Numbers facing homelessness in Bristol surge

Homelessness is, according to mayor George Ferguson, one of Bristol’s “biggest concerns and greatest challenge” as the number of people in the city facing the threat of losing their home increases.

In 2014/15 5,000 people in Bristol will be homeless or threatened with homelessness and one of the main causes is private sector tenancies ending.

During Homelessness Awareness Week Bristol 24/7 will feature the stories of people who have found themselves sleeping rough on the streets of Bristol.

They have each have a very different story to tell, but their message is clear homelessness could happen to anyone, at any time.

Barry Double found himself homeless after being made redundant. A former serviceman and recruitment consultant from Yate, he tells Pamela Parkes how he spent more than a year living rough sleeping in parks, woods and finally in a friend’s garage. He now volunteers for Second Step a housing and support charity which has helped hundreds of people with mental health problems.

“When people ask me to tell them about my life it throws me because I think where do you want me to start? I never, ever thought I’d be homeless.  I lost my job when I was made redundant, I couldn’t afford to pay the rent where I was living so I was homeless.

You are safer sleeping in a park than in the middle of a city. On a Friday or Saturday night when people come out of the pub and they are drunk – you can be quite happy sleeping in a doorway and they flick cigarettes at you – if you are in a deep sleep it can catch you alight, you get people urinating on you or chucking half-eaten kebabs and burgers.

You are not a human being – not to them you are not you are nothing, you are nothing.

Homeless people go into the isolation mode because of this. The minute daylight comes they disappear – I crawled away because I could  not believe the way people treat you – they treat you like an animal.

People walk by and they say it’s your own fault but people are homeless for a reason. People look at you like you are making a choice but something, somewhere has happened in their life – whether it be a landlord has put the rent up, or sold the house. It could be that they were abused and 30 years later it comes out and they think I cannot cope any more – there is a reason, it’s never because they want to.

As an ex-serviceman I know how to rough it, wake-up early, shave (I used the public toilets in Yate) and made sure I was clean. A lot of people didn’t know the way I was living – the  embarrassment was unbelievable.

When you are homeless you start going down such a spiral situation. I ended up going through medical depression – I was a big, big self-harmer, totally abused my body completely. One day I got a rope and thought that’s enough. I got the rope round my neck and a passer-by came by.

Luckily for me that person rang the police, they picked me up talked to me and they then took me to a 24-hour safe house and a crisis team got involved. I was under 50 at the time – a property came up but I had to wait until I turned, so I had to carry on living where I was living in a friends garage.

When I got into the property I couldn’t get the funding to get furniture and I slept on the floor for a year. By the time I got a bed I preferred sleeping on the floor

From then on, through the support I’ve had, I turned it around and I turned my negatives into positives

Society will walk past you when you are homeless – they won’t even notice you are there, they will totally ignore you. It always is and it always will be with me.”

To find out more about the awareness week and the range of services available to help those who find themselves at risk, visit www.bristol.gov.uk/homelessweek

Homeless Awareness Week will culminate in the annual sponsored Sleep Out, which is being organised by the BCAN Homeless Forum

More than 100 people are expected to take part in the event at the Pip ‘n Jay Church from 10pm on Friday February 27.

Richard Drake, Treasurer of the Julian Trust, said: “2015 will be the eighth year that we have had a Sleep Out in Bristol to raise awareness of homelessness in the city and the work done by a range of agencies.

“The Sleep Out is now only a part of a much wider awareness campaign that involves the council and many other organisations that are all working together to prevent and alleviate homelessness.“
 
To report someone sleeping rough in Bristol you can use Streetlink. StreetLink is England’s only phone-line, website and mobile app that allows members of the public to send an alert when they see someone sleeping rough and connect them to local services. Call 0300 500 0914 or visit www.streetlink.org.uk