There are a lot of people still who believe that everyone is homeless, must have some
substance in the shoes problem and frustrating, some people will just need money to live,
not to get drugs, you know, not everyone, not everyone is, you know, is using money
to go to the street, mostly around here.
Homeless after serving 17 years in 2-9 commando regiment within the Royal
Artillery, it's a Royal Marine Green Beret Regiment, my special forces soldier,
I was made homeless after I split up with my wife of 22 years, I served in the
British Army as I say for just over 17 years, homelessness was basically, she
was having an affair, I walked out of the house so I went to the local council to
be housed and where I walked out I made myself intentionally homeless I said,
therefore they will not house me, I've been to various armed forces
organizations to help with them out and I seem to be getting no progress.
Basically, I've got a choice, I can go back to my ex-boyfriend and get beat up or stay out here on the streets,
that I come up here from Canaver North Wales with a man, he beat me up badly, I left, because I left, I made myself homeless,
so that's a choice I've got, I can go back and get beaten up or stay out here.
You know, the thing is, the people who are living on the streets always try to help each other,
so if I got 10 quits, but I need 12 pounds for the hostel, I just came to the
Giza who is sitting in the Tesco and I said, oh, can you give me two quits?
I've got not enough money for sleeping in the hostel and he just gave me two pounds
and all of us like this, if you need a little bit of help, everyone is going to help you.
Since I'm an artist, I do a lot of me drawing on the street and I sell me drawings from the street,
I'm sat here seven days a week and Friday and Saturday night seem to be the most scariest,
because there's a lot of clubs around here and there's a lot of people with alcohol in them
and some people can be really stupid.
I was just sitting outside KFC and I was just doing what I'm doing here,
I don't actually ask for money, I'm just saying to people how we're doing the thing
and two men walked up to me with iron bars and they hit me over the head twice,
and they split all my head open here and it caused like 20 odd stitches in my head
and I was just left on the floor but no one really cared about it.
There was loads of people walking past me, there was no witnesses, they all turned and said,
oh no, no, we didn't see nothing and just left me covered in blood everywhere for no apparent reason.
One evening I was in my sleeping bag and some lads set my sleeping bag on fire whilst I was in it.
Also, another time, a bunch of lads, four lads in fact, started, can I say the exact word?
Pissing on me and while I was in a sleeping bag and as I tried to get out,
I was kicking me in the head, kicking me in my chest, I ended up with three broken ribs,
a broken wrist and I ended up with four inch stitches down the side of my head.
Everything in it, it's like being a woman, being out here on your own,
it's like no family, no friends, not knowing where you were,
because I've never been to London before in my life, it's like everything's scary, you know?
It's the weather in it, it's got to be the weather.
In the cold time, when it's cold, you get cold in the rain,
but when it rains, you've got nowhere to dry and your body just freezes.
Just up by the churchyard there, this was about two, three months ago,
we were all sleeping around the back, woke up, went to go and talk to him, it was like they did.
And that was because of a hypothermia, you know, so it's not a joke thing out here.
Students who used to throw bricks at us when we were sleeping after they'd been out on the night on a drink,
you know, I know people have had, you know, my partner Tessa, she was in a sleeping bag,
we wrapped up underneath the blankets once and she woke up to someone urinating on her blanket,
you know, just complete disrespect that people have.
I suppose the only thing I can say I was grateful about, I've not bring no children into the world
so they've not had to go through anything like that, you know what I'm saying?
It's a very lonely place, you know, coming from the lifestyle that I led within the British Army and stuff,
being someone quite respected, you know, to someone that people just ignore,
because every homeless person who seems to get this stigma attached to homeless people,
you know, I for one don't drink or take drugs, but there's many people out here who do that,
so everybody's sort of tired of the same brush.
People who are walking through, they not even look at you, when you're asking for a couple of pencils really,
not even quit a couple of pencils, they not even look at you, they not answering you,
like you are no one, nothing at all, piece of shit in one word, you know,
so that's the main thing.
At the end of the day it's down to them, like, you do get quite a few good people
and they will pass you in there and they do give you some money and they help you out and they think,
but then you get people that won't even talk to you and they're the ones that they just look at you
and they look down and they just don't want nothing to do with you,
because you're scumbag in other words, you're sitting on the streets, they don't want to know you.
Sometimes I really do give up on the human race, but other times I'm absolutely, you know,
I'm emotional at the amount of help and generosity that the public do give you.
Some people can be kind, some people can be nasty, you know, everybody's got the dark side,
but I've been looking, I think it's bad if it happens to me, you know,
it's like I've been looking away, but I've never depended on other people.
I go to the passage day set in the morning, I get my clean clothes, I have a shower there,
so I don't really depend on people in general.
It's only days like today when they've offered me this hostel
and I need the money to get in there that I'm actually at here,
asking for spare change to try and get the money to get into the hostel.
Maybe like, put people into like temporary accommodations,
so then give them like a bit of time to get their life together,
you know, maybe get them time to get a job, get some money behind yourself,
so then you can put a deposit or something down on a flat,
and then start progressing, getting your life back together, you know,
but they're really not, I mean, they're cutting the benefits left, right and centre with everyone,
they've told big issue not to give out any more badges,
so that at times people can't sell big issue magazines to make money, you know,
so it's really going bad.
The government itself, personally, I don't feel helpful in any way.
There was a hostel that we were very close to getting into, not very far from here,
and basically they took away, the government took away that hostel funding
and closed that hostel down, and that's made, therefore, it's caused me and Tessa
to end up being homeless for even longer.
If I straight me, you know, I'm a big issue vendor,
but I'm always very polite and very, you know, I'm very polite to people,
and a lot of people do ignore us, and I've become quite used to it,
but it does become quite hurtful and quite demoralised in a lot of ways.
Nobody owes us anything, nobody has obliged us in any way,
so it's up to them and people deal with things in different ways,
but there's no need to be ignorant, you know, we're not bad people,
we need a little help.
I should think all homeless people, are I going to put it, criminals or, you know,
people that society just do not like as a whole, want to keep away from people,
but it's not, I've met some of the nicest people you could ever imagine to meet
that are on the street, they're addicted to drugs and their alcoholics,
generally because they have so much feeling and so intense feelings about things
and life and people, and they can't handle it, you know,
can't handle the way they feel about their families or the way their families have treated them, you know.
Yeah, it's just tragic, you know, how people couldn't end up in this situation in today's,
it's just, how can people end up like this, you know?
I'm not even speaking for myself, you know, there's billions and billions of pounds
being wasted in wars, you know, around the world for oil and diamonds and opium and, you know,
and yet there's people living in the streets of our own country,
how can this be right? I walk into this cathedral here, you know,
and there's boxes, see-through, perspex boxes full of 10, 20s and 50-pound notes, you know,
and they empty it every day and every day it's full up, you know,
imagine how much they could change someone's life if they were just to put that into people,
you know, invest it into people rather than put a new lead on the roof of an old broken-down cathedral, you know.
Imagine if they invest the same sort of money that they spent on an exocet missile or, you know,
a nuclear warhead that gets hidden in a submarine somewhere for a decade, you know,
50,000 pounds for a fuse on an artillery shell, you know, that could seriously change someone's life.
That could be a deposit for 50 people living in a new flat somewhere in London, you know,
there's so much, so much wrongdoing in this world, so much wrongdoing in this country
and there's so much suffering from the people of this country that's hidden away, you know,
the homelessness of this country is hidden, you know, people who walk here in the morning
don't see the 30, 40 people that sleep here overnight.
You don't see that because the police come around at 4, 5 in the morning and move them on
before people on their way to work or tourists get a chance to see the situation and how it is.
You know, it's bad, it's bad and none of this country's governments want to do anything about it
because it's all money and they probably want the money for their own backpockets,
to wallpaper their new houses or, you know, put new wheels on their brand new fancy cars,
you know, pass it off as tax expenses like they normally bloody do.
I have a one I've fed up with being treated like this, especially with the time I've served for this country
and a good 20, 30 other soldiers like me that are really upset with the situation as well.
It's been going on for years, you know, the soldiers are picked from the poor people,
we end up going off sold or lie and we're the ones that get ill treated when we come back, you know,
it's been going on since the First World War.
There was a veteran standing in the streets with one leg missing, you know, asking for help,
the country never helped him.
There's a good few other soldiers who are thinking of getting their heads together, you know,
not on drugs, not on drink or anything like that, you know, none of us are.
And they're really seriously making a statement that the government's going to have to listen to, you know,
because you're talking about some seriously trained people, you know, some special forces soldiers.
They've got something up their sleeves for the future,
so they need to start doing something about this before people like us start biting back.
I suppose that's all I've got to say, mate.
My name's Dean and I'm homeless.
Hello, I'm John, I used to be homeless.
My name's Jason and I'm homeless, I've been homeless about two years now.
Dawn Williams and I've been homeless since the 23rd of October last year.
My name's Wayne and I'm homeless.
My name is Roman and I'm homeless.
My name's William and I'm homeless.
