Alright boys, come and see us for a pizza, please. We've all got a past.
I come from a horrible drug-infested life and I didn't want to be that person.
I get well by helping others, just come and see us.
Alright. Hello mate, how are you? Alright.
Let's see what's happening here, hey? See what's going on.
You know the fella with the fishing gear, what's his name?
I think he was over there, someone had seen him, and he'd come down ...
I'm going to come tomorrow, I'll come back tomorrow.
If you see him, will you tell him I've been down?
And I'm going to come back tomorrow. Alright.
So we are going to head back to Amazing, Lee, yeah? Yeah, no worries. Thank you.
We struggled as any normal family.
Me, my partner, my eight-year-old daughter, we struggled.
And it got to the point where one day I was just like: "We can't do this, we need help."
And I actually rang Mark myself, I said: "Mark, I need food parcels, is there any chance you could help me?"
He said: "Don't be silly, get yourself down here, your family down here, come and get what you need,
what we've got, we can help you out with."
After a call, he asked me if I wanted to go on and help with Amazing Grace and more and I said yes.
I've been there myself through lockdown, I know exactly how it felt, so to give a little back ... fantastic.
So it's pizzas, tonight. Fresh pizzas, so you can have pizza or pasta and a bag of food.
Do you have to pay for it? No, no, no, no it's free food, don't worry.
We did start off as a soup kitchen primarily to help the homeless, but we've diversified somewhat with lockdown.
We were helping everybody, we were serving individuals who weren't homeless people, who were struggling at home
with no food, in poverty.
There was people coming here out of their minds in worry and stress and fear.
You alright? What's up, flower? Good to see you.
In that bag there is your hot food. Oh, thank you.
There's two, I brought you an extra one. There's a bit of fruit.
You have to be adaptable because if you're not adaptable, then you just have to suffer.
You still get out and about, don't you?
He does a lot of running, marathon running.
Yes, I do, I've run three this week.
Alright? Yeah, you?
So do we know who burned the tent down and did the police get involved?
The police are involved, but we know who it is, but we can't prove it. No.
But at least you're off the streets now. You shouldn't be on the streets anyway.
I know I shouldn't. Exactly. She's disabled. Exactly.
Yeah, but it's lucky she ...
You know how's life, if you've no luck or connections, you won't do jack ... diddlysquat.
No, you've not had much assistance, have you? No, no.
It's lucky that you're together, really, and that you can help each other.
What the homeless community get, we get a lot of the homeless community get abuse by drunken tourists
and people, lads who are on stag nights, if they see a tent or whatever, they'll attack it and they'll burn it down.
Yeah, well we were actually in the tent, yeah, while it was on fire.
If she hadn't woke up when she did,
we would have been dead, basically.
So let's get to the front of the queue, watch the road.
Get in here, out of the wind. Let's get you served and then you can shoot off. I'll get you Sue to sort it.
He said to me: "Are you on the street?", I went: "Yeah, been on for 19 years."
"Where are you sleeping?" I told him where I was sleeping.
And he said: "Why so long?"
Well, I don't lie, just waste time lying, I told him I've been in prison for arson.
We just hit it off straight away.
I'm not going to use the term I'd love to use.
But, yeah, OK, yeah, we got on like a house on fire.
I started virtually straight away, just sweeping up, I come down here, I help everyone,
I have a laugh with the guests and everything like that, because I still feel part of them as well, they're on the street.
Two street packs, yeah. Are you alright for toiletries? Yeah, we're fine for that, yeah.
OK, alright, I don't want you sat at the back of the queue. Bless you.
A lot of desperate people out there tonight, I'll be honest, a lot of need, you can feel it almost.
We've seen a few more families as well, haven't we?
I think that £20 universal credit has absolutely done people.
Yeah, and you know a thing, 20 quid don't sound like a lot, but that 20 quid ...
Can be a week's shop, if you budget.
Took £80 off me this week and that's a lot of money to me, you know, that's my shopping,
that's my dog's food, it's everything to me.
A lot of things I've had to cut down on now, dog food, food for myself, bills, you know,
there's no ending to them.
It's a lot of money to get, mine went from f***ing £380 to £260 for a month. How wrong is that?
How wrong is that?
How are we doing on the dog food?
We're on the last sack. I should have phoned up today and I forgot. A pet shop in Lytham, at the end of the month
all their dog food is going out of date, they write it off and then we have it.
So we're not going to buy anything. We're buying cat food.
How much are you spending out of your own money? Be honest.
£25 a week. Wow. £25 a week.
And I bet she supplies us £25 a week in cakes as well.
I believe in helping people, making sure people are OK, but they're not and you can't help everybody.
How would you describe your mental health? Very low, if I'm honest. Yes.
Talking about suicide and going into the sea, yesterday. Yeah.
My concern at the moment is that we don't provide detox facilities as such, and ...
Wave your magic wand for me,
I don't want to send this man back to the streets at 48 years of age.
I just think we're going to send him for a death sentence if we did.
Yeah, and I hear you, I hear you loud and clear.
So I just really want Darren to just understand how much of the shit we're in here.
I'm going to chat with Darren. OK, alright.
I'm going to give you a call as well when I hear back, yeah.
Top man, thank you. See you mate, bye bye.
There's at least 200 people in Gary's position.
Unless I've got a credit card ready to pay 1500 quid a week, then there's no chance of this happening.
But we live in hope.
It's soul-destroying, isn't it, really, stuff that would affect you 12, 18 months ago, five years ago,
it's sort of don't touch the sides and you sort of really hard to it in a sense.
Doesn't mean you don't care, it's just you're not breaking down and crying every night when you go:
"Oh, demand is so high."
There's nobody getting appointments for anything and it's like, the waiting lists are just outrageous.
I will say mental health is ... yeah the worst, you can see people ... Sorry Rach, she's so sensitive ... being affected.
One of the things I've always found really shocking is come August, the number of 16- and 17-year-olds
who suddenly are homeless because the parents aren't getting benefits for them, so the parents throw them out.
That is common as well.
That is horrific, I mean I'm a teacher, I teach high school.
And, thank God, none of the kids I've ever taught have walked in but you think, these are the kids that
who three months ago I was teaching these kids.
You've got your own little stash cupboard, haven't you, for breakfast?
Yeah, children come into school, they've not eaten. They've not eaten since last night.
You feel sometimes like you're putting your finger in the hole in the dam and that's all you're doing,
but at some point, the pressure of the water is just going to break and then I don't know what we'll do
because we've just ... you can see the problems bouncing up, you can see the issues.
Well, I think he's an idiot.
What does levelling up actually mean?
Does anybody know?
We'd like to know how that is going to actually make a difference in our lives.
The council is stretched in every department, and it's getting worse.
And we are seeing more and more families, especially since the £20 reduction in universal credit claims.
So we've got people who come and not only do they need food, they've got no electricity to cook the food on.
We know that this winter is going to be a tough time.
Should I start putting bread into bags then?
All the bread is in the bags there. Ah OK, thanks.
I mean, there's hardly anything in the bags tonight.
There's nothing we can do about it. I've actually put an appeal out for food and I've got no replies whatsoever.
Maybe everybody is struggling.
So, today we've got fruit to put in the bags and that's it. Fruit and a loaf.
I brought your meal around. Right. So there's some pasta ragu there,
some bread, fresh bread, and some fruit for you.
What’s happening over Christmas?
Does everybody know what the plan is for Christmas, by the way? No.
We're going to do it on the Tuesday night, so this isn't open, everyone's available and there's more hands on deck.
And we're going to do a Christmas dinner.
We'll still make sure we look after you.
We'll send you a meal around, alright? Yeah.
Fresh box, yeah, rock'n'roll.
Both having pizza? Yeah.
I mean I have had a bad, like, couple of months but I am getting stable now.
I'm back on all my medication, so ... Yeah, I'm fine for now.
It's thanks to these guys again that's helped us get a doctor and stuff like that ...
Get your food loaded. Is it loaded? Loaded, ready to go. OK.
Chef, could you make me just one, this man's allergic to mushrooms.
No drugs or alcohol? No. Focused on the future? Yeah. What is the future?
The future is to make something for myself,
to be someone that everyone said I couldn't be. That's the future. Yeah.
To prove them all wrong. I go off that one as well.
Come here a minute, I've heard you're getting clean on Subutex. I am.
If you get clean and sober and get your act together, you can come and volunteer here with us. Yeah. Alright?
Can you imagine all the people if you're serving in here, you'll get everybody talking.
Make it happen, yeah.
Sometimes it frustrates me because I ... you look at me and think, you've had so many chances,
you’ve had this and you’ve had that and you're still not doing it, but then I realise everyone's different mentally-wise.
How many chances did you have?
I've had about six.
There's no such thing as a hopeless case, otherwise I wouldn't be here today.
Cause I was pretty hopeless when I came to the end of my using and drinking.
But here I am 18 years later, fit as a fiddle, right as ninepence.