- [Mark] Lavane, we're out here, central London.
You're sleeping rough with your dog?
- Yeah.
- [Mark] Tell me about it.
- Basically, I was married for 10 years.
He was Algerian, I'm English, we had very different
cultural backgrounds.
And basically I suffered quite extensive domestic violence
to the stage that the last time he hospitalized me
and I couldn't take no more, so I went home,
I grabbed my dog, and I became homeless.
I've been on the streets of London just over a year now.
- [Mark] So, we talked about this before I started taping,
you're safe now?
- Yeah.
I mean, I have friends and family that know where I am.
So they know where I am but he doesn't know.
- [Mark] You're safe from your partner?
- Yeah
- [Mark] And you have a beautiful pup.
- I do, this is Misty.
She's my life.
She's saves me really.
She's small enough to put in my sleeping bag.
Anyone comes near me all you see
is the bottom of my sleeping bag jumping around.
So she warns me, protects me quite a lot.
I mean, I don't think I'd be as safe
out here if it wasn't...
If I didn't have Misty.
- [Mark] Now, it's gonna rain.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] What are you gonna do?
- Hopefully I earn enough money,
I mean, I sit here and hopefully I earn enough money
but it's quite expensive.
The only place I can go to is in New Cross
and it's like twenty-two pound a night.
If not, then there's a little alley just up the road here
which is where I sleep.
- [Mark] Oh my gosh.
- Yeah.
So hopefully.
- [Mark] Now, how do you survive out here?
I mean, we have at the top of the road
these swat that come out, and there's
a Christian organization that comes out
and they help with food and clothing.
I have regulars.
I've sat in the same spot since I've become homeless.
So, I do have regulars that come and bring me blankets
and food, also dog food,
and they also help, like, money and stuff.
So I rely on, basically, the generosity of the public.
Really, that's how I survive.
- [Mark] But you said that there's nobody helping you
to get out of homelessness.
- No, I mean, we have some mongos and stuff that come out
but because I have the dog they can't house me.
I mean, there is hostels that do house people with dogs,
but so many homeless have dogs
so it's really difficult
to get a place with the dog.
But she's my life, she's my family.
And, you know, I've been told to
get rid of the dog and have a house.
But, I don't see how that's fair
or how that should be justified, you know?
Just to get a roof over my head
to get rid of my dog, you know?
I couldn't do that, you know?
I wouldn't have been able to survive
out here the last year without her.
Then to just say well, okay I can get rid of you
then I can get somewhere else to live.
It's, it just don't seem right to me, you know?
We're in this together.
- [Mark] It's a huge issue, it's a huge issue.
So, Save a mongos is out here trying to help
yet, it's just there's no room where the
hostels are that have dogs?
- No, that's correct, yeah.
- [Mark] Oh my gosh.
And your dog is beautiful (laughs)
- Yes, she is.
- [Mark] Cause as I came walking up,
she took her head out and said hello
- (coughing) yeah
- [Mark] What would you want housed people
or normal people to know what it's like
sleeping rough or anything about
rough sleepers?
- I mean, it's dangerous.
I mean, you always sleep with one eye open.
You know, you never get a decent nights sleep
you know, I used to sleep at the bottom
where the Tesco's is
and because we used to sleep like this way,
diagonally, I'd wake up with people
jumping over me, you know, people that are drunk
running across and literally jumping,
hurtling over me and thought it was fun, you know?
I mean, having people go past you, covering their nose
like, like, your not a person.
It doesn't mean that because I'm homeless
that I'm not human, you know?
I have feelings too, you know?
There's this stigma that everyone who is homeless
they're either like alcoholics or drug addicts.
And, there is, there is drug addicts
and alcoholics that are homeless,
but there's also people that are actually
out here because they have no choice,
this is, you know?
It's either this or death. You know?
To have your partner grab you around the throat
and then strangle you to death,
it's not a way of life. It's not a way to be.
- [Mark] Yeah, and even the people that are abusing drugs
or with mental, they're real people too.
- Yeah, they are and they're just people
who are trying to suppress their feelings or
trying to not deal with it.
- [Pedestrian] Why don't you go to
Social Security to get your money?
- Because they don't.
- [Pedestrian] They should do. They should help you.
- Yeah, they don't though. They don't.
- [Pedestrian] You can't just sit there
in the cold. It's freezing.
- I've been out here for a year, the last year.
- [Pedestrian] Really!
- Yeah
Sorry.
- [Mark] No, it's all right.
- [Pedestrian] Pardon?
- [Mark] I'm video taping.
- [Pedestrian] (laughs)
Thank you.
- [Pedestrian] So, how about the dog,
has he got any food?
- Yeah, she's got food.
Thank you, have a good day.
- [Pedestrian] So ,sorry.
- [Mark] So, she was more concerned
about the dog than you.
- Oh you get that regular. I mean, a lot
of people are more concerned about the dog.
I mean, there's people that assume
I just have her to make money.
I mean, don't get me wrong, she helps, you know?
There's a lot of people that do care
about Misty more than they do me.
And they do help and give more generously
for having a dog. But you know, I mean...pfft
- [Mark] I have never met a homeless person
that didn't put their dog first.
- Yeah.
- [Mark] Their dogs eat before they do.
- Precisely.
- [Mark] Their dogs get the blanket before they do.
- (laughing) even when the rain comes the umbrella
goes over her before it does me
- [Mark] The dog is treated better than housed people treat.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Mark] But she was up here, this woman
was basically complaining
about the dog outside, forgetting your a human!
- Yeah
- [Mark] And I love pets, we're talking about your dog,
You have a beautiful dog!
- Yeah
- [Mark] How does that make you feel?
- It hurts, it hurts as I said, but, I mean,
we're seen not normal people.
We are seen as a different species almost, you know?
As I said, there's a great big stigma
about people and homelessness.
- [Mark] Yeah
- You know, not many people will actually come down
and find out what it's truly like and the way it is
for people that are homeless.
I mean, I've had people come past me and tell me
how wrong I am to have my dog out on the streets.
I mean, but when I became homeless,
cause I've had her since she was six weeks old.
When I became homeless, I actually re-homed Misty
because of her being so small and
it was Christmas time when I came out
and I was really concerned for her myself,
but I re-homed her and after four days
I got a phone call to say that
I had to go back and get her
cause she just wouldn't settle.
She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't stop pinning.
So we've never been separated since.
- [Mark] Well, a housed dog is usually put in a cage
or a room while people are at work. Your pup.
- Yeah, she's with me 2/47.
- [Mark] Right, is being loved and cuddled
and not ignored eight, nine hours a day.
People just have uh, oh my god.
- Their own views and as I said,
there's just different stigma, you know, automatically.
I mean my friend who sat here, he was here fifteen years
and he was found through his dog.
I mean he was actually identified through his dog.
And he was sat here, as I said, for fifteen years
he was homeless. Fifteen years.
And they wouldn't have known who he was.
It was because of his dog having a tag around his neck,
and that is how they realized who it was.
It's crazy.
It's really crazy.
- [Mark] Anything else you'd like to add?
- Not really. It's just I wish people would
stop the stigma and actually come down
and meet people and get to know people
cause everyone's got a story and everyone's
got a different story and if they realize people are not
just drunks or alcoholics, you know?
It takes a lot of guts to sit out here and
stay out here and to live on the streets, you know?
- [Mark] It's not by choice. I mean...
- No. I mean there is people by choice,
but again, most people are driven to it
and then it becomes a way of life.
You know, you get used to it?
- [Mark] Well, I think the people that say they want to be
out here, have given up.
- Precisely.
- [Mark] And they, the try to get, yo know,
support from different services and after a while,
they just adapt.
- Well, it's like prisoners, I mean when they've spent all
their time in prison, they become institutionalized,
it's the same as...
- [Mark] Right, exactly!
I've never thought of it like that.
If you had three wishes what would they be?
- One, to be able to have a home for me and my dog.
To be able to get a job and to have a stable life.
- [Mark] Great. Well, thank you very much
for talking to me.
- Thank you.