Sleeping Out

Although I live in Woking, in sleepy Surrey, I visit Bristol quite often for work.

Usually I travel by train to Brunel's Bristol Temple Meads Station (in the Engine Shed of which my office once was..). I stay in the Bristol Novotel - a nice mid-range hotel, very comfortable, with good food, where through my many stays I now know and am nicely welcomed by many of the staff. Due to my frequent visitor status I am welcomed with a free drink - which is indeed welcome, as it comes after what is usually a late evening train journey of two or three hours.

From the hotel it is a few minutes' walk along the river to the modern office building in Glass Wharf. Just after exiting the hotel I walk past a little park where homeless people sleep.

If I stay three days, Sarah often comes with me and we stay at 'luxury apartments' (luxury is relative...) in Easton - one of Bristol's less well presented districts. From Easton we walk through a little park where homeless people sleep. Sarah, when she is with me, walks that way again in the evening to meet me from work.

From either hotel or Easton I walk along the river to Glass Wharf. Under the last bridge on the way, a homeless man used to sleep. He had made a sort of home there. Sarah, walking to meet me from work in the evening, used to stop and chat with him for a few minutes - just passing the time of day - and on the way back, with me, they would exchange greetings. Because Sarah inspires me in such things, after a while I also would stop and say hello to the homeless man, when I was on my own.

The homeless man isn't there under the bridge any more. I have no idea where he has gone, or what has happened to him. The little nest of sleeping bags and cardboard and pillows he had made has gone too. I hope he has found a home, or is in some kind caring environment, but he never looked all that well and he did not look young.

There are many more homeless people in Bristol now than there were even the few years ago that I started working there.

I remember many homeless people when I was young, in the 70s and 80s. There seem to have been times when there were less: but now there are more - many more.

I generally buy a Big Issue when I see a seller - it is only £2.50, a good read, good value and a good cause. £2.50 isn't much: I'd like to be the kind of person who gives more, but money is always a worry even when you have a lot - I am near retirement, tax and council tax and living expenses and providing for long term care when it is needed, all sorts of things make me hold on to my money more than I should, in case I or my family need it.

If the government took more from me, and provided for the homeless, I would approve, because I don't give enough myself but I wish I would: but they don't so I don't so there is less provision for the homeless than I would like there to be.

Homelessness is complex anyway. I see notices from charities warning me that I should not give money direct to the homeless because they may use it unwisely: not because they are unwise but because it is easy to use money unwisely - I should know, because I use money unwisely all the time, and it is only luck that prevents me using it too unwisely or not having enough left for the wise uses to which I should put it. And some people choose to be homeless: I know because when I chat to them they say so - they prefer to live on their own, or in the woods, or whatever. Some people have pets - dogs or cats - so they can't live in rented accommodation or hostels for the homeless, so they sleep on the streets through their own sort of choice. Some people can't stand living in houses, or with other people, or all sorts of reasons - so they end up homeless. I don't know if any of these things are true: whether it is really unwise to give money to them because they might be unwise; or whether when people say they prefer to sleep rough they really do, or are just saying it; or whether they really choose, in any meaningful sense of 'choosing'.

I have no idea, actually, what to do about homelessness. I wish the government would do whatever it is they ought to do, but I don't know what that is, and I am pretty sure they won't do whatever it is anyway because governments don't.

On the way home last Tuesday evening I bought a Big Issue, from the seller in Temple Meads Station. He's a nice man, friendly and pleasant: I didn't stop to chat because the trains were a bit chaotic and I was thinking what to do if mine was cancelled (as in the end it was), so I didn't make time for a few words. I didn't read it on the train, because I was working. But when I got home I did read it, and I saw that Paul - the Big Issue seller at Temple Meads - was profiled, so I learned a bit about him, as a person. I was sorry that I had not found time to exchange a few words - I could have done, because my train was not cancelled until ten minutes later so I could have had a chat and still had time to wait for my train to be cancelled - but I didn't, because as with so many things in life I was pre-occupied with something else, that probably mattered less, in the great scheme of things.

It was interesting to read about Paul the Big Issue seller in the Big Issue. I wished I had taken a selfie with him - which would have been a selfish thing to do, exploiting him as a short-lived celebrity, but I like selfies and I would have asked for one had I known he was profiled in the magazine.

I also read in the Big Issue that the Bristol Big Issue Foundation team are leading a Sleep Out in March: sleeping out, to draw attention to homelessness, to give those who join in some insight - however shallow - into homelessness, and to raise funds for the Big Issue Foundation.

When I stay in Bristol at the Novotel, it is very comfortable: I have quite a big room, a desk, a big comfortable bed, tea and coffee making facilities. I usually choose to stay in one of their 'themed rooms' - members of staff decorate and arrange those rooms according to a theme - I like the Nature Room by Olivia - it has calming décor themed on Nature. The Novotel is not an expensive hotel, but it is not cheap - Bristol is not a cheap city in which to find a hotel. I usually book dinner in the hotel, and until they changed the menu I always chose the Passion Fruit Crème Brulee for dessert: and I will often have a glass of red wine because I am away from home and it is nice to do so.

I quite like Bristol: it is a regional city with galleries, nice walks along the river to and beyond the busy Harbourside district, and even though I am away from home and would prefer not to be, the Novotel is a nice hotel with nice staff so I feel at home. But in Bristol an awful lot of people are not at home because they have no homes: they are homeless. I have no idea why they are homeless - they are people, and there seem to me to be endless reasons and lack of reasons why people are what people are and do what people do. I would like the homeless not to be homeless but I have no idea how to make that happen. I wish someone would do something about it.

So I decided to join the Bristol Big Issue Foundation in their Sleep Out.

I don't think I am going to achieve much in the fight against homelessness by sleeping out for one night. I won't raise much money, or much awareness - and all my experience suggests that I won't gain much insight into homelessness either, because homeless people are people and people are complicated. But I am going to do it anyway, because it feels right - because although I don't do much about it, I do care about homelessness - very much. I will be sleeping only a few hundred metres from the Novotel, which seems poetic: and not far from the office at Glass Wharf, that has showers - I will probably drop in there for a shower in the morning. On the Saturday morning I will take the train home to Woking, in a warm carriage. I will probably buy a coffee from the refreshment trolley. So I will be a bit of a fraud at my vicarious homelessness. But in its way it will be better than nothing.

Comments

  1. Very thoughtful and readable article, CHris and so totally 'your own'. I too am very concerned about homelessness, always have been and even more so now after two members of my family being saved from 'the street' by the kindness and unselfishness of other family members or friends.
    As you say, there are many reasons for homelessness juat as there are many types of illness and one solution (or one medicine) doesn't cure all. This government's plan of building affordable houses doesn't help at all, in my opinion, as people who are on the street or living in emergency B&Bs aren't there just because they didn't have hundreds of thousands to buy a house. We certainly need housing (flats, houses, apartments.#, shared properties) for people to rent, long or short term andat least some of these should be provided by the State and achiee a standard which allows people to actually live decent lives,be safe and develop and nurture themselves and their families. We also need to address some of the things which precipitate homelessness, i.e. poor mental health, family breakdown, very low wages, lack of support for peopel teporarily in trouble of any sort, lack of support for care-leavers or peole who've been in prison. And the public need eduacting. Certainly. There are many selfless people out there supporting homeless and vulnerable people, often out of their own pockets, but many others just see the homeless as a problem which they'd rather not think about. Maybe for fear that they could end up like that themsleves one day.
    As you rightly say, the homeless are people, just like us. And I grieve for th loss of human potential which they represet, while we treat them like rubbish.
    Well said, Chris and I think your 'night out' on the streets of bristol will affect you in ways you can't imagine yet (mostly good, I hope)

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