A bit about how quickly people end up back on the streets, homeless:

Yesterday, I planned to meet James, 50 and Vance, 43 – two Oldham guys I’ve been spending time with over the last couple of months. Both James and Vance have been in and out of street homelessness over the years. We’ve talked a lot about that.

Vance was finally placed in a flat in Oldham last year. He invited James to move in one day when he found James trying to sleep on the concrete landing outside Vance’s flat.

“He [James] was sleeping outside on the landing. I can’t see that, because I’ve been homeless meself…I did if for years meself. I slept on the streets, but I got sick of sleeping on the streets, so I bought a tent. I lived in a tent for five year. It is very cold and wet… and with snow. You can’t sleep.”

That arrangement went well until very recently.

The first thing I noticed was the guys didn’t show up for the Tuesday lunch we meet at in Oldham’s Salt Cellar building. Fair enough, I thought. Maybe they’d had a few drinks. The rules about turning out for lunch after a couple of cans are strict at some lunch places. You hear about people being asked to leave.

Maybe it was something else. I called James to see if he was in anywhere in town. He answered. He wasn’t in town. He sounded stressed. He said that some guys had thrown him out of Vance’s place very late a few nights back – not Vance, but some other people who hung around. He said they’d hit him and told him to leave and so he’d left. He was staying with someone else for a few days, but this was not a permanent arrangement.

“I’ll be back to being on the street again,” he said. He sounded panicky, as well he might. It’s cold out at the moment and always raining.

I asked James if he’d been to First Choice Homes to tell them about his problem and to see if they could find him anywhere to stay. He said that he had and nothing had come of it. I said I’d go with him later this week. He sounded reluctant. He said that he’d get nothing. Generally, he gives bureaucracies a wide berth these days. I’ve written about some of the reasons for that.

Anyway. There we were.

I have conversations like this from time to time. It’s difficult to offer answers, not least because there aren’t any. I can say this, though – conversations like this one are the reason why I will never get on board with notions of deserving or undeserving social security recipients. The fact is that everyone deserves shelter. In particular, everyone deserves shelter at a time of crisis. It doesn’t matter what a person has “done” in life to arrive at the sort of situation described here. All that matters right then is that a person is in this sort of situation. Nothing else is relevant. You have a bloke in his 50s on the phone who knows that he is on his way to sit out in the rain. Only a sociopath would interrupt him to say that he had it coming. Theresa May et al ought to take a few of these calls and see if they feel like passing judgement right then, at the actual point that someone is headed onto the street. No doubt they would.

In the last few weeks, I’ve spent time with people in Oldham who’ve been in and out of street homelessness. There are some transcripts from some of these sessions at the end of this post.

You’ll see people talked about many things: reasons for homelessness, (“relationship breakdown”), Donald Trump (“you know on his head there… it won’t come off, that”), government, the state of the world (“atrocious”), Man City being full of wankers and so on.

I spent a lot of time with James, 49 and Vance, 43.

A few thoughts:

One point really stood out: the fact that James said he didn’t have any income to speak of. He didn’t receive any state assistance – no benefits, or council help with homelessness, or hostel accommodation. He hadn’t joined housing or hostel waiting lists.

He said that he tried, discovered that there was some problem with his National Insurance contributions (“your stamp when you work all your life,”) and ultimately decided to abandon the whole thing. He was reluctant to engage further. He was homeless and sofa-surfing at Vance’s place. Vance found James sleeping on the freezing concrete landing outside the flat that Vance had recently been placed in. Vance invited James in to stay.

James:

“Where Vance lives, it is a high rise flat. He find me on the top of it on the concrete floor sprawled out, sleeping. He come out of his flat. I’m on the floor on the concrete. Vance said to me: “go in my place.” He had a friend with him. He said go in there and knock on the door. He let me in. He picked me up.”

Vance:

“He was sleeping outside on the landing. I can’t see that, because I’ve been homeless meself…I did if for years meself. Absolutely years. I slept on the streets, but I got sick of sleeping on the streets, so I bought a tent. I lived in a tent for five year. It is very cold and wet… and with snow. You can’t sleep. You put your tent anywhere you can.”

So.

I mention James’ lack of income, because I have met a number of people in the same boat now – people who have no income and are in need for whatever reason, but who have abandoned attempts to get help from the jobcentre or the council and/or who give jobcentres and the council a wide berth. This needs pointing out as often as possible. People who should be getting help are not getting it. I’d go further and say people who are most in need of help are not getting it. If government’s aim was to put people off state help by making so-called support systems too torturous and painful to negotiate – job done and all that. I know that plenty of people are aware of this, but it’s worth another mention when you meet people who imply that sleeping on a freezing concrete landing is easier than applying for housing. Asking for assistance is not worth the wrangle. People hit hurdles early and leave.

“It’s called a rigmarole,” James said when we had a Sally Army lunch a couple of weeks ago and I asked him if he’d tried for hostel accommodation anywhere.

As I said, James reported that he’d been turned down for benefits and for housing – that problem with his stamp from his working days, he reckoned. Maybe there were other problems and other reasons. None of that matters. The point is that he and others I speak to don’t feel the system or those running it are inclined to sympathise, cut anyone a break, or sort problems out. Too many organisations are too controlling and too aggressive in their demands for paperwork, personal details and compliance with one ridiculous rule or another.

People expect to be pulled up for something they’ve *done* to make themselves homeless. Relationship breakdown (the starting-point a lot of people often give for their troubles), a prison record, mental health problems, job and house loss, the hardcore substance use that often goes with such losses – society doesn’t cut much slack for people with so-described self-inflicted wounds these days. Pity the same stringent standards aren’t applied to tax avoiders, or, say, MPs who blow public money on private tennis court repairs (hi, Oliver Letwin), or heating their horses’ stables (big shoutout to Nadhim Zahawi and his horses). David Cameron left his job recently due to a project fail and shitty colleagues, but I doubt he’s been round the jobcentre trying to get an adviser to understand why he walked away from work.

For everyone else, judgement permeates. Some charities are strident about not giving homeless people cash because they’ll *just* spend it on drugs and booze – for all the world as though withholding cash cured addiction and for all the world as though people are for charities to fix. Not all charities behave that way, of course. I’ve been to some drop in places where attendees have gone outside and come back smelling strongly of booze. Nobody has said a word. Rightly so. Punishment does not cure addiction. I think we’d know by now if it did.

“Foodbanks and stuff like that. And begging,” James said when I asked how he got by. Vance had some income from Universal Credit. “I’ve worked since I was 16,” James said. “I’ve not worked in the last couple of years, but I’ve worked since I was 16, since I was a child and paid the NI. They’ve going to scrap the benefit system. Nobody is going to get any benefits. Nobody. I’m not signing on. Not getting any benefits. No. I’ve not been claiming for a few years and it goes back on you. I just do it day by day.”

Continue reading →

I’ve met a number of people recently who don’t seem to have any housing or income to speak of. More needs to be said about this, so here we go.

I’ve been spending time in Oldham recently, at drop-in lunches and afternoons talking with people who are in and out of street homelessness. Am transcribing longer interviews which should be posted in the next couple of weeks.

Here’s an excerpt from one conversation.

James, 49, is staying with Vance, 43. James says he has no income. He’s not signing on for benefits, because he thinks there’s a problem with his national insurance contributions not being up-to-date from his working days (“you know. Your stamp when you work all your life,” James says). His relationship ended and he had nowhere to live (“relationship breakdown” James and Vance say when I ask about the reasons why people become and stay homeless).

Vance, who was homeless for a long time himself, was recently placed in a flat in Oldham. James, as I say, is staying at Vance’s place. He sleeps on the couch. This sharing arrangement came about a few months ago after Vance found James lying on the concrete landing along from Vance’s flat. James was sleeping on the freezing ground.

Vance told James to go into his flat.

Vance: “[James] was sleeping outside on the landing. I can’t see that, because I’ve been homeless meself…I did if for years. Absolutely years. I slept on the streets, but I got sick of sleeping on the streets, so I bought a tent. I lived in a tent for five year. It is very cold and wet… and with snow. You can’t sleep. You put your tent anywhere you can.”

James: “Where Vance lives, it is a high rise flat. He find me on the top of it on the concrete floor sprawled out, sleeping. He come out of his flat. I’m on the floor on the concrete. Vance said to me: “go in my place.” He had a friend with him. He said go in there and knock on the door.”

I asked James how he managed for money and food, because he had no money coming in. “Foodbanks and begging,” he said.

So.

I don’t want to make this situation, or these guys, sound pathetic. They are not. They are onto it and hilarious, she says, patronising. They have their issues. Who doesn’t. We’ve hung out a few times and we’ll hang out some more.

I just want to make the point again that there are a lot of people around who do not always have the basics for living.

Too-complex and horribly invasive benefit application systems are often part of it (“it’s a rigmarole” James says when I ask about benefits and housing assessments). Struggles to get into housing and even basic shelter is also part of it (I go into that in my longer post). A political class which insists on punishing people at this point is also part of it.

I personally don’t care how people spend their lives, or who is considered deserving or not deserving. All that counts is that you live in a time and a place where people sleep out in the cold, for whatever reasons. Wonder how that plays in a northern winter.