How would you like your tea?
Just milk.
Have you done your registration forms yet?
Well, you're going to talk about why you're not voting then.
This morning we are witnessing a voter registration drive
with a difference.
Have you registered to vote, Justin?
Yeah, so … – I know, but …
You can still register to vote.
Yeah, of course you have.
Damon Starkey works for the homelessness charity hub.
With the election looming, he's on a mission.
Justin is spelled with a 'i' and 'n', isn't it?
Yeah, it's J-U-S-T-I-N.
And all I need now is your signature on the bottom.
Yeah, OK.
And you'll be able to go to the polling station.
And that's it.
Since I've been homeless, for eight months now,
I just sort of lost touch with society now.
I mean, I used to vote for the Conservatives.
Yeah, I did.
Don't start, John John.
The main reason I voted was because of Maggie Thatcher.
She put it out there that everyone could buy their council properties.
And that's what all my family did, all my family bought council properties in London,
made money and then came to
I had my own business for 22 years.
I had four people working for me, I had two vans,
I had a yard …
And because I lost my driving license last year, everything just spiralled down …
Yeah, I lost my girlfriend,
one drop, I lost my flat,
one drop, I lost my van,
one more drop, I lost my driving license and now my job.
Then I lost my mum, my dad and my kids.
Just amazing to sort of just standing here and hear it.
Hearing someone's life story as they eat their breakfast.
Obviously that might be a good bit of footage for you
because I've been emotional
but I'm to blame because of drink.
It's fascinating that you talked about your relatives having voted Conservative.
Because they could buy their council houses?
Yeah, yeah.
Housing, right?
Yeah, that's right.
As our country is over populated and under housed,
there's going to be an ongoing problem.
There's new people coming up the streets out here.
Every single day you see a new face.
I've been in a tent.
Have you?
For the last two days.
I'm going to the council today to see if …
So where were you before?
Milton Keynes.
I think they should change the benefits back to how they were
and there would be a lot less homelessness.
This may sound like a strange question, but how is it living in a tent?
In terms of safety …? – Cold …
Cold.
I sort of help people who are just becoming homeless,
I run a group on Facebook,
I've never done nothing like this before, I've never really played on a computer
but I learned how to do it all just through this.
That says where you find fullest ashtrays.
Yeah. – Where is that?
Down in the High Street, you've got ashtrays, you've got these new ones
that actually stop them from getting wet.
So we don't draw a anymore.
So, you're filling this in.
How do you feel about it?
I'm just filling it in.
I don't know …
This is your right to vote and all that.
Some people get to do, some people …
The simple fact about your life for the outsiders, you haven't got a permanent home, right?
Who do you sort of blame for that?
The government.
Well, it's just not … the authorities.
We've been through ten years of all our money being cut,
that's a lot of the answer.
And that someone made that decision.
But they'd rather give the money to the fire service, to the police and all them,
but they don't think about the social services or the adult social services,
or the mental health, you know, a lot of people were doing it through mental health …
Like a lot of people have mental health
and that's where they mess up and some of them lose their homes.
But do you have a sense of the future? For you?
Ideally, apart from being married, I'd have a happy home.
This time, next year … Next year is my year and a lot of girls in
that's going to be our year, I can feel it.
Simone and Skye live in HARP sheltered accommodation for women.
We're like a family unit and they're there for each other no matter what.
We are like a little family.
Are there specific things about Southend that mean that housing and homelessness are big things here?
We're still struggling in Southend against a lot of really basically legal evictions.
You know, where landlords just go, 'right you're out'.
Like so many places, Southend has a lot of hidden homelessness.
People sofa surfing, living in emergency accommodation
or staying with friends and relatives.
But last year, it registered the 8th highest figure in England for rough sleeping.
This is a facility for people who are sort of living in longer term or sort of stable circumstances.
You come through HARP system for helping homeless people and kind of putting down …
so it's a shared house really.
That's amazing to see.
It's a home of sorts, you can tell.
This is how we live.
I worked in casinos for around 25 years.
Alcohol addiction, I lost my job and where I was living … basically got
evicted because he wouldn't accept anyone claiming benefits.
Within four days I've been told that I just had to hold on,
and it was February 2018
and I just put myself on a bench at the top of the cliffs and sat there.
Are you going to vote in four weeks time?
Yes, Lib Dem.
Lib Dem?
Tell me why.
Well, I always voted Conservative but I've just completely …
The only reason I'm voting Lib Dem is they want to stop Brexit.
It's a terrible sort of indictment of Britain really.
That over the last 30 or 40 years, I'm old enough to remember this.
Coastal towns have sort of become a byword really, to where you shove people,
where people get shoved.
Hold on a minute!
How are you doing today?
I'm going to go and get my medication because I don't like to carry it around with me.
and then I am going back to the library,
to my Facebook page.
I was really taken with that, I suppose.
Because people think about that cliche about if you're homeless, you're sort of helpless
and vulnerable and all the rest …
The idea that you're sort of self organised.
Yeah, survival is a challenge.
It's a challenge and it's more fun, you know.
Otherwise you'll just sit there, wondering around, self pitying …
People ask me questions because I'm one of them.
See you later, John! – See you in a bit.
We then bump into another person we met earlier.
Ricky.
So here we are, five hours later or something like that.
How was your day?
Shit.
Shit?
What are you doing today?
Nothing, I've been to the council,
the council said that I don't have local connection so they won't help me.
You have to be like, born here or you have to have some sort of family connection here, job
something like that.
But you've moved away and the whole point is you won't be somewhere else.
Yeah.
You're staying near the church, you said, right?
I can show you if you want.
Yeah, come on.
Doesn't creep you out staying in a graveyard?
God man, if it comes to it, what if you got to see the winter?
to be inside?
And you ain't got a phone?
You got cut off
Right.
Thanks, man, see you in a bit.
See, in the end I really don't believe in the hardcore view of personal responsibility
sort out the individual.
We failed him, haven't we?
Whatever he's done or why he's been inside,
if a civilised society can't assure that people don't live in tents and graveyards in the midst of winter,
where the hell are we?
Jesus.
Do you want to know the hard truth?
Is that towns and cities fill up with people sleeping rough when Tories are in power,
that another truth, that's a fact.
We have made plans to leave Southend some time ago and go and meet the Labour
candidate in Harlow but we decided not to.
We're staying another night here.
I think what we found here is so sort of striking and deep and unexpected to us anyway.
We feel we've got to stay in and really explore it
to the point that we, you know, some of this might end up feeling like it's tangential to the election,
I don't think it is ultimately because I think the election is a
conversation about what sort of country you want to be.
I don't want to be a country where people haven't got shelter, I mean that's, I suppose,
why you're still watching election coverage.
Some weird juxtaposition that while we try meet the people, some of the people we saw earlier,
in two minutes time there's the debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn starting.
That lady just told us she's going to try and sleep in a public toilet.
This is grim.
It's bad.
But I'm in the process of moving into a bedsit.
Most landlords want too much deposit, man, and
Are you getting benefits money?
Yeah, I get …
What do I get most months? £11,78.
What do you mean £11,78?
I'm suspended in it so …
Oh, you're sanctioned as well?
Yeah.
God.
One of them thinks.
What's it like being strapped for cash in Southend?
Shit.
Take care of yourself. – Thanks a lot.
See you later.
She just wanted a couple of quid to make a phone call to find somewhere to stay.
She's been sanctioned.
This is sort of upsetting, you know?
In the royal terrace, opposite to the Adventure Island, there are some trees.
Let's see if we can find him.
Do you guys know a fella called John John?
Yeah, John John is up there. – Is he?
He runs a Facebook page, do you know about that?
Yeah, he's been on the streets for years.
they are all really nice people.
In Southend because there are so many homeless people,
we all look out for each other, you know?
How long you been camped here?
Since the beginning of August.
Have you?
So, Summer time?
But we have to put the tent down daily
because the council will take it away.
You've had a few cold nights already obviously, right?
Yeah, freezing.
How did you end up sleeping rough?
Me? I split up with my ex partner.
And he kicked me out of my house.
So I met a new partner and this is my new house.
And do you stand any chance of getting somewhere to live, do you think?
No, I and all that but the queue is so long, isn't it?
Queue? There's a waiting list for that?
Yeah.
Did you get some money out from the benefits system?
I'm signed off sick, depression.
Right … – Yeah.
Serious depression.
Here's a stupid question, are you going to vote in four weeks time?
Ah, this is what this is all about!
I'm curious to know.
I've already signed out with one, love, Labour.
Really? – Yeah.
Go on, tell me why.
Because they say they're going to help the homeless.
But I don't really know it all to be honest, I don't follow it all.
Well, they said they are building a lot more social housing than what we got now.
Have you got a sense of the future?
Hopefully I'll get a house, a job and get back to my normal life.
Hopefully.
You were one of those people with a travel agent, you sit at a desk sorting out people's holidays?
Yeah, for 12 years I worked as a travel agent, 12 years.
And I used to travel all around Europe, viewing all the hotels to come back and tell people how nice they were.
I was always abroad.
And now look at me.
It's terrible, isn't it?
Sure it got to change, doesn't it?
It has.
I'm getting all depressed.
Alright, no worries. See you later.
Boris Johnson: … when we get Brexit done by January the 31st,
we will go forward as a united and confident nation …
That's it, that's the end.
We missed it.