Companionship and good food
Symon Hill visited Quaker Homeless Action’s Christmas shelter
‘Isolation,’ says Donna, when asked about the worst aspects of being homeless, ‘Isolation is a very hard thing to deal with.’ Over a cup of tea in the Quaker Christmas Shelter, she tells me that ‘homeless people don’t trust anyone’. On the streets, people have to second-guess each other’s motives. She begins cautiously but becomes more confident as she speaks of her ten years of homelessness and her recent move into temporary accommodation. With quiet determination, she says that she is now thinking about volunteering for a homelessness charity.
Life in the shelter
Two large rooms in a Congregational Chapel in north London make up the main body of the shelter. In one room, guests chat over tea and coffee while listening to musicians on guitars. There are people reading newspapers in the other room, where volunteers are preparing dinner. Others watch a TV in the corner, as John Humphrys reads out questions on Mastermind. In both rooms, there are people sitting quietly by themselves.
‘It’s very relaxing,’ says Reggie, who describes the atmosphere as ‘lovely’. He’s wearing clothes provided by the shelter. Many of the items in the clothes store have been bought by Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) and others are donated by Quaker Meetings. Reggie is wearing a tie. He smiles when asked about it, saying he likes to dress smartly. In the face of poverty, small signs of self-respect can be important.
Reggie is enthusiastic about the ‘very good’ food served at the shelter. It is a consistent theme. Quakers seem to have acquired a reputation for good cooking and decently-sized portions. On the evening of my visit, around seventy-five people turn up for a choice of meatballs or mushroom stroganoff. There is bread pudding for dessert. One guest compares it favourably to a different shelter nearby, where the portions are small and the meals served late.
Challenges to face
Not everyone is so impressed. As dinner begins, a man stands up and spits his food out. He shouts that it is not good enough ‘for animals’ and storms out of the building. A while later, he is back for a cup of tea.
Shift leader Emma acknowledges that aggression can be a problem. Many guests have alcohol problems. ‘This morning, I took somebody’s beer can away from him and he was shouting at me,’ she said, explaining that the shelter has a ‘no alcohol’ rule. She adds: ‘Even if we do see violence occasionally, we manage it in a gentle way.’
Emma is constantly interrupted by guests and volunteers. A guest has arrived with an injured eye; Emma calmly asks someone to fetch the shelter’s resident doctor. A shopping trolley has broken while transporting milk. Emma explains: ‘I sent someone out for twenty pints of milk and they bought twenty litres of milk.’ Shift managers, like the people they manage, are volunteers.
There is a surprise after dinner, when guests are faced with a celebrity visitor in the form of EastEnders star Danniella Westbrook. Her former cocaine habit and recent conversion to Christianity have attracted media attention. She is now keen to work with charities tackling homelessness and addiction. ‘I think it’s amazing,’ she says, as she looks round the shelter, ‘in this day and age, nobody should be homeless’.
Making people welcome
The shelter runs between 23-30 December, when many other agencies are closed. The logistics are so complex that the first planning meetings are held in January. Menu planning begins at this stage. Rising food prices mean that the shelter’s food budget for 2011 was up twenty per cent on the previous year.
QHA’s director, Kate Mellor, says that over two-thirds of the guests at the shelter have a bed elsewhere. They come for food, clothes and companionship. ‘We welcome all comers, we don’t want to turn them back just because they have a cold flat with no food.’
Each night, around twenty-five people sleep in the larger room on camp beds. A screen separates men – who make up over ninety per cent of guests – from women. Another section had been found for a transgendered person. Night shift volunteers stay awake while their guests are asleep. Helen, who has worked several consecutive nights, explains that ‘a lot of the night shift is kind of the background stuff’ such as locking doors and putting things in place for the morning. At half past seven, they serve a full English breakfast.
Christmas night was different. ‘We got to play Santa and hand out the presents,’ explains Amy, a night shift volunteer who put a toiletry bag at the end of each bed, ‘that was really fun.’
But she says reminders of Christmas can have mixed effects: ‘Christmas may not be something that they feel that good about when they’re not with their families.’
Returning to the streets
Encouraging people to leave after breakfast can be difficult, says Emma, ‘especially when it’s very cold out there and people have got very stressful lives’. Tales of life on the streets slowly emerge in conversation.
‘I saw one bloke get kicked to pieces,’ says Dave, who has volunteered with homelessness charities for years. He has witnessed drunken revellers urinating on rough sleepers. He says that the same people have been known to give money to homeless people once they are sober the next day.
Donna says that homeless women are routinely exploited. When asked for details, she is hesitant. ‘As a woman, you do things you’re not proud of,’ she says, ‘women are seen differently in society – lower’.
For some homeless people, the arrival of a journalist is unwelcome. ‘Want to be interviewed?’ one man calls across to another. ‘No!’ comes the abrupt reply, ‘I’ve done enough interviews in the police station’. Many of those who are willing to answer questions will do so only once I have put away my recording device and taken out my notebook instead.
David, a volunteer managing referrals, suggests that repeated mistreatment breaks down trust. A few days previously, he had found a bed for a woman with severe health problems. He said: ‘She kept asking us why we were helping her.’ She could not understand why they would do so without an ulterior motive.
Help for the future
Kate is proud of QHA’s record of referring people on to other accommodation. The shelter provides professional advisers from the Pilion Trust, who give guidance to people struggling with addiction. Kate stresses that everyone is welcome, whether or not they want this help.
Donna wishes that people with prejudices against homeless people could see life in the shelter. ‘Everyone’s treated the same here,’ she says, ‘regardless of race, gender, sexuality.’
Donna says she became homeless because of ‘drugs and family problems’. Having found accommodation, she is thinking about volunteering for a homeless charity. At the shelter, she says, ‘people want nothing from you, they just want to help. That’s the greatest thing of all.’ She looks around. ‘Thank God for that,’ she adds.
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