There were six rough sleepers at the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo when we got there at 6.30am on Thursday morning. The group included a Lithuanian carpenter who had got drunk in London and missed his train back to Bognor Regis as well as two Poles who conversed intently with my colleague, a Thames Reach outreach worker who is fluent in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian and English. The only female in the group was a young woman – let’s call her Chloe – who swore profusely and good-humouredly at the men sleeping rough around her. Chloe’s wrist was bandaged up and her story was this: She had fallen out with her boyfriend Pete the night before and ‘split’ with him. The break-up had led Chloe to cut her wrist using a shard of glass. The Accident and Emergency department at nearby St Thomas’ Hospital had duly bandaged it up and, being unwilling to stay there overnight, she had returned to the street to sleep rough. It seemed as if her action was both a cry for help and an attempt to create
From 1999-2018 I was CEO of homelessness charity Thames Reach. From 2018-20 I worked at MHCLG to deliver rough sleeping and homelessness programmes. This blog seeks to bring to life the complexities, dilemmas, set-backs and triumphs that are part of trying to help people escape homelessness. It aims to tell the stories of the inspirational people I have met in my work, many of whom have faced homelessness and from whom I have learnt a lot.