short-term hostel in Tottenham for a few months and then for 6 weeks in No Second Night Out in Islington, where you sleep on the floor.  I managed to find a studio in Peckham that accepted DSS payments.  It was great for a few years, I helped out in the community – part of the team running the Peckham & Nunhead Free Film Festival.  During this period, my mental health greatly improved – I came off my antidepressants – life was good.

In 2016, our landlord issued eviction notices to everyone in my building and I couldn’t get him to return my deposit.  I took him to court, but I was on my own, fighting a system that was stacked against me.  I sofa surfed for a while, I lost my place on the Peckham housing list, lost my benefits because I had no address and finally I ran out of sofas to surf on.

In January 2018 I was back on the streets, back to the same old routine.

A couple of weeks ago I just decided I’d had enough – I done it before and till the landlord evicted me, I’d been really happy – I’d applied for jobs, I’d volunteered – it felt good and I realised I wanted that again.  I wanted to opt back into society.  I went to a day centre and they made a referral to Shelter from the Storm and by an amazing stroke of luck they had a space.

That first night it was lovely to have a bed again, not worrying that my possessions would be stolen.  It was lovely to have a delicious, proper cooked dinner like at home – wonderful to have human company, on the streets you have to be careful about getting too close to anyone.  I’ve found a bit of peace at the shelter, they’ve helped me sort out my benefits and get a bank account.  Cookie, the Caseworker, helped me with my CV and I’m hoping to get a part time job.  I’d like to do outreach work with the Homeless.  After I had Cancer, I was asked to talk to men who were about to undergo treatment – people told me it was really helpful talking to someone who’d been through the operation and that felt really good.  I’d like to use my experiences to help people again.

 

meet a guest Justine

Justine

I’m 20 years old and I’m originally from Kent but I’ve been in Islington for 3 years.  I’d been living in the Cally when me and my partner were having a bit of an argument and the next thing I knew, my bags were outside the front door.  I slept out in the park on a bench and in the churchyard at St Mary’s in Upper Street. It was so frightening – I was terrified.

Last year I did a 3-month Maths and English course at Arsenal in the Community. Someone told Jack from the Arsenal that I was sleeping rough and he made a referral to Shelter from the Storm.

The first night I came to the shelter, I was petrified – I couldn’t stop crying – I was in a state of total shock. I think it made me realise I was really homeless. On the street, you can’t let yourself cry, you have to stay really strong. That first night was really tough – I walked around outside- I couldn’t eat anything, but, eventually, I did go to bed and slept.

After a couple of days, it got much easier. I started to get to know the other guests and they were all so nice to me – really supportive. They were all just ordinary people – different situations, different stories, but all just people like me who had somehow found themselves without a home.

I spoke with the shelter counsellor who helped me a lot. Talking to someone about my feelings was nice and it was lovely to be listened to. Cookie helped me find somewhere to live and sort out my benefits which was amazing – I am so grateful for everything she’s done for me.

I’ve made some really good friends at the shelter and I’m going to miss them a lot, but they say I  can come back and visit for dinner and to see everyone.

I was over the moon when I heard I’d be moving into my own place, it’ll be the first time I’ve ever lived completely on my own – without my mum or my partner. I’m a little bit nervous, but also very excited.  The first thing I’m going to do is enjoy a lovely lie in.

meet a guest British St Lucian Denis

I’ve lived in England for 50 years. I was nine when I travelled from St Lucia with my brother to join my mum and dad in the UK. Dad was a tailor and mum worked as a cook in an army barracks in Praed Street.  All four of us lived in one room in a house in Minet Avenue Harlesden. I went to Essendine Primary School in Maida Vale and then on to North Paddington Secondary. I enjoyed school and I did quite well. I was good at sports and I was in all the teams, athletics, football, but my favourite was cricket – I was a fast bowler.  We won lots of competitions and we were pretty feared by other schools. I got a few O levels then left school to start my first job as an apprentice copier engineer. I did that for a few years and then got a job selling hand-made Persian carpets in Westbourne Grove which lasted 7 years.

I got married in 1992 and we bought our own house in Edmonton Green.  I was doing ok, I had my own business importing exclusive Danish Dyrlund furniture. My wife worked on a project with teenagers.  We had two children and our life was really very nice and very normal.  We were together for 10 years and when we finally separated, I left the house to my ex-wife and children.

In 2000 I met my second partner and we had 5 children together. We decided that I should do the bulk of the childcare. We were very happy as a family for 12 years but sadly we then separated. I stayed with my sister and her son for about 4 years in her Westminster Council flat, but when she died, I was homeless. I managed to get a private rented studio in Haringey – I was there for three and a half years when the landlord issued section 21 notices to everyone in the house and we all got evicted.

This was August last year. I was on the streets for a few days when I met an outreach worker at a soup kitchen who referred me to Shelter from the Storm. I was only supposed to be here for a night. I viewed a property which seemed OK, but when I went back to Haringey Council I was approached by someone from the Home Office – I think he was based there at the Council offices. He said they couldn’t help me as I didn’t have proof of the right to reside and I wasn’t eligible for Housing Benefit. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. I’d lost my passport with my indefinite leave stamp, years ago. To regularise my situation, I’ve had to provide all sorts of evidence of my life in the UK and get copies of my Birth Certificate from St Lucia – it’s taking ages and I’m still homeless 8 months on – waiting for a decision from the Home Office.

If I wasn’t able to stay at the shelter, I don’t know what I’d do, I’d be on the streets again. I walk around or sit in the library most days. Being homeless makes it difficult to have contact with my children.
I’m in Limbo. I can’t work, I can’t get anywhere to live, I have absolutely no contact with anyone in St Lucia. I just hope the Home Office mean it when they say they’re going to make it easier for people like me. But, to be honest, I just don’t know what else I can do to prove I’ve lived here since I was a child and I’ve worked and paid tax most of my adult life

All my life believed I was British and I pray that I can spend the rest of my life it in my own home and maybe find a nice job.

meet a guest Poppie Fleur

I’ve never been happy really; I’ve always felt I was in the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong body. I was born in Sudbury in Suffolk 40 years ago and I had a troubled childhood. When I was 14 I was sent to board at Oakwood House Special School in Stowmarket. The school has been in the news a lot recently, the Headmaster Eric de Smith was imprisoned for 7 years but some of the others involved in the place just got a slap on the wrist. I can sum up Oakwood in 3 words: Fear, Dread, Hate! I spent 2 years there and it was a hellhole. There was sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, torture. I was unhappy and bullied there but I was miserable at home too. My parents just didn’t know what to make of me and home life was pretty dysfunctional. I hardly had any friends, but from the age of nine I did have one best friend, Karl. Karl was beaten up and killed by a gang of thugs in Sudbury. I’ve often wondered if it was ‘Gay Bashing’, but we just didn’t talk about that sort of thing in Suffolk in those days. I was devastated; I was so close to Karl and his mum.

I got married when I was 20. I was in love with my wife and I think she knew I was different before I did; she was very understanding. In those days I was transvestite, but to be honest I was so confused about my gender, my sexuality, my identity, I didn’t know what I was. After three and a half years the marriage broke down. I’d saved quite a bit from my job as a care worker and I went Interrailing. To begin with I had a great time, but I had a break down in Spain. Looking back I think that was the start of my mental health problems. I was flown back and hospitalized; I was so unwell, I was in and out of A&E. I developed eating disorders, I self harmed and I was suffering with self-neglect.

In 1999 I had my first taste of homelessness on the streets of Bury St Edmunds. During this period, sometimes I got accommodation, sometimes I stayed in shelters; I remember one shelter in Great Yarmouth where I suffered the most terrible homophobia. In 2000 I came to London for the first time and was street homeless for a year and a half. I slept in shop doorways in the Strand, Whitechapel, Leicester Square; I lived off soup runs and day centres. It was Hell! I got accommodation somewhere in Aldgate; it was so horrible! I tried to kill myself, the Police kicked the door in and I found myself sectioned in St Clements Mental Hospital. I spent 6 months in St Clement’s and then moved to a therapeutic community in Willesden Green. I was happy there; I felt safe and cared for. In fact I felt so great that after 2 years I left; big mistake!

I found a flat but I couldn’t cope and became homeless again. I had another suicide attempt; this time I was found walking up the central reservation of the A12; I think I wanted get run over! I was put in a hostel in Hackney where I tried to kill myself again. I was on the street once more; I was at rock bottom and beginning to despair.

I moved back to Sudbury and I was kind of ok for a year or so when I met and moved in with the love of my life. She was wonderful and she understood me, but I couldn’t believe that she could love me. She fell pregnant but had a termination. We were both so very sad and I messed up and we parted after 3 years together. I came back to London and got a place at an R. D. Laing therapeutic community in Holloway and I was really happy there for a couple of years. I left to live in Leeds with a partner but that relationship broke down and I ended up in a awful hostel full of drug addicts; it was really scary!
I came back to London and stayed in a hostel in Dalston. It was damp, mouldy and crawling with cockroaches, but the owner was very kind to me and I was actually quite happy there and had a great time.

For the last 3 years I’ve been with a partner living in hostels, B&Bs and shelters, some nice, most pretty nasty! A couple of weeks ago my relationship ended and like a broken record, I found myself back on the streets until I got a bed at Shelter from the Storm.
SFTS are trying to get me referred to the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital, but there’s such a long waiting list. My dream is my transition. I long to become the woman that I’m going to be for the rest of my life. The people at Shelter from the Storm are trying to look after me but I’m really quite frightened of the future.
To help us help more people like Poppie, go to:https://www.justgiving.com/sfts/donate/

 

meet a guest D

I’m a nomad. I was born in Cambridge in 1964 – my parents were South African hippies and my father came to Cambridge to study medicine.  Cape town in the 60’s was very glamorous – a great liberal, social scene.  My father left us when I was four and my sisters were six and two.  My mother was quite embittered by being left.  She’d followed my father all over the world and then he left her for a younger model.  We moved back to South Africa and my mother went back to nursing to support us – she was a Matron in a Cape Town hospital.

My mother made us very aware that she’d sacrificed her life for us – working all hours to send us to private schools.  When I finished school, I worked as a nurse to pay for my own University place studying psychology, but I dropped out.  I had no support structure and I lived with street people and squatted in Cape Town. When I was 23, I came to London, became a Punk and squatted in Clapton.  I was doing a lot of performance and dancing and travelled back and forth from Jo’burg to London. I had a baby at 27 and another at 31 – I looked after them as a single parent until they were adults.  Life in Jo’burg was pretty extreme – violent and hard.  In 2004/5, I wrote to Tony Blair asking him for help to get away from South Africa. Got a polite reply, but no actual help.

I’d been managing to support us all with work as a journalist, but by 2010 I was out of work.  In 2011, I started my PHD – the kids had grown up and I was on my own.  I sold all my possessions and started travelling across Africa.  My PHD was about the psychological effects of HIV on women.  I would work for a few months then continue my travels.

In a way, I made myself homeless – living in my car in UK and my tent in Africa.  NGO’s in Africa were always very supportive and often gave me paid work.  I lived this nomadic, borderless life, never really feeling at home anywhere. Up to the end of 2016, I lived in my car in Cape Town near to my kids, but  I’d just had enough, so I sold my car and came to UK in January.  I didn’t have a Cent!  I spent the first weeks on the streets around Victoria.  It was bitterly cold and I got ill.  I was told that to get help, I had to be ‘spotted’ on the streets like a wild animal. I went to the Passage in Victoria, but none of the street outreach helped me get a bed.  I met an old friend and Sofa surfed for a while until I somehow got a space in a Churches Winter Shelter.  When the churches shelter closed down I followed some homeless Polish men to a park in Leyton Marshes and I camped there with them.  I guess I thought I’d be safer with them, but they robbed me of everything – my tent, my laptop, my clothes, my sleeping bag.  Luckily, I always keep my ID on me.  That Sunday I went to a Soup Kitchen in Walthamstow.  There was a Christian guy there, a Zimbabwean, and he said I could stay with him.  He was a fundamentalist born again Christian.  This guy became quite abusive and controlling.  He tried to convert me and told me my Catholic godmother was a devil worshipper.  I’d had enough and went to St Mungo’s and begged them to help me.  This time, after three months of asking, they referred me to Shelter from the Storm.

At Shelter from the Storm, I found a place of peace where I didn’t feel hunted, where I could get some sleep and headspace – one of the most underrated human needs. SFTS helped me find my own place.  They’re so lovely at the shelter, but I need my own space – somewhere I can play a little music and have a little dance.  I chose my life and I don’t regret it.

AA Gill

It’s six years since AA Gill first visited us at the shelter and wrote about us so beautifully and brilliantly.  He was a great friend to SFTS and many people who read his piece about the shelter in Christmas 2011, continue to support us and volunteer today.  He cooked for our guests a couple of times – here he is with “the blonde”. We’re so sad he’s no longer with us. Read again his lovely piece about us: http://sfts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/SFTS_AAGill-copy.pdf