I had a good job. I had four or five expensive cars.
You know, at that time, I was a rich kid.
But really, it takes two paychecks for you to-- it turned to the other side.
I would say it took me about four months before I came homeless.
And then after I lost the house, the kids and that was the end.
But then um, the situation got a bit bad. I ended up on the streets.
So I just basically started foraging, and, at the time, going to what we call the soup lines
Sandwiches and hot soup that night. At least it's something in your stomach.
And what those people do is really great, and thankyou.
Currently, the national homeless charity, called Shelter-- we estimate that we're
looking at approximately 320,000 people in the UK who are homeless.
But they acknowledge and everybody acknowledges that
it's very difficult to get a true accurate figure of levels of homelessness in the UK.
So what we see across all four nations of
the UK are the differences in the approach taken to measuring or estimating the number of
people sleeping rough or experiencing homelessness.
So in England, in 2018, the number of people estimated to be
sleeping rough was 2% lower than in 2017. That's still up 165%
on the 2010 figure, so a big increase. In Scotland, we see that the number has
been relatively stable over the past five years or so.
In Wales, there's been an increase in the number of people estimated to be sleeping rough.
And in Northern Ireland, outside of Belfast, there's no national figure.
It's difficult now. It has been difficult historically,
both because of the way in which local authorities gather data on their
homelessness numbers, but also because we've got these terms of homelessness
which are different according to the law. So we have people who are statutorily homeless,
which means that they are accepted by local authorities as eligible. They're
in priority need. They're eligible for full duty housing support.
We have people who are homeless, but they're not statutorily homeless,
which means that they're not necessarily priority need or
they're not eligible for full duty housing support.
So I've worked in homeless services for seven years, so I've come across lots of
different scenarios where people have been classed as having made
themselves intentionally homeless, which I don't think any reasonable
person would class as intentionally homeless. So we're talking people who
have been served an eviction notice. You know, you'd assume that if you
get served an eviction notice, you've not been made intentionally homeless.
But if it's been through anti-social behaviour or through running
up rent arrears or things like that, and then when you get the eviction notice, you
leave the property. Rather than refusing to leave, you
can actually be classed as intentionally homeless through that. One of the worst
cases of it is when women-- or men, it happens to men too, but the cases I've
come across have been women--
have been at quite significant risk from a partner or ex-partner. And they've
chosen to leave their property in order to remain safe or to keep their children safe.
And they have been classed as intentionally homeless.
But those are just the homeless people that present to local authorities
as in need of housing. We have a vast number of homeless people that we call
hidden homeless who don't present at all to local authorities, who do not approach
the local authorities as being in need of housing. And so this category of hidden
homeless covers a vast number of people. And we don't currently have
figures for the numbers of hidden homeless people. But one charity, the
homeless charity for single persons called Crisis, estimates that we're looking at
approximately 3 million concealed households. And concealed households
might be houses where people are overcrowded. People want to leave
because of the levels of overcrowding. People living in absolute, poor quality,
dire accommodation. And we also have under the hidden homeless category
people who are sofa surfing, who are moving from house to house
living with their mates, living with their family.
Yeah. I stayed from place to place. Sometimes you won't have a bath or a
shower or a shave or anything like that for weeks on end. One of your mates who would
walk past you and catch you, and say, right. Come back to mine. They feed you,
let you stay the night. And then a couple weeks, we'll stay somewhere else.
Hidden homeless acknowledges or
incorporates rough sleepers as well who aren't always visible. We always think
that rough sleepers are visible to us on the streets, but they're not always. A
number of rough sleepers don't like to be visible. Being on the streets is highly
dangerous. A number of rough sleepers are victims of crime. And so you'll find
that a lot of rough sleepers hide away from visible parts of the street.
Like I said, I don't do what a lot of homeless people do-- is get your head
down on the street in city. I mean, for one, it's too dangerous. It's not
the first time. Even in Milton Keynes, people have been picked on and beaten
up just for being homeless just for being there-- or being insulted,
verbally abused. That's far as that's concerned.
Even when it comes to getting my head down at night, I've still got my tent
in a wood, in a small wood, well camouflaged. All the time that I was
there, most of last year, it would be only be the odd dog that would come through,
having a sniff around, and then wander off again. Nobody bothered me.
So you're saying this is the first time someone's been in here?
Yeah. Yeah. I've had a good poke around, have a good dig.
Yeah, I'm going to have to get those-- those sleeping bags have got to--
they're going to need a good wash. Yeah, it's been getting damp in here.
You can see it.