- [Mark] Home.
We're here in London.
You're sleeping rough.
- Yes. - Tell me about it.
- Well, about, so nine years ago,
I used to have a job as a window cleaner
and things went a bit pear-shaped for me.
I started hitting the drink big-time.
I started fluctuation with different people
and clipping in their sofas and their couches
and going back to flats.
I did that for two or three years.
- Couch surfing.
- Yeah.
Yeah, that kinda stuff.
Yep, had a great time, never any trouble.
People really appreciated my time.
I must have met, like I am here with you now.
Cut our story short, I met a few outreach people.
They put me into hospitals.
It doesn't work out, back on the streets.
It's all right.
The streets are okay, at the end of it all.
But I guess things have changed now.
Things are not the same as it was 20 years ago.
Even going back 40 years ago,
not that I was out in the streets.
I never was.
But that's why I hit the streets.
Now I'm hoping to get recuperated
and getting into me own apartment,
where I can socialize with people, interact,
have nice food, nice clothes.
Yes, there's two-- - Now, why didn't you stay
in the hospital?
- For various different reasons.
A lot of them are outside of London
and they're at risk to traveling at night,
and any time I tried to go back,
there was never any vacancies.
So I bought a sleeping bag for myself, as you can see,
and I'd go out-- - Well, that's how I knew
you were sleeping rough, it's 'cause
you're carrying a sleeping bag.
- That's where I'm sleeping rough.
I've been like this, now, for four months.
- [Mark] Now, where'd you sleep last night?
- Last night, I slept over in the place called,
do you know where Grosvenor's Gardener's is,
Grosvenor's Garden is?
- [Mark] Well, where are you gonna sleep tonight?
- Tonight, I could be at different spot.
It depends who I meet, depends how much I make.
If I make quite a lot of money,
then I can hide my sleeping bag in the bushes
and I can get into a hostel where
it's only eight pound for the night.
- [Mark] So you know a downtown hostel here that--
- I know a downtown hostel here
where you can walk in the door,
pay the eight quid, go to your room,
off with your clothes, into bed,
and get a good night's rest.
- [Mark] Yeah, 'cause it's raining.
- 'Cause it's raining. - You don't wanna stay
out here in the rain. - No, and it's very,
it's very, very shivery at night,
and it's basically, it's hard.
That's the way I would look at it.
It is hard.
- [Mark] What's a day like, homeless?
- What's the day?
- [Mark] What are you, what's the day like?
Take me through your day.
- Okay, I wake up in the morning, early,
about, sort of like,
I'd wake up about, sort of 10:00 to 7:00-ish.
I'd get up out my sleeping bag.
I'd be a bit shiverish.
I'd look around to make sure everything's all right.
I'd go to these places like,
you've got these restaurants across the road
where you get a cup of coffee for 99 pence.
I count my money I made the night before.
It might be 50 quid.
It might be 40 quid.
It might be a score,
as you call it over here, in England, Mark.
A score is 20 pound,
and you know what they call it in your part?
- [Mark] No, you just taught me something.
- Didn't I? - A score, 20 pounds.
- That's right, correct.
That's the one, mate (laughs).
- So you make 20 pounds.
- That's the one. - And that gets you
through the day. - And that gets me kind
of through the day, light.
And then I'm basically, I'm a hunter at night.
That's really it.
I am a hunter at night.
I've always loved the night work.
It's very, how would you describe it?
There's more to go through people.
There's much more people out there
from 5:00 in the evening,
and I'm out at 6:00 every night,
and I'm doing my rounds and I could come out
with something like, ooh, I could come up with 80 pounds
in one night, if it's a good night,
and that's just speaking to people.
- [Mark] Even though that's a good night,
and that's a couple of scores,
I guess you'd say.
- Oh, yeah, that's a couple of scores.
(Mark laughs) Oh.
- [Mark] But this is no way to live.
- No, it's no way to live,
because, you see, I don't know if you know,
if you get things free, listen carefully,
if you get things free, you're going to squander it free.
You're gonna go for a few beers,
hide your sleeping bag, get took into a pub for the night,
and your money's gone.
Why?
Because it's free.
You've no, there's no four corners
that's gonna squeeze you in and say,
at a pole, you did well tonight,
now you've got 80 quid, you've got a couple of scores,
couple of tenners, couple of fivers,
you got about 30 pound in change
and your fags and your lighter,
why not just get the heck down now
and you have your scores in the morning?
But when you get something free,
it's very difficult to--
- [Mark] Then why do you keep on doing it?
Why you been out here four months this time?
- Because you get into a buzz.
You get into a great buzz with life
and a great circulation of people.
- [Mark] So what does it take to get you off the streets?
What's it take to get you off this?
- As in money-wise?
- [Mark] Or no, just opportunity, housing, what?
How do we end rough sleeping?
- The opportunity to it would be not quite housing,
but some form of thing called forced housing,
where you've got people who put you from one exhibit
to the next and you can get housed,
and that would be the end of the street formula,
as you so-called.
But you see, when you're in London,
as you say, downtown, hostel,
you go to likes of California, New York City,
you go around to different parts of New York City,
it's always a constant homeless.
It's the thing in London.
It's called the thing, for homeless people to be homeless.
It circulates society.
It makes society work.
It plays the game with the homeless.
The homeless plays the game with the working people.
It makes the working people better-respected,
to see a homeless man like me coming up and going,
"Excuse me, sir, I need a bit of change for a beer
"or a cup of tea, or I need change to get a hostel tonight."
You see where I'm coming from?
- [Mark] I see, but I don't agree with you.
- No. - I do it, see,
'cause it breaks my heart,
and when I see it, I think it's a social crisis
and that we've gotta end this.
We gotta get you off the streets.
- Yeah. - You shouldn't be sleeping
out in the rain here tonight.
- I know, but one sense of it is a thing called easy money.
It's called easy-reach money, yeah?
And if you give somebody the opportunity,
anybody, male or female, to go out,
like I'm doing tonight, again,
on the streets, it's easy reach.
I've just made money tonight, even before I met you.
It's called easy money.
So to end the homeless crisis, the social of it is
not going to be easy.
- No. - No.
- Because you can-- - That I agree with.
- Thank you very much.
At last, Mark, you agree with something.
(Mark laughs)
So basically in a nutshell,
that is the problem with society.
- [Mark] We got complacent.
- Yes, got complacent.
- [Mark] Yeah, and if you had three wishes,
what would they be?
- For my life?
- [Mark] Yes, three wishes for you.
- Wow. - Or for anybody.
Three wishes.
- Three wishes.
Three wishes.
Well...
Wait, the first one would be,
government and outreach people should come out
and develop much more secure accommodation.
That's number one wish.
Number two wish is to get the homeless off the streets,
and number three is to break,
which I'm going to quote again,
is to break down the barriers
and to break down the barriers for people
like myself, that wants to go out
and get two or three hours' a day work,
or even eight hours a day,
without me having to go to the pubs
and squander me money, and--
- [Mark] So you would work.
You would go for an honest day's living at the end.
- Yeah, of course I'd go for an honest,
I have been out to do honest day's living.
- [Mark] As I was thinking, you're talking about easy money,
living out here in the rain and homeless is not easy.
- It's not easy. - It's not easy money.
Anyways, I really enjoyed talking to you, Paul.
- Thank you, me too.
- You have a good night.
- Thank you very much, indeed.
I will do my very best, as I always try and do.
I always, quickly, if I may say,
I always try and keep the peace.
I don't escalate things in life.
I just go out, if you call it begging,
if you call it paggering, if you call it,
whatever you call it, I just go out,
get me bit of money, and then I get
into me shelter at night, and that's me done, boom.
- [Mark] Well, you be safe tonight.
- Thanks very much, Mark.
(uplifting music)