Cara, 40.
You never think you'll end up on the streets, married or single, it still seems out of the ordinary, passing these rough sleepers, oblivious that it could be you one day...
"I ended up homeless, through a divorce, I had to leave a violent relationship, this was fifteen years ago now. I had my own house, and I never realised how difficult it would be to find somewhere else to live, it took me years to leave my partner and I thought the divorce would be the hardest thing and getting away would be the hard, but trying to find somewhere to live. I met Richard, not long after I became homeless. I went to the council thinking they’d help me, but as I had my own house, they said id essentially made myself homeless, so there was no help for me, I didn’t have an alcohol problem, drug problem or a criminal record, so there was no agency that could help me, and that’s how I am in the situation I am in now."
There are numerous amounts of organisations and charities that aim to get rough sleepers off the streets.
"I remember, there was a homeless street advisor, and she’d go around the streets giving advice to the rough sleepers, and she approached Richard and myself, advising us to have a child together, and we’d have a chance of getting somewhere to live, but its not the right environment to be in, and what if it hadn’t of worked out, and obviously its ridiculous I would never bring a child into that environment.
I find it really embarrassing, that I cannot remember seeing homeless people on the streets before I became homeless, I was one of these people that would walk past them and take no notice of them, because you don’t realise you could end up like that. Id never bought the big issue, I never gave money to homeless people cause I never saw them and if I did, I probably looked at them and just thought, just get a bloody job, but you don’t realise the positions they actually are in, and then I ended up exactly like them."
A
Fifteen years exactly, we’ve had places to stay, myself and Richard, we’ve been married for twelve years, and we’ve had temporary places to stay in between, before the squatting law changed, we used to squat in a lot of places. We tried to go to Crisis, this year but they wouldn’t let us stay with the dogs, so we couldn’t go there, Richard, couple year’s back used to volunteers and cooked for them.
I met Richard here, in London and it’s the area he’s from, so this is where I’ve been since, I am originally from Peckham originally, but I grew up in Guilford. London being the closest and biggest city next to me, that’s why I came here. But people are quick to judge, I mean I had my own cleaning business and everything, who would think id end up here.
Living on the streets can get hectic and crowed and you are never the only one.
"There’s been an increase of people on the streets, especially since the immigration crisis, and its manic, its an unspoken word to not steal from another rough sleeper, but that rule doesn’t apply to the refugees on the streets, we’ve had to start sleeping with our trainers under our heads, because they’ve started to steal our belongings, its ridiculous, this never used to happen. Where we sleep, we have cardboard up, and its there to stop the dogs from wondering off and to also stop them from getting into our doorway and taking things from us, which is something that is unheard of on the streets. The last year, even the last six months, normally as soon as the winter comes, all the homeless disappear, and the ones who cant find anywhere to sleep stay on the streets, but this year there seems to be even more living on the streets.
You get a lot of youngsters, most of them from children homes, some of them from abusive houses, its not nice to hear, I try to always advice them to centre point, they help under 25’s. I’ve looked after young girls, me and Richard, he’s looked after loads of young girls, even before I met him, he’s still friends with some of them now. The teenagers though, they try to keep away from us, they look at us as were adults and think were just going to send them back to there parents, but when they do ask for our advice, we help and I think, good on them, because I wouldn’t of done that, but there are a lot of young people on the street and they can be helped but they think that’s it.
But i know I wont be in this situation forever, but then again I’ve been saying this for a long time, I don’t know if its because I’ve turned forty, but I am an optimistic and I wont be in this situation for longer, I wont die on the streets."