Stories

I used to call it “the new bad back.”

I spent my 20s working in residential care, stressful, but it paid the bills in those days, and I had a mortgage and a young family. I enjoyed it on the whole and was good at it too.

Colleagues would drop like flies. A month off with depression, 3 months, 6 months. I bumped into one of them in a park one day. “He doesn’t look very depressed” I said to the mrs.

What an idiot I was.

Around turning 30 a few things happening in quick succession. My relationship broke down, so I lost my home, then I had to deal with issues from childhood, which caused more family turmoil, and I lost my home again. It was a mess and everyone important seemed to just vanish overnight.

I went off the rails for a bit, out every night n all that, only really for long enough to lose my job and then I withdrew. Completely. I slept more than I was awake. The only time I spent with anyone was during my brief stints as weekend dad. Slithers of sunlight in some very dark times.

For the next four years I did NOTHING. I barely left the flat. Felt like I had nothing to offer, nothing to gain by engaging with the world. I just wanted to be left alone.

What changed for me was when my girls told me they didn’t know what to say when their friends asked what I did for work. What could they say? NOTHING

My way out was through education. I wasn’t ready for a job, I wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes but I’d always loved music, played in a few tragic bands as you do. So I signed up to a course in music production. If nothing else I could learn how to be a bedroom producer.

At 36 I started my course and absolutely loved it. I went on to do a degree at Salford Uni. “BSc in Professional Broadcast Techniques”. Doesn’t that sound fancy.

Me and the mrs got back together too. In all honesty, without her and the girls, I’d probably still be holed up in that flat.

The last few years I’ve been using my new skills in creative media and my old skills in helping people to improve their lives. Can’t say freelance arts practitioner is a stable job, but wowsers, it’s varied and rewarding.

When Manchester Street Poem was born in 2017 I wanted to get involved. I’d been running a digital storytelling project at Mustard Tree for Stretch Charity and basically barged my way into the team. I fell in love with the project so when they were looking for a manager it was a no-brainer.

I‘m so proud to lead this project. I’m 46 and my career sometimes feels like it’s where it should have been 20 years ago, but those experiences have put me where I am now. Who knows where I’d be otherwise. I could still be that guy in the park wondering why his colleague doesn’t look depressed. Heaven forbid

I’ve been homeless on and off since I was 17, in a couple different states back in America as well as the UK. The vast majority of it tended to be pretty miserable, but there was one part that I sometimes actively miss, and that was tent city, back in Pittsburgh.

Calling it a city might be an exaggeration: it was made up of about 10 tents under a bridge, with somewhere around 15 people staying there on any given night. The tents themselves were all fairly large, with some of them able to comfortably fit up to four people. People passing through town who knew someone in the encampment were free to crash for a night or two as needed, if there was space. I once even hosted my best friend in my tent when her couch surfing had a brief gap. We also had a porto-potty, a fire pit, and two piles of firewood and water bottles that charities donated to the camp before I showed up.

Before ending up there, I’d been most “types” of homeless, having stayed on couches and in basements, shelters, hospitals, group homes, and alleyways. I didn’t mind hospitals or sofa surfing, but I didn’t like them much either, and the rest were all fairly horrible, for reasons I doubt I have to explain. I’m certain that the context of my stay in the camp affected my perception of it, but I know for a fact that the sense of community I felt there was real.

When I first showed up, it was after getting out of a brief stay in a psych hospital, and I showed up mostly unannounced. There was someone I knew in the camp who gave me directions to it, and I arrived late at night with nothing but my backpack. I got lost more than once trying to find it. The people there set me up with a tent that wasn’t being used as soon as I arrived and my friend had vouched for me. It was in disuse because the zipper on the door was broken so it wouldn’t close, but one women used a hole punch and zip ties to help get it shut, and then helped me fix it up by rigging a flashlight to the top as a makeshift ceiling lamp and putting layers of mylar and blankets on the roof to help insulate heat and keep out moisture. As time went on and people came and went, I “moved” from that tent into another, better one, and then another even bigger one, which I shared with another guy who lived there.

Being homeless could feel so isolating and hopeless, but I didn’t feel so alone there. Most of us panhandled downtown, and it was nice to see a friendly, familiar face after having to let the vast majority of society (metaphorically) spit in my face for hours so I could afford food, my meds, and my phone bill. Nonprofit organizations were able to reach out to everyone in the camp more effectively, because we were a known entity, and because, by living together, we were able to pool our knowledge of available resources.

In the end, some upper-middle class people who lived nearby made complaints and the camp was shut down. I’ll never understand that kind of mentality. We made a point not to litter and we weren’t rowdy late at night. It was the only time while I was homeless that I felt safe and I doubt I was the only one, and some people whose biggest concern was that they could see us at all decided to take that away.

Things weren’t perfect—especially when it was freezing out—and I didn’t get on with everyone there, but sometimes I miss it. I’m working on getting my shit together now with the support of my family and friends in Manchester, but when things feel too much like an uphill battle, I start wishing I could return there. I went back a year after I’d left and whoever had shut it down also put up big pieces of wood in X shapes all along the outside to try to stop people from getting back in. But behind them, even then, was another tent.

In 2006 I’d been split up from the wife for about 18 months, met this girl and the plan was, I was at Warburtons as a shift production manager and I was on £42000 a year plus 7500 bonus, we decided we’d buy a bigger house with a plan of, we’d buy a bigger house and I’d retire at 54. I’m 64 now, haha.

So we purchased this big, double-fronted, Victorian detached and decided that we’d buy a bar, in Tenerife. Bought it, did it up, furnished it, got 2 customer relations in. The bar was making more money than me. And then my ex-wife had come for more money so you trust people and put it 99:1 don’t you.

So anyway, argument, with her drinking, that was my concern after about 3 years into it that her drinking was getting out of control. Anyway, cut a long story short we split up and everything, wrapped everything up, turned to drink, I was on the streets and everything and I should have had £148000 and a bar in Tenerife and I finished up with £743.11. £500 went to a solicitor haha. It just wrecked my life and I mean, right now I should be sat outside my bar watching people come in earning me money.

And then I finished up rough sleeping in Manchester in round about the era when it was really heavy snow. They had to take me into the police station, Longsight police station. We don’t want your names he said, we just want A name, you’re gonna die. I feel like -17. So they put us up, and they let us out the next morning after giving us breakfast and we’re off and about 4 or 5 days later they come at 3 am. You’re not doing any harm, you’ve always tidied up after yourself, but we’ve got to move you. I said I’d get my stuff but they said just come now and you can come back for your stuff and I went back for my stuff later on that day and it’d gone. I went to the gardener and he said he’d been told to move it. Where is it I said. We were told to incinerate it. That was all my clothing and everything burned. Gone.

I got myself off the street. I went in the library and I was searching for flats. Found one that would take me in with no deposit and sort my housing benefit out. I went and moved in there, Longsight. It took me about 3 months of constant phoning round and knocking on doors but I found it in the end.

And then my younger brother who is a heroin addict come knocking one day and said look our kid, I’m off heroin, will you move in with me and help me, me and my partner will have bedroom, you have the other, so I did. He was struggling and in the end he turned to me one day and said I’m not gonna come off drugs, I can’t do it while you’re here, she doesn’t want you here, can you move out. Like when? Can you go now? Yeah seriously. So I said I’d go on Monday.

So I go on the Monday and finish up back on the streets again, sleeping in Springfield gardens. I’d lost my job, nowhere to live, no job. I was fast asleep and I got this note on me, second night out, Riverside. So I went and talked to them and finished up in 394 project. At that stage I was 57. 4 weeks later I got a place at Royal Court. Really nice studio flat. It was ok, a nice apartment but got on top of me living and sleeping in one room so I moved to where I am now.

And now I do voluntary, outreach, part of the Big Change, done bits for Street Poem, but I’m 64 years of age now and they’re not gonna employ me now. I wouldn’t as a manger, I wouldn’t employ me at 64, no. I’ve got about 18 months to go before I retire. Haha, It’s not happening.

When you get people off the street and put them in a flat you’ve got to give them support. I still find it hard now. I still miss my old lifestyle. I guy said to me the other day if you could have anything you wanted in the world what would it be, I said I’d like my old lifestyle back please. Is it gonna happen? No it’s effin not. Do I miss it? Of course I miss it. But that happens in life and you have to try and shut it off and get on with It, and it’s alright what I’m doing now. I’m reasonably happy, not 100% happy cos I can’t do what I want to do, what I used to be able to afford to do. Apart from that I’m OK.

As a child I used to go to school black and blue from top to bottom. My mum used to hit me every day. I never got any pocket money. I felt like the black sheep of the family.

When I was 13 years old I got sectioned under the mental health act. I was getting pressure at home and pressure at school and couldn’t cope. One time I kept my mum awake for 72 hours. Another time I turned my bedroom upside down.

I went to the adolescent unit at Prestwich where they described me as mentally disturbed. They gave me blood tests and tablets and I was kept in a box room 24/7. I didn’t mix with the other patients. They use to slide my food through a hatch at the bottom of the door.

I came out on my 16^th birthday and back to my mums. She seemed like she had chilled out while I was away. Baking everyday, acting like a real mum. Life was good for a while.

I started work at 17 in an old cotton mill making dusters, tea towels and oven gloves. I still remember getting my first wage. It was £83 and it was all mine. Some of my friends were taking drugs and I wanted to get involved.

When I was 25 I met a girl and we moved in together. She was alright at first but then started being nasty. She would hit me when I hadn’t done anything wrong. It got worse and worse until I had to leave.

I kipped on my brother’s sofa for a while and then moved into a hostel in Rochdale. I didn’t like it there because I kept getting accused of things I hadn’t done. I enjoyed getting 3 meals a day but in the end I had to leave. I went back to my mums for a while and did some training.

My life really turned around when I met my partner Amanda. I actually went out with her sister first but when I met Amanda I knew she was the one. I loved her gorgeous blond hair but she was also kind and loving. We hardly ever argue and we are both trying to improve our lives by getting ready for work. Best of all, I’m more settled than I’ve ever been. I’ve been volunteering at Mustard Tree and am just looking forward to growing old with Amanda.

My parents divorced when I was 1 and I never really had a relationship with my dad. When I was 5 my mum got with a new guy. He was a biker, part of a bikers gang, leathers, the lot.

I looked up to him and hoped that he could be the father I craved but it didn’t work out that way. I think we were competing for my mum’s attention and fought like cat and dog. Looking back I was a little shit to him. He got it all. “you’re not my dad, you can’t tell me anything”, all that. I didn’t think he was right for my mum.

I was an angry young man and when I was 16 I found it easy to get into heroine and I got right into it. Not long after that I had a fight with my step dad. I hurt him badly and got a stretch inside. I’d have got longer if he’d pressed charges.

I’m not proud of that day but I believe everything happens for a reason and this incident brought us closer. While I was inside he got himself counselling, gave up booze and became a much better partner to my mum. I got a little bit of that father son relationship I was looking for. He was there when I needed him and was probably my best friend. I respect that he managed to make the changes in his life to become a better man

The reason I’m talking about this is because its relevant to where I am now. I’m 34 now and had 6 kids by 4 different women. I’ve been taking heroine off and on throughout. Emotionally I’m a great dad, the love and affection, talking. But I’ve chosen this lifestyle and I need to keep it away from my kids so I’ve moved myself away from them. I’m a bad dad on the drugs

I’ve had it with this lifestyle, I’m tired now but this drug has a grip on me. I can get off it but it’s staying off that’s the problem. My kids need their dad not a junky

I’m on a script which is a life saver. Keeps me on a level. The hostel I’m in is making a difference. The help is there but you need to take it. I’m starting to take it. And I’ve seen from my step dad that you can turn things around and form great relationships with your kids, which is all I want. If he did it I’m sure I can too.

Reflections on ‘home’, on the first anniversary of no longer being homeless.

2011, August: ozco digital program ended and I left my gorgeous flat in Sydney. started being no fixed abode totally by choice, couchsurfing with friends and a few strangers while I caught back up with old networks and got things ready for the transition to buslife.

2012, December 31st: started living in #homeJames – 5 months in an empty shell with a swag in the back, then gradually getting her sorted with a basic fit-out (back to couchsurfing during those fit-outs). started working out what no fixed abode means when you own your home but not the land it sits on, and more deeply questioning how anyone can really own land in the first place.

2015, October: #homeJames’ engine blew, taking 9 weeks and costing $9k to rebuild. back to no fixed abode while waiting.

2016, September: left #homeJames, my life and belongings in AU while ‘temporarily’ returning to UK to try to prevent my elderly and disabled mum losing her home, and to sort out proper care for her. back to no fixed abode again, but this time not by choice, and with far fewer options.

2017, September: mum died, her financial and legal issues remaining. still no fixed abode. still not by choice. citizens advice bureau told me in very clear terms to stop calling it ‘no fixed abode’: I was homeless. felt wrong to use that term because I wasn’t on the streets. whatever I felt about the word, the legal definition of homelessness was accurate to my circumstances. I had to accept that, to understand that if I was going to be successful seeking help in the system, I needed to own and state my vulnerabilities very clearly.

2018, June: moved in to my housing association flat in Salford, ending almost 2yrs of homelessness (I don’t count any of 2011-16 as homelessness, because I had the choice at every stage). not long after (Sept), I began working one day a week with local, national, and international arts and homelessness communities. not much longer after that (Oct) I was diagnosed as Autistic.

2019, June – present day: gradually my flat has become a home that I love, a place to feel safe, to grow. took a while to be ok with the guilt of ‘bailing’ on buslife, and having such luxury (a roof, the fragments of free healthcare and some welfare benefits) while so many still don’t. but this place, and being back in Manchester/Salford, has provided roots, stability, growth.

Acclimatising to Autism has allowed me to see the world and my own brain through different lenses, with new understandings and futures starting to reveal themselves and this weekend we finally got possession of mum’s home back; we can now finish our financial and legal obligations, and I am free to choose again.

There’s still a journey left to close down mum’s life. I’ve had to accept I won’t get to really choose, not the big decisions, until that’s over. will I choose to return to Australia and buslife? if not, what happens to all that? will I choose to stay in bricks in UK? if not, what’s next for me? will it end up as some kind of combination, or some other journey entirely? I really don’t know.

Feeling exhausted, physically and emotionally, as is to be expected. feeling grateful for my home(s), sister, friends, a great new therapist and so much kindness that’s got me through so much experimenting and failing and learning and falling and growing and rebuilding.

I’ve been so fortunate to be able to live around and within so many different lives, countries and cultures, to see the world through their eyes. I’ve got so much more to learn, so much more to see, hear, taste, smell, feel, and touch, and so very much more to share. the phoenix is forming. let’s hope the earth is still turning, with us on it, by the time she’s ready.

I grew up around violence, mostly caused by my dad. My mum died in an accident when I was 13 and I lost what little I had. My dad got ill and couldn’t look after us so I went from childrens home to foster parents and back again.

Maybe because of my dad I found myself getting into abusive relationships. I started having children at 16 but because I was in these relationships they were all taken for adoption. By the time I was in my 20s I was taking drugs, I was depressed and just kept choosing the wrong men.

In 2012 I was living in a flat that was infested with rats the size of cats. The landlord did nothing. One night all my windows were put through. It was the last straw so I left.

I stayed in a tent in Bolton for 12 months until a friend got a flat and asked me to stay. I stayed for 3 months then I was back in a tent.

I met a guy and we got together and found a house but guess what? Yep, he turned out to be violent too. One night he nearly left me for dead. Thankfully he went to prison for what he did.

I turned to an old friend for support. He turned out to be my knight in shining armour. He was living on the streets of Manchester so I went to live rough with him.

Someone told us to go to the booth centre. We wanted to volunteer but couldn’t without an address. Staff at the booth centre helped us to get a place in a hotel. This gave us a base where we could get some rest and start sorting our lives out. We’re now trying to find somewhere permanent to live.

We’re getting loads of support from Booth Centre and put something back by volunteering. I’m really enjoying it because work makes me feel better about myself. I haven’t taken drugs for ages now and am trying to recover from my depression one day at a time. I feel more hopeful than I have done for years.

My final meeting at work was with my union rep and 2 high ranking managers. They told me that if I didn’t return to work full time and with full responsibilities on the Monday of the next week then I would be dismissed under section 4 of some policy or another. Alternatively I could resign with a month’s pay.

I had struggled for years with a boss who wanted me out. He had managed to manipulate, lie and bully at least ten others into going before it was my turn. I had worked there happily for over 20 years before he arrived.

Three years earlier I had stepped down as a middle manager so as to have as little to do with him as possible.  I was a single mum of two and due to the cut in pay i was struggling to make ends meet. My family was in Manchester and I was living in the Midlands so i had no support.

Then I had a life-saving emergency operation, then a follow-up major operation and was scheduled for another follow-up major operation. I was worn down and vulnerable at this point. I needed time out from what was already a stressful job. So there was no way I could return to work at that point. Not full time and with full responsibilities. I had no choice but to resign.

I had no job and couldn’t afford my house. I was mentally unwell and needing another operation, so I decided to move back north, home to Manchester. One daughter was now at university, the other was working and able to share a rented house. I moved in with Mum and Dad. Not ideal but what else could i do?

Moving house and cities was a long drawn out and stressful process. Then, after my third major operation I developed a rash all over my body which turned out to be severe psoriasis, which quickly became debilitating, needing daily hospital treatment. My mental health worsened. I was totally broken, withdrawn and so lacking in confidence that I couldn’t talk to anyone but close family members.

I had been a person with a vocation, hardworking and purposeful, who loved working with people. I don’t know if I can ever get back to that point, but now I have hope. Attending Mustard Tree and joining the Freedom Project my confidence has grown so much, volunteering in the kitchens and then on reception, with people showing their confidence in me.

With the Art Group staff’s support and encouragement art is now really important to me, and I have found a new interest in the Textiles Group. Also I feel the performances with the Song Club have been key to my getting better, all in it together!

I am amongst people who ‘get it’, who also struggle and keep trying, and I feel I have a place in this community.

When I did the last interview I was still going through a tough time, from getting off the streets to finding my own accommodation and setting it up. Since then through Street Poem and Booth Centre and now I’m a street tour guide. It’s all revolved around so it’s built my confidence 100… no 200 percent. So yeah, I’m quite proud of what I do. I also work with a lot of different organisations for the homeless and I’m actually classed as an ambassador to the homeless. For the last 2 years, from doing the exhibition 2 years ago, I’ve really moved on. It’s fantastic.

I’m really looking forward to the festival. I’m gonna be performing some of my poetry at the festival and I’ll be performing on the 6^th July, Albert Square, which is now known as Festival Square, working with the Guardian newspaper. I’m a little bit nervous because they’re all professionals and I’m not, but maybe I am, haha.

The tours are called the Invisible Manchester tours. We take people around the city. We had a great day yesterday. I was the first tour guide to start this in Manchester, and yesterday we had a great day to launch a girl called Lorna on her first VIP tour so she’s gonna start off this weekend as a tour guide. It’s gonna give me a little bit of time off so I can work more on Street Poem and other things and I’m actually gonna have a fortnight off in July to go and see my family. That’s a great opportunity for me.

I’m really proud of what… I get phonecalls every day when anyone sees me on the media or whatever. I get phonecalls every day off my daughter and my sons saying how proud they are that I’m doing these things and that lifts me up, keeps me going. It’s great.

Working with Alice from invisible Manchester, we go into schools and do talks in schools and businesses and whatever and there’s an old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I say well shoot your dog because this guy is 64 and I’m learning every day and I’m relearning every day. I was actually out on Monday with Andy Burnham on a tour. We did a personal tour for Andy Burnham and he brought a few students along and it was a fantastic day. He came out not as the mayor but as a person. He didn’t speak about any politics or anything like that.

There’s a little bit of a stigma between me and the mayor in that I refused to shake his hand once but I shook his hand on Monday and I was really glad to see him.

Ever since I can remember my Mum was an alcoholic, so I lived with my Grandparents and classed them as my Mum and Dad. When I was about four my mum got married and, a couple of years later gave birth to my little sister. Whenever I went to visit my Mum and my sister I was abused by my step father, he said if I told anyone he would hurt my Mum. By the time I reached the age of ten I refused to go anymore.

Secondary school was bad for me; I was a skinny lad and tried to keep myself to myself, this didn’t work though and I kept getting into fights. During sex education I freaked out. This got me in trouble AGAIN!

I struggled with the rest of school and left before sitting any exams, it was around this time that I started drinking and any money I got was spent on booze.  I began self harming and replaced drink with drugs. The highs made me more sociable and fun to be with, so, naturally I loved it. When I started seeing a girl, I gave up the drugs, but, when we split, I started drinking again, and the anger and violence returned. My health suffered kidney trouble and throwing up blood.

In my late twenties I met the love of my life (bare in mind I’m not with her now, haha) she was also in recovery. Together we both improved our lives, we went to adult education and did our English and Maths together. Six years ago we had a daughter, this has taught me the meaning of true love.

A while ago I did work experience at the Mustard Tree; I was very shy at first and hardly ever spoke. Now they can’t shut me up. I also found survivors, an organisation that supports male survivors of sexual abuse, they made me realise that I am not alone and supported me to report the abuse to the police. Even though my step dad is dead the process helped close this chapter of my life.

I still take part in creative arts, singing and film making. My film was shown at the Nexus cafe last September. My self confidence has improved immensely and I even sang at the Nexus cafe, even though my performance gave me mixed emotions. It felt good to get my story out there, but I felt bad as I could see that it upset some people. I also felt a little guilty for maybe bringing back bad memories that they may have had.

I still go to the Mustard tree occasionally for song club and Street Poem. It’s like a sanctuary, I feel safe and most of my friends are there, people I can talk to in confidence and others I can relate to with similar problems. I particularly like the song club as it boosts both my confidence and self esteem. It has helped me form new friendships and opened my ears to different types of music.

ONE GOAL, ONE LIFE ONE OPPORTUNITY. MAKE THE MOST OF IT!

Addiction.

Why do people get addicted? And how do you get past it?

I can only speak for myself really. My childhood was pretty grim. I was abused by the local vicar.

I loved my mum but my brother was disabled and it always felt like she was too busy for me. I loved my brother too but resented the attention he got, which then made me feel guilty for thinking like that.

When I was a teenager my cousin was murdered which hit the whole family really hard.

I had my own son in my early 20s and he was also born disabled. I didn’t know how I was going to cope.

Throughout this time the drink and drugs just sort of crept up on me. There was peer pressure of course. It made me feel like I had friends. I only ever wanted to be wanted

Drink and drugs helped me to forget my troubles, but after a while it started to cause new problems. My health deteriorated, physical and mental. I was in and out of hospital. I had no money and was struggling to keep a roof over our heads. Worst of all, I wasn’t being a proper Mum to my son. I couldn’t. He went to live with his nana and it broke my heart.

When I realised I couldn’t go on like this I went to the doctors and asked for help. Any long and difficult journey starts with a first step and this was mine.

The doctor got me a place in rehab and I was able to become clean and dry. The hard part is staying that way and I knew that to achieve a better life I would have to change my daily routines. I needed to get out more.

One day I walked past the Mustard Tree and decided to come in and see what it’s all about. I was greeted with warmth and felt like that was somewhere that could help me get better.

During my time there I have grew in confidence and developed new skills. I ran groups which is something I never thought I would do. I also tried new things like art, film-making and singing. I made new friends and found it easier to mix with people.

Unfortunately circumstances arose and I had to leave. It was my fault. This triggered a massive meltdown. I felt like the carpet had been whisked from under my feet. I spent some time in hospital and fully hit rock bottom. But then I had a change of thinking. It’s sink or swim innit, and I aint gonna sink.

I realised that there was still help out there. I hadn’t burned all my bridges. I got off my arse and went down to Back On Track and have found the support to.. well, get me back on track I suppose.

I have surprised myself and others with how I have been able to pull back from the edge. I have found strength that I didn’t know I had.

My parents have died quite recently and it has had a big effect on my family. It makes me happy to be there for them all. And to do that I need to be the best Clare I can be.

Bein Homeless Sucks

This effects every nation, current location

Sat on the toilet at Piccadilly station

It’s freezing & this is the warmest place

could vanish without a trace, it’s a fucking disgrace

Ashamed to show my face ashamed to be tamed

The things claimed, the blame aimed,

Deep down no one can entirely be blamed.

Not very old with a heart of gold

Was misguided by the devil to him souls weren’t sold

Was asked leading questions but the truth I told

Was too honest & too bold, won’t fold

Used to be naïve, Used to naively believe

Mental health units help & are easy to leave

they help a few who may need to grieve.

But if you stand in their face

And tell the truth they’re a disgrace

Because there are certain things that need addressing

As writing this, kind of confessing

The time has come for me to stop pressing

The time for digressing & impressing

Because this world is too distressing

Witnessed all sorts & met all kinds

People see this problem but close their minds

When glancing into a house wishing to be on the other side of the blinds

Empathy & compassion one rarely finds

Some organisations who help but more needs to be done

Because of sinister psychiatry many on the run

It seems ages since had some real fun

Even got done & someone pulled out a gun

Spending many nights at the train station

Where always been courteous & polite in conversation

Been helpful without hesitation to anyone from any Nation

One night in around June last year

A beggar asked to use my phone to order £130 of gear

This side of drug addiction is the genuine fear

Collecting all the money to get the next fix

It’s not just brown, white and spice that are epidemics

Disgusting drugs spreading like an infection

Some costing the tax payers thousands per injection

If you take a closer inspection

They are better than contraception

Because these drugs will chemically castrate you

They won’t even sit there and debate you

Just character assassinate, they won’t rate you

They will diagnose you and give you a label

Make out of your dreams that you’re not able

It is crazy that someone can get killed in a door way

A 24hr shop where more people will pay

That’s a prime spot and you could get shot

If someone else sees that as their patch, cool that is not

What do they do? They just leave us to rot

Materialistically what have I got? Not a lot

But a Heart of gold and a story that needs to be told

In the eyes of some may be seen as old

Dreaming big, dreaming bold

Never going to fold, Soul’s not being sold

Never giving in, very forgiving

All about The Love, believing Life is for living.

Billy used to pass my house quite frequently and I thought, I do fancy you.  I had just started the sale of my house and had recently bought a brand, new bike.  It was red and silver and very flash.

One afternoon I was riding home. I don’t remember why but I got off my bike and pushed it across the road and had just reached the other side when I heard a voice. It was Billy.

Referring to my bike he said, “that’s nice”, then asked,” do you like to go for a drink?”

“Yes sometimes”, I answered.

“I will meet you next Wednesday in The Wagon”, he said.

Before I said anything he started to walk away and then turned around and came back to me.

“No, I will meet you tonight in the Wagon”, he said.

I said “if you like we can go back to my house now”.

So we started to walk towards home, where I was expecting that we were going to “have some fun”.

We did indeed have some fun and we arranged to meet again but, he didn’t turn up and I was distraught.

I found out where he lived.  I wouldn’t leave him alone and we started to go out together.

I had money from the sale of my house so I was suddenly very attractive, someone worth cultivating.  Billy was from Northern Ireland so I bought tickets for us to go there for a few days and even let him bring a friend.  By now I had moved into a new flat and I began to see more of him,

Suddenly without telling me he disappeared and I subsequently learned that he had gone back to Northern Ireland.  I thought we were all over, but months later he came back. We met quite by chance in the street. He gave me a sob story and I fell for it.  He told me he was in horrible and pricey digs and he made me feel obliged to offer him somewhere to live.  I think that this was possibly the worst, most stupid thing I have ever done in my life, and it made me homeless. I ended up hating him to the extent that I was almost ready to kill him and then drown myself.

He said that we would share everything that is to do with money.  He knew that I was owed £400 from the Inland Revenue which we would share, but before I received that money he started taking my sickness benefit and leaving me just enough for housekeeping and cigarettes.  He forced me to sell possessions.  I sold a washing machine, a fridge and items of furniture.  He once threatened me with a knife.

The cheque from the Revenue came.  When he asked what it was I said it was just an advertisement and screwed it up and threw it in the bin.  As soon as he had gone out I went to the bank and deposited it in an account he didn’t know about.  I had already been packing a suitcase and the same day I got a taxi from the gardens near where I lived and went as far as I could for £7.50, all the money I had.  I went to my friend Rosamond in Rochdale.  I told her I was homeless and she gave me a room.  I stayed with Rosamond for about six months until I got another flat.

These incidents fortunately all happened about eighteen years ago and I have not seen Billy since.

When you are in an abusive relationship, your lack of self confidence and low self esteem, make it harder to leave, but I was at breaking point and getting out was the only option.

I have a new life now, a fresh flat, in a new town, and lots of new friends.  I also have a partner whom I met through an LGBT group that I go to.  What else can I say?

Last time We spoke I’d had a rocky few years but had just got a secure tenancy. That took me about 3 years.

I’d spent time in hostels and shared housing and found these difficult. It was hard not having my own space, especially cos I was dealing with shit at the time.

Having that space and security has made it easier to improve my life. Just after we spoke I got a catering job. A flat and a job. All my problems solved. Ha, as if.

Homelessness isn’t just caused by lack of housing. There are always other issues at play. I struggle to cope with stuff from my past and have spent years self medicating with alcohol. I had the flat and I had the job but I didn’t face up to the rest.

So I got this job as a kitchen porter but the stress and the hours got to me. I ended up drinking when I should have been working so eventually they sacked me.

I hadn’t dealt with my issues and a home and job couldn’t paper over the cracks so I went back to a place where I had felt comfortable and supported, Mustard Tree. I signed up to volunteer in the kitchen.

After my first couple of weeks back I was feeling really stressed and upset. The CEO could see I wasn’t feeling well and asked me for a chat. That was the first time I ever really spoke about how I was feeling. I brought up my depression and was advised to go to the doctors. I was given tablets but I couldn’t handle the side effects

My key worker at Mustard Tree has been an amazing support for me. I trust her completely so when she suggested I use the house counsellor I decided to give it a go.

I tried counselling before and it didn’t go well, but I thought I should try it again and I’m really pleased I did. Not every counsellor will be right for you, but this guy is really working for me. Things are starting to change quickly now because I am facing up to my issues. I was sexually assaulted some years ago and have finally been able to tell someone. This has been an important development for me.

I’m about 10 sessions in and it’s really helping me to process stuff. Things come back to me from years ago and I’m able to work through it. I feel like by talking about this stuff it will stop it from getting in the way of my life.

I’m getting some great kitchen training at the moment and building my confidence. The next step is to get help with my drinking.

The plan is that when I can get myself free of my problem drinking, I will have the experience and confidence already in place to get back into work. I can start looking forwards instead of backwards.

I am 64 years old twice divorced, and an ex offender. Trying to find gainful employment, at my time of life, is proving to be one of the most demanding tasks of my life. Trying to even get an interview for a job, at sixty four, is bad enough, but the task is doubly confounded by being an ex-convict.

This constant rejection has brought on depression, and, for the first time in my life,  I am taking antidepressants and sleeping pills. For the first time in my life I had a never ending feeling of uselessness, when most of my life I felt I had a sense of purpose.

Going to prison caused me to be ostracised from my family, so I had nobody to count on for support. I know that going to prison was my own fault, and I’m not looking for sympathy in that respect, but a little support would have been nice. I joined the Mustard Tree to help me gain work experience in a job that I had never done before, that is working in the kitchen. Whilst I was volunteering at the Mustard Tree, I found the support that I felt my life was lacking.

Again it was whilst working at the Mustard Tree that I got involved with Manchester Street Poem (MSP), I found the work very therapeutic, and I felt that writing my story down, to share with others, seemed to ease the burden. The work that I do with MSP makes me feel useful again, and I have recently been involved, in a consulting role, with the architecture of a new building, within Manchester Metropolitan University, with ideas of how to make buildings more accessible for people from all walks of life, including the homeless, using non-aggressive architecture.

Working with MSP gave me the opportunity to tell my story through art, and the project is now close to my heart. I met lots of like-minded people who, like me, were also homeless at some point in their lives. As a result of this my support network has grown immensely, they are all good friends who I feel able to discuss ANY problem with.

It also gives me a sense of achievement, if just one person reads one of our stories, and feels able to help in some way, then our goal has been met. Obviously we aim to reach lots of people, to get the message out to as many people as possible, but if it has to be one at a time, I think that’ll do……..for now!

On a lighter note the painting of the images behind the words, is also very therapeutic, I don’t often get the chance to paint with a mop!!

So, last time I think I spoke about how I had a drug addiction for 30 odd years. I’d been in prison come out of prison, ended up homeless, ended up in a night shelter, in supported accommodation, got my own property in October 2014 and was volunteering at the Booth Centre and also involved with the Manchester homelessness partnership, which is how I got involved in street poem to start with and was ready for getting a job. I was maintained on my script and coming down slowly and doing really well and ready to move back onto getting my life back together properly.

So, career wise I carried on volunteering at the Booth and then there was a new hostel opening in Manchester and they needed interim staff, someone to work nights, at the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights.

I’d also through the Manchester homeless partnership; It was just after Andy Burnham had been voted in as Mayor. I’d been doing a couple of bits of things with him and they decided they wanted a grow trainee in the mayor’s office. They wanted somebody so they could set the homelessness team with coproduction running through it, and the best way to go about it was to have a grow trainee in there.

So, worked at the hostel for about 3 or 4 months and my last shift there was the day I had my last dose of Subutex and then I had a week off because I needed a week to get use to not being on anything and the week after that I started working at the mayor’s office.

So, my official title was coproduction and policy officer for the greater Manchester mayor’s office which sounds dead fancy but it wasn’t. It was just basically, going round and kinda doing the same thing I’m doing now but with statutory services, councils and stuff and like that, making sure that if there was stuff going on that they were getting people with lived experience (I hate that term as well) involved with what they were doing. I worked there for a 12-month contract but it got extended for 3 months and I finished there in February this year.

So, 2019 and I now work for Street Support Network as Greater Manchester network administrator / coordinator. What I’m doing is some of the same stuff but it’s a bit different. I suppose my job role is to go round the 9 other boroughs to see what’s going on in homelessness, have they got a network have they not got a network, what’s working, if they’ve got a network who’s in it, who isn’t in it, who should be there, have they got people who have personal insight into homelessness in it, if not, why not and where are they?

I suppose one of the reasons I got the job is because of my lived experience although I didn’t put that on my CV, its not something I put on my CV but the mayor’s job was because I’d got that lived experience. I don’t go into meetings going I’m here as someone with lived experience because I’ve moved on from that, I don’t introduce myself as that anymore because people in the room don’t need to know.

But for me it’s a good thing cause I bring a different perspective than they do, because you see when your going in talking to people from councils and stuff who think they know what’s best for people and they’re saying well this is what’s best and they don’t know you’ve got that experience, but I always see it from the other side, I don’t see it coming from an LA side I see it coming from people that are sleeping on the street’s side and what they need, and also from a female perspective, things that aren’t working.

It was a language thing for me, that really annoyed me when you’re sat in meetings and people are talking local authority language, yeah its English its just a different language if you’re not used to it and all their acronyms and stuff like that and your like what does that mean? Cause you know half the people in the room don’t know what it means but they want to ask so I will always ask that question that people term a stupid question. I’m not scared to ask that stupid question.

Privately now I am, where am I? I’m still in my flat in Cheetham Hill, the same one. My son’s back home with me which is a bit of the pain in arse because I’m only in a one bedroomed flat and its not big enough, we want to move, shit’s piling up around me cause it’s 2 person’s stuff in a one bedroomed flat.

I am drug free, yeahh! I’ve been off me script since October… what year we in? October 2017 an its massive because there was a point when I could never get past 2 weeks. I’ve come off my script a couple of times, I’ve been off it, on it, off it, on it and an I just couldn’t get past that 2 weeks, so getting to the 30 day mark was massive for me. Getting to the 2 week mark was big enough but getting to 30 days I was like YESSS and then to 6 months and then a year. I picked up my 6 month key-ring in Liverpool.

So, I think to get stories out there is really important and I just think to show the journey that people have gone on, why they’re there and the difference in how some people have ended up homeless. It’s not one route into it. So, I think its really important that there’s different people’s stories and there’s stories of people at different points of their lives.

I am also now a trustee at the Booth Centre where I used to volunteer, so YESSS!

I grew up in Hulme, a cute ginger kid. My Dad left when I was 4 and my mum was on her own.

I can’t say my childhood was bad. My mum did nice things with us, took us skating, took us to the park, that sort of thing. A bloke in the area looked out for me as well. He was a real hard nut. Everyone was scared of him, but he was good with me, bought sweets, played snowmen. My uncle Jimmy was also a great help to us. He worked at a youth club and got me into art, mosaic, painting, drawing, dancing on the marble stage, painting murals. He used to get the cokes in.

At 10 years old I started having epileptic fits. At 13 I had a fit and injured my face really badly. I was scarred for life. Something changed in me then. I wanted to keep away from everyone. I rebelled big time.

At 14, left home and moved in with a lad. I didn’t comb my hair or brush my teeth for years. I think it was my way of keeping people away. I got into drugs, Coke and crack, and for too long I didn’t look after myself properly. For over 20 years I was lost. The lost years I call them. No relationships, no jobs, no goals.

When I was at my worst a couple called Lee and chantelle gave me a place to stay, let me have a bath, washed my hair, combed it, cooked my tea, proper looked after me. I loved that green bath because I was so ill at the time and it just seemed to soothe me. They cooked every day. I wasn’t even speaking, I must have been the worst company ever, but they still looked after me. I’d like to thank those two. They made such a difference. When you’ve got no confidence and someone reaches a hand out it helps. They reminded me that I was a real person.

Only over the last 5 years have I started to build up my independence and confidence. I moved into supported accommodation for people over 50, which has helped me to make better choices, so I get out more. Mustard tree has been getting me ready for work with experience in a variety of roles. I’m actually doing stuff, courses, art, music, anything to get me out and mixing. I feel closer to people, overcome barriers, developed strategies and don’t want to go back. I’ve got to know myself and realise I have lots to offer. I just wish I’d done something sooner, but better late than never.

Right, since the last street poem, the person responsible for doing the injury to me eye was taken to court and he pleaded guilty. The judge let the person go on bail pending a further trial on the 18^th of December to determine the sentence that he would get, however, the 18^th of December came and went, and our man didn’t turn up. We put out on all forces, picture and description of this guy, so hopefully within in the very near future they should catch up with him but he’s gone into hiding.  It’s something that I’m finding really hard to live with at the moment because since the last exhibition that we did, so much else has changed I feel that I want to put that behind me now.

I’ve got great support from all the people at the Booth Centre and I’m regularly talking to a couple of members staff expressing how I feel. I really do want it behind me before I start work again.

I was very successful at what I did. I’ve been a Rep, I’ve been a sales manager. I’ve always been in sales or something connected. I’ve been in senior management positions with companies and you got rewarded for the amount of effort that you put into it and the results that you’ve delivered.

But, after everything that’s happened, I decided that I don’t want to do that type of career anymore. I don’t want to have a boss screaming at me “hit them targets, hit them targets”. I always managed to hit my targets whether it’s out of luck or good fortune or what ever, I seem to get by. I feel now, I don’t want to do that anymore, so, because of all the things that I’ve done over the last 2 years I felt that I wanted to go maybe into the public sector, doing a type of job where I could encourage other people a lot younger that myself. I’ve got the experience and the depth and knowledge to guide, to mentor if you will. That’s the type of role that I want to go for.

I did have 3 interviews at the end of 2018, however I didn’t succeed in any of those but I came back after Christmas with a new fight. 3 applications from Christmas, 2 for the DWP and one for HMRC. The first DWP interview that I went to, albeit that I scored very highly, I didn’t make the grade, so I kind of learned from that if you will. I came away and I talked with my job centre adviser, who really has been like a rock and a really good guide and influence on me. He’s helped me with quite a lot of the applications and we looked at different interview techniques and decided that we’d try mock interviews. We used his knowledge of actually applying and being successful in the public sector to hone my skills. Then I got another 2 interviews after that and I was successful at both scoring sufficient points where I ended up on the reserve lists.

Having attended the last 2 street poems, the first one was really, well supported which was on Oldham street and the 2^nd one was just off Piccadilly gardens, many thanks to Bruntwood for lending us a really nice, atmospheric room and again it was really well supported. I came down myself and it really was an uplifting experience yet again. You know the number of people that came up to me and other people that had done their stories saying “well done, I’m finding your story really, really interesting.” In actual fact since the day event, I have had 2 or 3 occasions where strangers have come up to me in the street and said “ohh, I saw that exhibition” and you know it gives you a little sense of pride really, that people are actually interested in what’s going on around them, you know they are aware that a lot people are out on the streets, they are sympathetic towards them, they do make donations to all the charities that are trying to help people who are homeless.

My Long 300 Miles Walk

My long walk began when I was dropped off at Heathrow airport… Well, perhaps dumped would be a better word with £40 in my pocket. Who would do such a thing? Family! Imagine how I felt watching them drive off.

Giving you some context, born, raised in France, Italian parents, forced into an arranged marriage, 2 kids later I was ditched in Toronto.

Widow at 32 of my second husband from Glasgow.

After 3 decades, posted with Canadian Navy to England with my 3rd husband. We lived in Barrow-in-Furness, life was good for a while, until he embarked on an affair. He went back to Canada, even moved his lady friend into our house. all I worked for, even my identity was gone.

I went to France sort out my ID, another night mare began. Life fell apart for me. I was wrong expecting family support and here I was, stranded at an airport.

Fluent in several languages with a lot of skills, I tried getting work, first around the airport, then in London, but without a National Insurance Number my hands were tied. I was advised to return to Barrow where I would be registered. Without money or transport I felt my only option was to walk the 300 mile journey North.

It was anger at my husband, my family, and the military leaving me behind still under a valid NATO stamp, that drove me onward.

I missed my son’s wedding because of it!

I survived several weeks of hardship. I was happiest walking across the countryside. I would sleep under bushes, eat dandelions, blackberries, whatever I could find. I found a whole field of hazelnuts one night.

I loved the countryside. I was at peace. The wild life seemed to understand what I was going through and I felt like I understood them. I wasn’t alone. I had company.

I felt more alone as I passed through towns and cities although occasionally the generosity of people surprised me. One place that sticks in my mind was Chesterfield. I was sheltering from the rain under bridges when I was approached by local youths. They asked about my situation and went away, came back with food, blankets and a flask of coffee. It was the only place where I was offered generosity without any expectation in return.

Samaritans referred me to Pathways who couldn’t help me but gave me a suitcase with clothes. I had to continue my journey through the fields. My shoes were falling apart, I was soaked, cold, drinking snow. The wheels of my suitcase broke.

I reached Barrow, my caravan was broken into. I used a temporary one in Rampside with, no heat, no water, I survived on expired food I had left behind.

6 months later I was able to qualify at Furness Homeless Shelter, I stayed a year, took many courses, was given a nice council apartment in town, had to give it up, I found work in Manchester. Discovering Mustard Tree helping me rebuild what I had lost. Now Retired.

This is the 3^rd time I’ve told my story to MSP. The 1^st time I went into some of my disturbing memories from the past. As I’ve said before, this was difficult but I feel like it’s helped me to get past some of these memories.

Since I last spoke in November, my life has continued to improve. I am still in a relationship which has been going really well. We both have our own place so we generally see each other at weekends which suits me down to the ground. We’re not in each others pockets and spend time together because we want to. We have lots in common which really helps. We enjoy walking in parks or in the countryside which really helps us to relax.

I enjoy getting out and about so with a bus ticket and a bit of loose change for some lunch the world really is my oyster. The other day I got the wrong bus in Rochdale and ended up in Bakeup. I’d never been there before, never even knew it existed, but what a lovely place. It ended up being a cracking day out.

I have just got a job with Age UK as a trainee home carer so I’m just getting used to the early mornings. In my last story I spoke about how I’d been volunteering in the community and that I enjoy caring for people. This job suits me perfectly because I get to use my strengths which are patience, empathy and understanding. I’m still training but hopefully I have found my career for the rest of my working life.

I am also glad to say that after suffering with a lot of stress and anxiety with a lot of debt problems I was made an appointment with Citizens advice and my problems have now been sorted out. This appointment was made through Be well who have been a huge comfort zone for me and offered me a lot of support and a great ear to talk to. It’s a huge relief to have my money issues sorted. It’s nice to be able to open letters and answer the door without fear.

I would say to anybody reading this that life can be turned around. There is help and support out there. 10 years ago I would never have imagined that I’d be where I am today. Working with MSP has helped me to come out of my shell, to talk about my past, and I feel so much better for it. I actually think that I can dare to hope for nice things in my future. I have found that if I stay positive, positive things happen, and I like it that way.

At 14 I was taken in to care and placed in a unit in the countryside. I was scared at first but I quickly built up my confidence to the point that aged only fifteen I managed to tell my therapist that my mother and uncle abused me when I was younger. This led to a police investigation and my uncle was sentenced to a custodial sentence. I was there until I was 18 and I enjoyed every minute of my time there.

At 19 I started my long slide into HMP. I spent eight years just going in and out of prison. I went to Back on Track, then moved on to volunteer at Fairshare as a forklift truck driver and driver’s mate, but after a couple of months I was back in and out of prison again until in April 2016.

I got a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder, depression and anxiety. In December 2013 when I was released from a sentence I was suicidal. I planned to walk to Manchester Victoria train station and jump in front of the first train that came through, but on the way to the platform I saw a BTP sergeant and told him about my plan. He told me I had two choices, I could either go to hospital in the ambulance that he had requested, or I could refuse and he would arrest me under section 135 of the mental health act and he would take me to hospital in the back of his van. It is fair to say that he saved my life.

Whilst on my last prison sentence my fiancé of 1 year who was pregnant with my baby, dumped me. It gave me the hardest kick up the backside I have ever had and I decided there and then that I was never going back to prison.

My decision to reform is being strained however by the fact that the services that I rely on to help me through the tough times are being cut to the bone. Probation, mental health support, these are the things I need to help me achieve a stable and “NORMAL” life. It feels like me and my brothers on the breadline are paying for the mistakes made by bankers.

I feel ashamed to say that in this day and age we as a society cannot support the most vulnerable people in this world and help them to be part of the community once again.

Luckily 2 years ago I found the Mustard Tree. I was feeling down, worthless, no use to anyone. It felt like joining a family. I started working there on a temp basis and was amazed by the amount of friendship and camaraderie that I felt at being a part of that team. This was a new feeling for me as I had never felt part of a team or family before.

I hope that in the future there are more places like this to offer support and guidance to the hundreds of thousands of Adults and Children in Greater Manchester who are in poverty and need the support and guidance that I have been lucky enough to have received. I know with every fibre of my being that it can and will change lives. It’s changed mine

It is really hard for me to verbalize just how important this has been for me. I’m now feeling as though I can achieve anything I put my mind to.

I spent a few nights on the streets sleeping rough, of course got hooked in to that horrible scene with drugs and what-not, and now, I’m not living in hostels anymore. I’m with a charity called Bridge-It Housing. I’ve got my own room and I’m having a hard job fighting the demons like everybody does but I’m slowly winning, and now I’ve got some good support.

When you get made homeless and you’re sleeping rough, cos you’re being pushed from pillar to post as well, it’s like a damn great big circle and it’s a vicious circle. You get on the drugs to sort of, the only way I can put it is in plain English, you just want to escape.

I was lucky that the last hostel I was in, I had an interview for Bridge-It housing and they offered me a place so I jumped at it, but I had to go into a rehab and have a bit of a clean-up and I’m trying to get my act together and get off the drugs altogether. It’s hard , I won’t say it aint but I’ll say one thing for anybody that’s gonna, you know, end up on the street. Try and keep away from it. Alright, I know it’s somewhere you want, it just takes you out of that world where you are, when you think no one cares about me, no one gives 2 monkeys uncles what I’m doing. They do, it’s just you’ve got to ask for the help.

When I come out, I went back to the hostel and a bloke was running amok one night. With a knife he was going around knocking on everybody’s door, “I’m gonna stab you, you fuckin bastard.” The next day I said to the manager at the hostel, I said “Look, if you don’t get me out of here by tonight I’ll get my fucking self out because I can’t put up with no more of this.”

So a couple of hours went past and Jeff the manager come down to my room and he said “Get your things together. I’m moving you tomorrow. You’re going to Bridge-It houses.” So I said “Oh, I had an interview for them didn’t I.” He said “Yeah, they just offered you a place in Longsight.” So I said “Oh, Good” cos he said “You wanted to stay round this area didn’t you.” I said “Yeah, I’ve made friends round here.” So he said “Right, fair enough,” and the next day I went to Longsight.

I’d like to do a bit of voluntary work here, because the other week I helped out one night on the soup-run. I’d like to, sort of, do a bit of voluntary work for people like what I’ve been through.

 

I just had my 72^nd birthday last week. I organised a party, you know, a few drinks and what-not, and no bugger turned up.

It was well supported the event that was on last year for the Manchester Festival. I tried to convey what had actually happened to me because what happened to me was unique. It was really really good. My bit was on one of the front posts so it was quite prominent really. I had half a day there, had a couple of brews and people chatted with me because they were genuinely interested in the story. It was playing I think every 10 minutes, there was a loop of people playing up in the ceiling and people said aah, that’s you isn’t it, yeah yeah that’s me, that’s my story.

 

I am struggling to get back into similar work. I’ve devoted a lot of my time to homeless activities so I volunteer in the Booth Centre 4 mornings a week. So I do the English class, the job club so I help other people try and find work, and I do an internet café where I try and help people get into housing. I’m also on a lot of committees, so I’m on the homeless charter board with the bishop of Manchester, the chief constable, the leader of Manchester City Council. I’m trying to make a difference to the homeless people on the streets of Manchester.

 

I get involved with Andy Burnham a lot, feeding back what’s happening. I’m also on the homeless partnership employment committee as a co-chair on that with a guy from business in the community so we’re trying to identify openings for people that have had lived experience to get into jobs, to try and get them into housing and you know try and help them to sort themselves out basically. I’ve had that experience because I had 8 months in 2015 on the street and a couple of weeks in 2016.

 

Getting people interviews, I get a lot out of structuring CVs, and actually writing them so that they can you know we identify what strengths they have. We tailor CVs to particular jobs and it is really really successful. Me and other members of the team at the Booth Centre job club have placed roughly about 85 people into work in the last 12 months. I tend to work with people from the EU because I’m known as one of the more patient ones, so I’ll sit with them on a Google translator and help them translate into English and try and put it over as best I can.

 

Things have come along a lot from last year. I am doing more positive things. I actually manged to get myself a couple of interviews. One with Salford City Council as a homeless advisor. Unfortunately I didn’t get the position but at least I was considered, at least I was given the chance of an interview. And another one with Cornerstones as an advisor, and again I wasn’t successful but at least I got an opportunity to go along.

 

Yeah, I never let things get me down. I always try and think positively. I’m very considerate and empathetic of other people. Whatever strengths I’ve got, If I can help somebody else along the way then that gives me a positive feeling and a buzz that my efforts have helped someone into employment and got their self sorted out basically. That is the main goal at the end of the day obviously.

 

You know it’s a huge problem out there and it seems to be getting worse with the advent of Universal Credits and there seems to be more and more people getting into difficulties. It’s been on the news this morning that the Citizens Advice Bureau are now asking for the way companies chase up debts to be redone. So they reckon there are millions of people that are in arrears with their rent or utility bills and the way the bodies are going about it is not very good to say the least.

I’m 62, coming up 63.

Er… The last twenty, twenty-six, twenty-seven years, I was living on the streets, all over Europe. Erm. My marriage had broken up and I’d ended up on the streets. And I met, er, some people, erm, and moved to Nottingham.

And when I got to Nottingham, I met some old friends from Manchester and, er, they said to me, ‘Oh, we’re going on a protest over in Ireland, do you want to come? The farmers are going to pay for us to go over, display all the equipment, you know, to make this protest about pylons, and that.’

So I said, ‘OK.’ So I went over with them, and whilst I was over there, I was there for three years, and I met a French girl and we got together, and she was a nanny at the time, and she gave up her job and come on the protest with me, and er… And then we moved to France, to where she comes from. Met her parents and we heard about this other protest. We’re still living on the street and still, you know, homeless. So, er, basically we went on that at St Carol, near the Pyrenees, and from then was doing, like, seasonal work after that and just moving around.

I’ve been all over: Spain, Portugal, Morocco, er, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Germany. I was in Germany for three years. Yeah, just moving around. But…

And I ended up with… I started with depression, and it got really bad and, er, I ended up getting sectioned in France. And I was sectioned, and I was six months in psychiatric hospital, and it turned out that I’d got manic depression. And, er, was really bad. It was really bad. She stuck by me all that time and, er, I come out, I’d come out of the psychiatric, straight back onto the streets, and I started getting heavy into the drugs. It was just the scene, you know, to fit in, like.

So, er, after that I got sectioned again and, erm… Because I was so manic that the police were just scared that something would happen, you know, so I ended up back in for another three months.

And then, er, I come out and went straight back into the drug scene and it was really, really hard. Really hard on her, as well, because she was standing by me all this time, you know. And she’d stopped doing everything: she’d stopped drinking, she’d stopped taking drugs, the lot. And er… And I went, I attempted suicide. I’d had enough, I couldn’t handle it.

I tried to commit suicide, and thought, I went back into the hospital voluntary, and I went, I did another three times voluntary, going in, three times I attempted suicide and… Obviously, I didn’t succeed, I’m still here.

And, er, my girlfriend at this point had had enough, you know. Fair enough. And went off with a friend. Erm. I have two kids by her, as well.

And then I come back here, and found it really hard. And at the moment I’m residing in a hostel, erm, up in Crumpsall way. It’s just a bedroom room, basically. A lot of young people. I’m really struggling, coping, you know. And, er, if it wasn’t for this place, I don’t know what I’d have done.

I think this place, when I come here… I can be really dark, you know, where I am, and it motivates me to get up and come here, do you know what I mean. Because I know once I come here, when I start doing my art, or I start singing, you know, or being dramatic, [laughs] it really lifts my spirits, do you know what I mean. And I don’t need any sort of chemicals to get up there, because the art and everything does it for me, you know what I mean. And the people and the staff are so brilliant and it’s just… I love it. I love it. And if it weren’t for this place, maybe I’d be in a mental hospital, I don’t know.

David Gray, Babylon. You know the song, Babylon? Do you know the one, with the ‘chemical rushing through my veins’, and you’re in a different place. Well it’s sort of… It’s hit home, that, not necessarily a chemical that you’re actually shooting up yourself, but the chemical could be like coming here, and that’s the chemical. You don’t need to shove anything up your veins because that lifts you, you know what I mean. That brings you up. And I love that song. It brings from where I was, to where I’m at. And it’s changed from actually putting chemicals, to getting a chemical that’s free, you know, that I don’t need to put up me, because I lift, I get a lift every time I walk through that door, you know what I mean. And that music just says it for me.

Rob. 30.

I was born in Chester and, erm, my dad was in the Army so we moved around a lot. And then, my mum and dad got divorced and we ended up moving to Manchester, twenty years ago. I’ve lived all over Manchester, and now I’m actually living in Newton Heath at the minute. My own flat, which took a while to get.

I got kicked out of my mum’s, six, seven years ago and, er, I ended up at the Salvation Army hostel in Manchester for two years, and then I was in various, er, housing, er, kind of schemes, then.

Er, basically, I got on the waiting list for housing, I was in the wrong band, which is why it took three years to get this flat, so, yeah, I’ve been there four years now, so it’s going alright.

It’s not as bad as people think, when you say to people, ‘I was in the Salvation Army hostel.’ It was OK, you get your own room, and two meals a day, which is… I didn’t expect that, I thought I’d just have to try and get my own food, or whatever. Yeah, it was nice, I made some good friends in there. I was lucky ‘cause after leaving my mum’s I was only on the streets for one night before I got into the… Before my friend took me down to the Salvation Army hostel, but that one night, that was… Well, it was interesting, and it was scary.

It was, I was just walking around Manchester all night, I didn’t have a clue what to do. Well, I went around to his and told him what had been going on, that I’d been kicked out of my mum’s and stuff, and er, he gave me a coffee and something to eat and we started looking into, er, housing options and, er, Salvation Army came up, we rang them up, and went straight down, so they had a room ready to go, which was quite rare, when I was there. But I do have a drinking problem, so a lot of people at the Salvation Army did, and, er, it did get worse when I was there, because basically there was nothing to do, really, and er, me and some other guys just sat around drinking all day. But yeah, I’m starting to get a handle on it now.

Because before I came here I was sat in the flat all day and doing various jobs and courses that they sent me on, which wasn’t the best thing. And then actually, the Jobcentre sent me here on a four week placement, which was, er, which was good, I liked it. And er, it turns out I’m quite good in the kitchen, apparently, so they wanted me to stay on for… I can’t remember how long it was back then, but er, on and off I’ve been here three years now, I think. But when I was at the Salvation Army, I did a sort of placement in the kitchen there and turns out I’m pretty good at, er, cooking, and making sandwiches, and tea and coffee and stuff. They actually took me on after I moved out of there, that was my first proper job in about ten… No, five years, sorry.

Any book I can get my hands on, I read it. Erm. All sorts of horror, really, Sci-Fi, Star Trek and stuff.

Well, I think I’ll go with Bon Jovi, and erm, Living on a Prayer.

I’m Danny, I’m 61. I’m originally from Liverpool.

I get up… pretty reasonable. I worked with my dad when I was 14, working on the site with him, erm, learning the building, kinda, trade. My dad died when I was 17 and I lost the plot a little bit and started drinking and fighting round town, and whatever. Um. I had an older brother, well a half-brother, that had been in the Army for years, and my mum kept saying to me, ‘Why don’t you be like our Tom, join the Army?’

Erm. I got in a fight one night in town and, like, I actually hurt a guy quite badly. I went to court and my [?thing] in court was that, I signed my papers, I’m going in the Army. The judge said, well basically, you do three years in the Army or you do three years in the Nick.

So I went in the Army, and everyone said, you know, ‘He’s not going to last five minutes’. And I actually did twelve years. And when I came out of the Army, I settled down, met my first wife, had two kids, everything was great. Working back on the building sites. Then my first wife died. Brought the two kids up myself ‘til they were 12. Then I started to lose the plot a bit.

I’ve always had this drifting bit inside me. So I went drifting for a while, and then I came back, a few years later. Settled down again with a second wife. Had another two kids. [Laughs] I done exactly the same again, just went off drifting again.

And then, come back, had a third wife, no kids, but I just found it very hard to settle in life. So I went off again, just drifting, and I ended up back on the streets again, living rough, living in forests. I spent six months living in a, literally, in a forest. And just become a man of the ground, so went back to nature.

And then I came back again, met someone else, had another kid, and then everything was rosy. I’d started my own business back up, everything was going great, and I just snapped again. Ended up, found on the motorway at half past two in the morning, walking down the motorway just outside Birmingham, from Liverpool to… I’d got as far as Birmingham walking down the wrong way of the motorway! How I did it, I don’t know. Got picked up by the motorway transport. Spent about five weeks in a hospital in Birmingham, or just outside Birmingham and, like, didn’t know who I was, hadn’t got a clue who I was, I’d just totally meltdown.

Yeah, I spent five weeks in the hospital and at the end they said, ‘Right, finally you can go now.’ And I walked out the hospital and was like, ‘Where do I go?’ I had nowhere to go. Because, as far as I was concerned, I’d burned my bridges back at home. So, I spent the next four years literally on the streets living rough.

I had a great couple of days there before heading south, through the heart of Wales, and through Herefordshire, where I joined the M5, and went on to the South West, specifically, Perranporth. I spent about eight fabulous days there until my money ran out: This was when I became officially homeless.
At first I wasn’t bothered, as I fully intended to commit suicide, but, the comedy of errors surrounding my suicide attempts, convinced me that death was not part of my immediate future.
So I abandoned my car and set off walking. I spent the next three weeks wandering aimlessly around the Newquay and Perranporth area, eating discarded takeaways out of dustbins, or just begging for money outside bars and shops.
I made the decision to hand myself in to the police, but I wanted to do it up north, in Manchester, and, as I wasn’t thinking clearly, I decided to walk to Manchester form Cornwall.
What could possibly go wrong, it’s only 300+ miles! Needless to say I never got anywhere near the first 100. I had done about thirty or forty miles when I finally collapsed in a heap by the side of the A30 with total exhaustion. A very kind and concerned lady came to my aid and she called the emergency services.
As I was still covered in blood from my pathetic suicide attempt, the police were called to see if I had been attacked. They went through my wallet, and found my driving licence, and, when they called it in, discovered I was wanted my Greater Manchester Police. After receiving treatment, I was placed under arrest, and my brief spell of being street homeless was at an end.
I know it was only three weeks, but, it was such a struggle for me to get food, I completely understand the trials and tribulations of today’s homeless, it was my experience of homelessness that convinced me to join the Mustard Tree and hopefully help someone who is in the same situation as me.

It was harrowing, having to drag up all the past. It wasn’t easy, but I felt like I got a load lifted from my shoulders by saying it all, when it all come out as they say. Yeah, I was pretty chuffed with myself for doing that, and it did it helped me a lot to move forwards. Yeah, it was good. I now know that I wasn’t the bad person. What happened wasn’t my fault and through talking through street poem, and being a peer mentor as well, I’ve put it as like my future education now that is, so I can support others who could possibly be going through the same thing.

So when I started I thought yeah I wanna do some more courses, so I’ve done my health and social course level 2, I’ve done a HS foundation trust, and I did a week of being a nursing assistant, but it was really hard work and the hours didn’t suit, but it was an experience and I loved the job. And then I’ve done a computer course to level 3, that was at St. John’s campus and I really enjoyed that, with a lovely lady called Louise Sapphire. She was amazing, really good. Erm, I’ve done a pre-employability course with John Almsly at Cathedral Volition, who’s a lovely fella, really is a nice guy. I’ve done some voluntary work with him as a teaching assistant as well, when I done the course. So yeah, erm, now I’m going to start training with Mencap, which will hopefully give me a paid job.

I used to look after a friend’s son who had really bad learning difficulties, erm, and to give his parents a rest because they had like mild learning difficulties, I used to take him out for the day, and we used to have such fun, you know, it’s like you’d take him in a pub, no alcohol was ever allowed, he’d love to just sit there with a coke with ice and just have a chat

and he’d do his going on about girls and things like that you know, and yeah he loved it, and we used to go all over, we used to go to Stockport, Sale, Town Hall, yeah he really enjoyed himself, and he really wanted to learn, so I tried to get him in college in Wythenshawe, in the forum, and they did do a course for people with learning difficulties. His mum was all for it but unfortunately his dad wasn’t, so it fell through for him, which was a shame. But I enjoyed going out with that friend, yeah.

I was actually supporting people when I was homeless, I mean I’ve lived with drug dealers, shoplifters and people who used to go out and do street muggings, but I didn’t see that, I saw the person underneath, tried to get the real person, and I did end up supporting them, and that was just going to the library and getting some leaflets to give them information, helping them make an appointment, hopefully trying to get them to that appointment, and that’s how I decided yeah I could do this as a living. It’s been a long slow process but yeah I feel I’ve got there now, yeah.

It’s improved a lot because a lot of people now, because I’m always like let people know what happens at the meetings and what it’s all about, and they’re changing their opinion that when they see someone who’s on the streets, who’s probably had too much drugs, they’re not some sort of scumbag, they actually see them as an individual who’s got severe problems and needs support, and I find a few people are getting that attitude now. They’re not as, oo there goes another scumbag sort of thing it’s aw look at that poor guy he needs help, and that’s how it should be. So, you know the more people you can educate to the fact that people aren’t always homeless cos they wanna be, it’s cos of what’s gone on in their life, and it’s horrific things that happened in their life, and to get out of that it’s difficult. You know, they can’t just click their fingers.

And I also explain to people that if you’ve got someone who’s been street homeless for a lot of years, to just stick them in a flat with 4 walls would be like caging a wild animal. They’ll just wanna get out, they’re not used to it, they can’t cope with it, they can’t do the bills, they can’t pay the rent, they can’t do the shopping, they don’t know how to do anything, and it’s not as easy as just sticking someone in a flat after years on the street, it doesn’t work like that, they need so much help and support to achieve that and to even get there, and just to get them through them doors actually. It’s a big major issue, and the more people realise that, the more support the homeless should get, I hope.

I’m from Poland, native.

Good things in the past, for example I was a DJ. I’m trying to go back to that life: just party, party, party. [laughs]

I was travelling all the time, because I started to play in the clubs when I was 15. I was learning how to play the parties, then when I turned 17 I moved out from my parents’ flat and go to my own one, because I can afford it, apparently. And I just was travelling about, hmm, I was playing about twenty-three to twenty-seven parties per month, so I just was playing a party, going to a hotel—because club was paying for travel and hotel as well—so I was playing the party, finishing the party at three or four am, going to the hotel, take a little nap, go to the train, going to another club, another city. In some spare time I was going to the gym, because we have gyms like, you have membership cards you can go every single city you want, if there is a place. So no, it was a party life, like, party, party.

And then I lost my fiancé. Because I was engaged, just because of that, we didn’t have time for each other, and I decided to come to England. In 2015, when I came here, and as a normal person I started working, then my agency doesn’t pay me, so I decided to change my workplace, and I found a great opportunity to work at a warehouse, they provided accommodation as well.

After couple of weeks… Hmm, I was receiving normally payment, and was happy to work there, because it was £9 per hour, so I was quite happy. And after a couple of weeks, just one person appeared at my flat and told me that, hmm, from now, me and my flatmates are starting working for him. So, at the beginning I didn’t realise that but after some part of the time I realised, I realised that I’m a victim of a traffic. So, hmm, I was working there, I didn’t receive any payment, I was bullied, er, that person who was coming to our flat was attacking us, without any reason, we wasn’t… There was no possibility to go out from the flat. We didn’t have any keys, our documents was took by this person.

And finally, after one and a half years, I was at work, at afternoon shift, and I decided to run away from that place. So, I just ran away from that warehouse, asked a bus driver—I was wearing still a high-vis, work shoes, and everything I was wearing at work—I just asked the bus driver, ‘Can you drop me to the city centre?’

And when I came to the city centre, I went to the library and checked for any organisation that can help me, and I found the Coventry Refugee Centre, refugee and migrant centre. I came to tell all the story of what happened, and the same day they decided to help me, and it was about four pm. And they booked me a ticket to Manchester, they gave me some pocket money to buy some clothes, they provided me with food, they gave me even a phone with top-up, so everything was just… The dream’s come true, yeah, finally.

And I came to Manchester two weeks ago, so, I’m trying to sort my life again.

I’m at Windsor shelter right now. I’m trying to not think about what can happen again, because they can still find me. I think about that, because they were selling drugs as well, there wasn’t only traffic, so I’m still afraid about that, they can, mmm, still find me, yeah. But I’m trying to not think about it.

Hopefully, it will be under the programme for people who are trafficked in England, so I’m just waiting for a decision, which should be Wednesday or Thursday. If they accept my, hmm, assessment and whole story they will provide me with a minimum of forty-five days of safe accommodation and help with finding a job, and maybe housing benefits hopefully, as well. So maybe, it will be good.

Every single day I’m more confident to go out from the church, go out in the street to meet new people, to, for example, find any place to work. In the future, hopefully, I’ll go to study. I want to go to studies, I want to study music production, as well, in Manchester. I was playing nine years, football, so the football is the most important thing in my life, after music. And girls. [laughs]

Drum and Bass: Pendulum, Tarantula. My favourite one.

Jo

How old are you, Jo?

I’m 47. Mum died when I was 5. Dad brought us up, me, my brother, I’m the youngest of three.

I’d quite a good life, do you know what I mean, there was no—apart from obviously the fact that my mum died and there was only my dad. Not really any problems until I reached teenage years.

Er, so I started smoking weed when I was 13, and started taking Whizz when I was about 15. Party drugs when I was about 17, going out raving in the late eighties, taking acid and Es. Got introduced to crack cocaine when I was about 19. My sister’s boyfriend introduced me to it, um, said, ‘Here, here’s a friend for you.’

I’ve got a son. I had my son when I was about, when I was 22, not about 22. I was 22 when I had my son, and started taking Heroin when I was about 24, so I’ve had a long history of addiction.

So I started seeing somebody, erm. I used to sell it, and I worked, and I sold drugs, and I worked, and sold drugs, and worked, sold drugs, and worked, for years. And then I found myself in prison at the age of 41, after, erm, losing… I had three jobs at one time. One of them I got made redundant from, one of them was just a Christmas job, and the other one I ended up working just match days at City and it wasn’t enough to support my habit. And the guy that I was seeing, he was using as well.

Went through my savings, went through his savings, and then come, like, Christmas 2010, we had no money, it had all gone, and couldn’t go to the bank ‘cause it… The way the days fell over the Christmas and New Year, there was loads of bank holidays and the banks weren’t open, so couldn’t go to the bank to get an overdraft, or anything like that, to get any money. So I had the bright idea to commit a load of robberies. So we ended up committing seven robberies in seven days, erm, and then once we ended up going to the bank and getting some money, stopped. So they were like from something like twenty-seventh December to about the fifth January, committed seven robberies. Didn’t do it ever again, that was it. And got arrested. Apparently the police were looking all over for us, so got arrested three months later. A drug dealer grassed on me. I couldn’t believe it, a drug dealer grassed on me!

I ended up getting arrested obviously, then went to jail. I was, like, in the police station for three and a half days and then, on a Saturday morning, court.

I was in a sweatbox on my way to Styal prison, and I was like, ‘You’re having a laugh, is this…? What’s going on?’ Do you know what I mean?

I’ve never been to prison, not been arrested for over twenty years. Last time I got arrested was for shoplifting when I was about 16, 17, and it was like, pff. So anyway, I got five years. Got five years in jail. Did two and a half.

Ended up… I was in Styal for a couple of months, and once I got sentenced they sent me to Drake Hall which is in Staffordshire, and that’s how I ended up… Coming out of prison is how I ended up homeless. Because I was in Staffordshire, they said—because you only start sorting it out two weeks before you leave anyway—and they were like, ‘Well you’ve not really got any links to Manchester so there’s not a lot we can do. There’s nobody you can go and stay with?’

And I was like, ‘Well, no not really.’

But my cousin had already said to me, ‘You can come and stay with us if you want, when you get out.’ But she lives in Buxton, so I ended up having to ring her the day before I got out. I needed to come back to Manchester because everything… I just couldn’t stay in Buxton, it was like… I tried getting a job there; there was no jobs. I’d already started using drugs again anyway, because every time I came back to Manchester I was using, so I’d already got an habit again, so I just came back to Manchester. Erm.

I was supposed to be staying at a friend’s, I’d already asked him if I could stay and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, no problem, it’s not a problem. Of course you can come and stay.’

And I got to Manchester… I got on the train, and I got a one-way ticket from Buxton, and it’s like an extra 20p to get a return, but I got a one-way ticket ‘cause he was supposed to be meeting me at the train station, but he never turned up. And I was ringing him, and ringing him. And I was ringing him on the train on the way there, and I was ringing him when I got to the station, and his phone was just ringing, ringing, ringing, and then it started going to the answering machine so I thought, ‘Nice. Wanker.’ Do you know what I mean? ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this. You should have just said to me, you know, “You can’t stay”. If you’d have said, “No, you can’t stay” I would have found somewhere else to stay. Or stayed in Buxton a little bit longer.

So, er, I rang an old friend of mine who I’d not seen for a while, but I’d spoke to him a couple of times when I was in jail anyway, I’d phoned him and that, and er, he was in a pub in town. And he went, ‘Just come down here, we’ll sort something out. Don’t worry about it, we’ll sort something out.’

So I went to Mother Macs in town. With my fucking suitcase, dragging it behind me, and he was asking me what… Because I’d already been to see him, when I got out, I’d seen him, like, I think I’d seen him once when I got out, or I went to visit him, say, ‘Hiya, I’m out. Hello.’ Bit awkward to stay at his, so one of the other lads, his missus was like, ‘Come and stay at ours. You can just come and stay at ours for a couple of nights until they sort things out.’

So I ended up going and staying in Stockport for a week. Went back to Manchester council while I was there and said to them, like, ‘Right, I can stay at my friends for a week, and then that’s it. And I’ve got nowhere to stay.’

And they were like, ‘Well, you’re still not vulnerable.’ You know.

So, how are you not vulnerable? In a week I’m going to be sleeping on the streets, so how is that not vulnerable? You know what I mean? I’m going to be a single woman, sleeping on the streets of Manchester, how does that not make me vulnerable?’

And they were like, ‘Well, you’re not a priority.’

And I was like, ‘Right OK, so what do you need to be a priority?’

And they were like… So, they knew I was a drug addict, they knew that I’d just got out of jail, and because I didn’t have any mental health problems—what they call mental health problems—they said that I wasn’t a priority. And that’s the reason that I ended up homeless, because it was like, that’s it, do you know what I mean?

‘You’ve got no mental health problems.’

‘Well, what do you want me to do, start kicking off in here? I’ll show you fucking mental health problems, if you want mental health problems, I’ll show them you!’

I couldn’t got stay with my… I asked my dad if I could go and stay there and, er, his missus doesn’t like me, ‘cause, pff, whatever reason, anyway, erm. And he said, ‘You know, I’ll ask her, but…’ It’s my dad’s house, not hers, it’s actually my mum’s house and er… She said no, and my dad said, ‘She’ll leave me if I let you come and stay.’

And I was like, ‘Oh right, so it’s alright for her kids to stay, and her grandkids to stay, but I can’t stay in my own…’ That’s my house, that’s my childhood home, do you know what I mean? It was my mum’s house.

Anyway she ended up getting me in the Narrowgate, which is a night shelter, but it was only open at the time, Monday to Thursday. So I stayed there Monday to Thursday, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I stayed on the streets. But there was, erm, I met a couple of guys in there, so I got quite friendly with them, and one of them used to go and stay at his friends in Oldham over the weekend, and the other one, he was about 17, he went, ‘You can come and stay with me. It might just be a little bit safer for you, if you’re with a man on the streets.’

I was like, ‘Right, OK.’ So I ended up staying Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights round the corner from the Post Office on Spring Gardens, and it was like, there’s a building right opposite, and it’s got, like, a little ramp on it, but you can go round a little corner thing round the thing, so it’s like, kind of protected from the wind. But also you can’t really see you, do you know what I mean, so as people are coming past… Because the threat… The weekend in town, it’s just manic, ain’t it?

The sort of bands that I’m into, I like The Stone Roses, and one of my favourites of theirs is Ten Storey Love Song, but I also love… Do you know what I mean, I’m proper into the Specials, and Pretenders, and all that sort of stuff as well, so… And recently I’ve been… [laughs] I don’t, for some reason I can’t get that Jilted John song out of my head. Recently.

It was on the telly the other night, did you watch it?

Was it? I’ve been listening to… I just can’t get it out of my head. [sings] ‘I’ve been going out with a girl. Her name is Julie. But last night she said—‘ I don’t know, I just can’t get it out of my head at the moment, so that, and Handbags and Gladrags is one of my all-time favourites, Rod Stewart.

Kel. I’m nearly 33. I’m from Manchester, born and bred.

Life was a bit up and down. I’ve moved quite a lot, erm… And erm, 2013 I moved to Wolverhampton, erm, with a friend of mine, and then we ended up in a relationship, we got married. That broke down last February, so I came back to Manchester very depressed and had nowhere to live. And, erm, been sofa-surfing since, so it’s been quite stressful. Erm. My mental health, I had to build up from nothing to where I am now, to being more stable.

Erm, I’m currently staying most nights with my brother and his dad, and in between that at friends and wherever.

Well now I’m doing a few courses at Back on Track. I’ve done… I’ve started doing Streetwise Opera. I’m currently about to start something in Bolton called Box TV, and they, they’re doing a thing at the moment, the students are doing stuff on, like, mental health issues, anxiety, domestic violence and abuse, and different things like that. I’m going to start getting involved with that.

Erm, I don’t know, I just want to be settled. I’m looking into housing at the moment and I’ve recently… Well, I’ve been in a twelve-week relationship, on Monday, with my new partner and we’re looking to move in together, er, well, find a property together in Bolton, because that’s where she’s from. So, erm, I’ve rang up My Space, which is a housing organisation for people with mental health issues, and they help them find a property. But they help them with their issues, and medication, and difficulties that they face.

So I sorted that application form out yesterday with a guy called Graham Williams, who I did DBT with, that I started in September and finished last Friday. It just helped a lot with my mental health and my personality disorder. Like, has made me understand more about that, because I didn’t really understand what that was.

And I’m doing courses here at Back on Track, which has helped as well, [?the staff are just/this office is] great, and it just feels like a big family when I come here.

I’m originally from Wythenshawe, I grew up there until I was about… About 10. Then moved from there to Moss Side, and then from Moss Side back to Wythenshawe. And then left Wythenshawe and moved in with my girlfriend, and was in Wymington for, like, ten years. And then left her and moved back to Wythenshawe, and then moved to Wolverhampton, to then move back to Wythenshawe! [laughs]

I like it. Back when I was growing up it was really rough, and the crime rate was quite high but, like, the rough areas, especially, like, people mention Benchill, but Benchill is not as rough as it was, it’s grown and it’s become a lot safer and the council have done a lot of work in Benchill. It’s nothing like it was when I was growing up, it is a safe area now to be in.

I like my country, my country music, erm, is quite nice. John Denver and Kacey Musgraves. But I do like a bit of Bon Jovi, and Meatloaf as well.

I’m 58 years of age.

I was… I was very, very successful in the job that I did. I was a rep, an area sales manager and, um… I just got to the point where, erm, I wanted to do something new, so I ended up leaving all my family and moving away to Manchester. Erm…

Because of the financial crisis, I ended up getting made redundant a couple of times, and again, because of my age I haven’t been able to get any suitable employment.

Erm, I ended up getting evicted from where I lived in 2015, and I ended up on the streets in Manchester for a few months. I ended up getting rehoused in a homeless hostel in—well I was in Warrington—in Warrington. They moved me into a flat, which I wasn’t happy, and last year I ended up walking out, just walking out and going back out on the streets again.

My fifth night… I came back to Manchester because I enjoyed the time that I was in Manchester in 2015, erm… And then, er, a really bad incident happened, erm, I ended up getting hit with a crutch in my eye, and ended up in hospital for eight weeks, seven weeks. And that’s all going to trial in the next two to three months, so I’ve all that to go through.

I come here, I come here every day, Monday to Friday. Erm, I get involved in quite a few of the activities, as a volunteer really. I help out in the [?easel]… Well, I try and help out in the [?easel] classes, as best I can. Erm. I do the job club on a Tuesday, I do the Internet café on a Wednesday, and I do the woodwork on a Friday, so it keeps me occupied really, which… Unfortunately, due to my age, the chances of getting employment are pretty slim, to be honest with you. I’m 59 in September, erm… My profile doesn’t fit any more, for employers.

The situation with my eye, erm. I’m getting, I’m having operation, after operation, after operation, trying to save it. It’s not looking good though, so I’m probably going to end up losing my eye.

Not sure at the moment really, I just take each day as it comes, really. As I say, I look forward to coming here Monday to Friday, it’s, erm, something quite stimulating to do, and then if it’s helping other people.

Erm… I like, you know, a bit of history, a bit of culture, things like that. Erm… I spend most of my time on the Internet, either on Wikipedia, or watching old films, things like that.

Smoke on the Water, that’s one of my favourites. […….] rock festival. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen. Like, my hero, our hero, isn’t it, really?

Stephen. 63.

Er, Gorton, Manchester, I was born. Then round the Bradford area of, erm, just off Grey Mare Lane actually, so I moved around. I lived in Northwich for twelve years, and before I went to Thailand I lived twenty-five years in Mottram.

The first visit was about ten years ago. I just went on holiday, on my own, and er, that was the end of the marriage when I came back. Erm. I found the girls, and the drink, and everything, for me, you know. Probably a midlife crisis. I was 50 odd, then.

I had six birthdays in Thailand, on the beach, you know.

Erm. First year, I had big money, sold my house. Erm. And it all just went wrong, er, and I found myself facing the fact that I’m going to be on the beach and I said, ‘No, there’s no way I’m going to end up on the beach.’

And I’m sat in a bar one night… Well it’s not a bar, it’s erm, it’s a Thai-run little company that sold beer to bars, but they had a little area outside where all the—we call them Farang, that means foreigners—would sit, from all over the world. And one night, I said to him, I said, ‘I’ve had enough. There’s no way, next week, I’m going to be on the beach.’ So I had a little whiskey bottle, smashed it on my head, slashed my throat, slashed my… I was in a mess. And er, I went around a corner and did this, but someone had seen me from an hotel and she reported it to the people where I was drinking.

Next minute there was about thirty people around me, dressed me up, put a shirt on me, a clean shirt and everything, and ten minutes later I was on the drink again, enjoying myself again! [laughs] But I was in a mess, you know.

Anyway, cut a long story short, I ended up going on the beach, er, in Pattaya. Quite dangerous in Pattaya, near Walking Street, very famous. Erm, I did about one week there, carried my passport in my bag. I was scared, you know.

And I thought, I’ll go to Jomtien, because they’ve got an embassy there in Jomtien. I got there about one o’clock, in the early hours, I left about midnight, took about an hour to walk, and I ended up on the beach there. And again, I didn’t feel safe but, erm…

I went to the embassy the next morning, they couldn’t help me. I went every day for seven months to the embassy, at that time pleading to get myself home. In the end, it turned around where I didn’t want to go home. I met thousands of friends from all over the world. I never begged; people would just see the way I was and give me a drink, smokes, offer me food, clothes… And that’s how I existed for six years on the beach.

And two Canadian men said, ‘I think there’s an interesting story there.’ They said, ‘Would you like to write a book? We’ll put you in a hotel.’ But I ended up dictating to an English guy, he’s an actual English teacher, and he could stay in the hotel with me, and we finished the book. Just before the book was published, he died, so he never got anything out of this.

And then I got moved on from Pattaya, er Jomtien, sorry. Erm, ‘cause immigration were on my back. They wanted 100,000 Baht off me, which is about £2,000. I said, ‘There’s no way I can get that. I’m living on the beach, as you know.’ They all knew me. I was quite famous with the police and everything.

I packed a couple of bags. I left all, everything I owned, in this hotel and ended up back in Pattaya. I left Jomtien. And I survived there for another six months. And people from Jomtien were coming to visit me. I thought I’d lost everybody, starting again. It was hard, you know, erm, because you build up relationships with people, and they come back on holiday twice a year and say, ‘Bloody hell, Steve, are you still here?’ and ‘I suppose you want another beer.’ You know. I get took out.

I actually went to the police station the first day I arrived in Pattaya. I thought, ‘I’ve had enough’.

I went to the police station and they said, ‘How can we help you?’

And I said, ‘I think you should lock me up.’

And they said, ‘Why?’

I said, ‘I’m an over-stayer, six years.’

They said, ‘Stephen’—they knew my name—‘Stephen, just go away.’

And then, er, the police got me one night and said, ‘Look Stephen, we’re going to have to arrest you this time. We’re worried about your health, because you’re getting older’—they knew my story—‘and you’re drinking a lot.’ Alright, before ten o’clock in the morning, I’d probably had two bottles of whiskey, er, vodka, ‘cause you can get it cheap, you know.

Anyway, erm, they locked me up, and before I knew it I went to court, I went to prison for five weeks, and my friend from Canada paid for my ticket home.

Ended up on the streets in, er, Gatwick. I’m still in flipflops, shorts, in thirteenth December, freezing cold. Nothing, no money. And, er, I got help the next morning—just stayed up all night—I went to a charity, they paid for me from Gatwick to get to Manchester, where I’m a bit more familiar, erm, but I didn’t arrive until half past nine again, at night, so another night on the streets in Piccadilly Station.

I thought, ‘I wish I was back in Thailand.’ You know what I mean? I knew it was going to be hard. And it gets worse. I found the Booth Centre, and I didn’t know where they were going to be, on Cheetham Hill Road. But I got here about an hour and a half early, and luckily for me, I met the Thai lady who’s got the café just across the road, and because I’ve just come from Thailand, we hit it off. And her husband’s got the garage next door. And we’ve come very good friends now.

And the Booth Centre, different staff, have helped me. I was living in churches, every night for about five weeks. Different church every night, so seven churches, er, which was comfortable, good to me, food, everything. And slowly but surely, I got a doctor, erm, and now I’ve got accommodation. Er, it’s lovely, it’s a retirement home. So, er, nice and quiet. Happy Days.

The Beatles, Let It Be.

My name is Billie. I’m 47.

Well, I’m originally from London. Erm… I’m involved, at Back on Track, I’m involved, er, with Streetwise Opera. I love my karaoke, I set up my own singing group now, Singing for Wellbeing so, you know, I do love my music, you know. Helping others, you know, I want to give back, because people have helped me so I want to give back.

I was living with someone who was mentally abusive. You know, we lived in one room above a pub and I wasn’t allowed to, you know, be myself and, you know, I was basically a prisoner in there.

And one Sunday I just got up—and he went to church, believe it or not!—and I just packed my bag and came up here because I’ve got, you know, a small amount of family up here. So I just packed my bags and left. That’s all I had, my possessions in my suitcase.

Erm, I came up here, I stayed a week at my stepson’s and then I went to, erm, the council and said, ‘Look, you know, they can’t have me there full time, they haven’t got the room.’ You know, it was… It was horrible because, you know, you have to go begging. You know, I need somewhere to live, and I was put in a hostel in, just, I think it’s the start of Longsight on Plymouth Grove. And it was horrid because… You know, I’m not saying people are wrong for doing it, I understand if you’re homeless, or you’re in a situation like that, you do turn to drink and drugs. But I didn’t want to get into that situation, and the whole place seemed to revolve around that, you know, drinking and drug culture.

And it was quite, sort of, scary at times because people would, you know, obviously lose their temper and there would be fights going on. And it’s like, I’d do anything to stay out during the day, and just go there at night, sleep there and that’s it. And it was quite a scary situation because, [gulps] you know, although I had family up here they didn’t have room for me permanently, and it’s… You know, I felt quite alone and quite vulnerable, you know, I didn’t know the city, I didn’t know the people, and it was just that sense of being alone. I was away from friends, because all my friends were in London, and it was just that feeling of being isolated in a city full of thousands of people, which I suppose everybody feels.

Erm… Now, I’m in a much better place. I’ve got, you know, my own little flat, you know, I’ve got a partner who is exceedingly supportive. You know, my son comes to visit; you know, he’s just come back from Afghanistan, he’s in the Army, so I’m really proud of him. And we’ve got our two little fur-babies, our pussy cats, and life’s a lot better. You know, I’m looking forward instead of looking back now. You know, it’s like, what’s next, what can I do now? So it’s a lot better, I feel more positive.

Erm… [sighs] Become an international super star? Live on an island somewhere… No, I just want to be happy, and I want the people I know to be happy. I want to do something… You know, I used to work with children before I came up here. I used to work with autistic children, and now I work with adults that are vulnerable, and I love that. Not that they’re vulnerable, don’t get me wrong! But I love, you know, even if I can help one person, you know, that is such a nice feeling.

When you’re here, seeing the people progress, going on to volunteering themselves, or, you know, going out and finding a job, that gives you that, you know, immense joy, because you’re seeing someone progress, and you’re thinking, well, that was me. And I’m in a better place now, not fantastic all the time, but I’m in a better place, and now I’m helping other people get out of that situation, and be a better person for them.

I’m going to have to go with, erm, the George Michael version of Somebody to Love from the Freddie Mercury tribute concert. Because I love… You know, Queen’s music is phenomenal anyway, and I was devastated when George Michael died last year, er, he was one of my big influences in music and, you know, that… If, you know, I’m feeling down, that’s one of my happy songs, ‘cause it’s just… I love it. You know, belt out a tune. So, yeah. Definitely that one.

Bernadette. I’m 50.

Erm, I lived in Oldham for a long time. Because I was an alcoholic for sixteen and a half years and I’ve been off it four years now. So… And then, when I moved to Birmingham I had trouble there, so I moved to Manchester in October, and I’ve been coming here ever since.

Er, when I was an alcoholic, I was living on the streets, ‘cause I lived in Brighton and everywhere else, and I lived on the streets there when I was drinking.

Yeah, but I weren’t on my own all the time, I was with some people, but it is scary. Summer time, winter time, living on the beach.

I’m glad I’m off the drink now. I’m doing Maths and English, Health and Social Care, and a group called Speak Up. I still can’t speak up! [laughs]

Health and Social Care is… I’m not sure. It’s just about people’s health issues and stuff like that.

It’s where I’m learning to speak up about different things every week and I can’t do that yet. I’m alright one-to-one, but when it’s in groups, I don’t like doing it all the time. So I just keep quiet. [laughs].

Er… At the moment I enjoy coming here, it’s the only thing I do. And also, I’ve got a placement at Poundland, and I do twelve hours a week. I’ve just started that.

Er… It’s not too bad, they just shove you in at the deep end and you do… Whatever, I just get on with it. They leave me to it.

Oh, I was in foster care most of my [?sad] life. I weren’t with them long. I don’t like my dad. I only get on with one of my brothers. Because I babysit at weekends, for my niece and nephew in Uppermill. So, me and my mum don’t really see eye-to-eye but I help her when she’s ill. She was ill yesterday so I had to go up there.

Niece and nephews, yeah, I love going up there to Uppermill.  I go to the park with them all the time […….] actually. [laughs] Playing football, and on the swings.

[laughs] Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they do.

I’ve got a private flat in Manchester. Above an off-licence. [laughs] I know! And I don’t drink! I don’t mind, it doesn’t bother me anymore. It don’t bother me at all. I still know a few people that drink and that doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t mind because I know I can go in a pub and just order an orange or something, I’m fine.

Definitely not working in Poundland! I don’t know, I’ve been offered some more placements, like peer mentoring and that. Some fella came in last week and then he’s going to get in touch with me about that, when I’ve finished this placement first.

I would like to do peer mentoring, yeah, ‘cause I’ve been there with the drink and [?homelessness, and] all them other people out there, I’d give something back then.

Oh no, I like anything really, I really do. Any music when I listen to it. I have to have my music on in the mornings before I come out. It gets me going then, so…

It wakes you up.

Yeah, it does, yeah. I’m up at five, so I can get ready to go out, to come here and that. And then music straight on, and then that’s me for the day.

Keith. No comment [laughs]. 50.

I’m originally from York. Now, I’m in Manchester. I come here… Oh god, about ten years ago, because I had a terrible drug problem, believe it or not. I come to Manchester, from the streets of York, to get clean. And I’ve managed. [laughs]

Not in Manchester, no. I’ve been very, very lucky. I was homeless in York, yeah.

My marriage split up, and accommodation is so expensive in a city like York, you were forced to live on the streets. Managed to get into an hostel, got help. Met the wife online, through the help I got from the hostel I was in. Managed to meet her, come here, and she helped me with my drug problem.

Happy. [laughs] Erm. Just happy and content in myself, which I am at the moment.

Doing this volunteering job, because it’s given me a purpose. Er. Passing my experience. There’s a couple of people, which I will not name, here, which, if they’re clean is questionable at the moment but I think they‘re staying clean from street drugs, just medication. And the experiences they’re going through, they’re asking me, like, ‘Oh, I’m starting to cry.’

I say, ‘That’s normal, the reality is coming back to you.’

‘How can I put weight on, like you?’

And I say—you’ve got certain milkshakes what someone’s on—and I say, ‘You’ve got to eat before you have your milkshake. Get rid of your milkshakes, eat little and often, and you will end up as fat as me!’ [laughs]

Freaks me out a bit sometimes, because I can see my past in front of you, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, whoa, did I look like that?’. And you’ve got to be able to control your head because sometimes [?big head] might step in and you’ve got to push that back down again. I’ve done it, it’s no problem. ‘Did I really look like that?’ And if you let it bother you, it’s going to… I won’t swear. It’s going to bugger you up, basically.

One Way of Life, by the Levellers, because it says it all in that. It’s your life, yours, and you’ve got to cherish it.