Media Storm - Homelessness and how to help us

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Media Storm presented by Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia Bonus Episode: Homelessness and how to help, by people who've been there Last episode, Media Storm investigated homelessness behind closed doors: the hidden figures in hostels, cafes, on nightbuses or couch-surfing. This week, we look at the homelessness on our streets: the people we can see, how they get treated, and what we the public could do better. The answers are brought to you by people in the know - people who've been in that position. This is what to do when you see a homeless person, by people who've been homeless themselves. Your hosts: Mathilda Mallinson @mathildamall Helena Wadia @helenawadia   Speakers: Kerri Douglas @KerriDouglas18 Earl Charlton @EarlCharlton2 Chase Archer Evans @HomelessAss Get in touch: Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/mediastormpod or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mediastormpod or Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@mediastormpod like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MediaStormPod send us an email [e-mail] check out our website https://mediastormpodcast.com Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire.  Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The substance. This balance is not working. And the naked gun. That was awesome. Now that's a mountain of entertainment. Welcome to MediaStorm, a news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Matilda Mallinson and I'm Helena Wadia. And we're back with some bonus content for our loyal listeners.

Last week we looked at hidden homelessness. This week we look at the homelessness on our streets, the people we can see, how they get treated and what we the public could do better. The answers are brought to you by people in the know, people who've been in that position. This is what to do when you see a homeless person by people who've been homeless themselves. If you give them money all the time,

all you're doing is encouraging them to stay where they are and carry on begging. I would give the homeless my last pound if I knew they weren't fair. A hand up, if not a handout. In this sleeping bag lies a homeless drug addict, ignored by all those who have passed on. with the wrongful killing of their father. The man was homeless at the time of his death.

The first person I interviewed was Kerry Douglas, now an author, but one who had to sleep rough on and off throughout her teens and 20s. How would members of the public treat you when you were rough sleeping? A majority would treat me like I was an embarrassment to humankind.

Like I should just write in the gutter. You'd get, say, one out of every hundred people dropping you some food or one out of every 200 people, maybe. up and chat. Sometimes they'd chat for ages, sometimes they chatted for a couple of minutes, check you're okay. And to be honest, that meant more than money. That meant more to me than a £20 drop. The fact that someone stopped and talked to me made me feel like a human again, because the longer you're out there, the more you start to feel unworthy, like your neighbours are

rats for crying out loud. That's how you feel. You feel like a rat. And that's how society makes you feel as well, nine times out of ten. There's more people out there that make you feel like you're unworthy, then there are people that make you feel like you deserve to be loved. What would people do? People shout at your stuff like, oh, you're dirty tramp, you dirty junkie, get a job. The worst one would be when you see the suited and booted walking past and they'd put their hand in their pocket and jingle their changes, they'd walk past. Not nice.

If people stopped and talked to homeless people longer than two minutes and had an actual conversation, they would see they're actually people. Like, these people that are on the streets are just lost children. They're someone's brother, sister, son, daughter. and they need to be loved. I think we're often advised to actually not give money to individuals so as not to enable substance abuse. You know, you're told to buy food for them.

I don't know if this is quite patronising. We're also told to donate two institutions, councils and charities, rather than two individuals. Is this something that we should be aware of? Should we be cautious of enabling people by giving them money to spend as they choose, or can we just do what feels right with the individual without thinking about all of these do's and do-nots?

If you want to give them money, then give them money. Maybe they are addicted to substances, but not everybody on the streets is an addicts. The thing is, though, I want people to think about, is you know when you finish work, at the end of a long day, stressful day, everything's going wrong, and you just come home, you kick off your shoes, You go to the fridge, maybe grab a bevy, bottle of wine, pour a glass.

And then you go in, sit down, unwind, relax. That's how people roll, isn't it? So why should it be any different for a homeless person? Okay, they may take things that are slightly stronger, but they haven't got a harder day to try and unwind on. If you're living on the streets and sleeping in doorways, being peed on and being spat on course, they're going to have a smoke to wind down. Of course, they're going to drink a bottle of wine to wind down.

I'm not condoning it, but I'm just trying to show you the reason behind that. It's the same with this party and Downing Street. It's like double standards. Put yourself in the shoes of a homeless person. How would you get through the cold night? How would you get through your trauma? Drugs are often described as a leading cause of homelessness. My gosh, I'm so tired of hearing that.

I was exposed to homelessness from 13, and I didn't start taking hardcore drugs until I was 17. Now, in my experience, I've seen people that have started, using because of the life that they're living because they just deteriorate they end up getting involved with the people that are on the streets already who are already using peer pressure whatever sometimes when I see someone sitting begging I'll give them a cigarette I'd like that maybe buy them a coffee sit down have a chat that actually mean more to them than anything Mark, what do you want listeners to know about being homeless?

You know, it's not easy. Sometimes it's just relentless, especially in the winter. In the winter, it just feels relentless. You don't get enough sleep. I mean, my voice at the moment, I'm getting over a cold, by the way, so luckily you didn't talk to me last week. I had no voice at all. But you don't get any sleep.

And of course, when you wake up in the cold, you get what I call bone cold. You get that cold that goes right through you. You know, when people talk about homeless people, they see the results of their life. They might take substances. They might be alcoholics or whatever. But what they don't know is what led up to that. They don't know about their past. They don't know what conditions led these people to be like this.

And I'll tell you, there are a lot of nice. people who are homeless people. In the night shelters, there are a lot of great people there, good camaraderie. And I've always told people, whenever anybody comes across a homeless person on the street, they should never forget two things. Number one, that they're human beings in front of them. And number two, that for a little change in their own circumstances, that could be then one day. It can happen to anybody if, you know, if the circumstances are right or, or in fact, wrong. I was at a viewing for a property once with one person and he was saying, you know, when I was young, I used to see the homeless and I used to shout at them and say,

why don't you just get a job, clean yourself, I'm going to a job. And he said, and then he said, one day it happened to me. And then I realized, you know, it ain't as easy as that. Mark also tells me we cannot underestimate how much of a difference volunteering at your local homeless shelter can make. The volunteers, you know, I used to think to myself when I was in the night shelter, the care they took over the food, the care they took to prepare everything. They always made us feel respected. And I used to think to myself, these people, they don't have to do this. They have jobs, they have a life, they don't have to give up their time to help people like me.

It shouldn't just be a burden that's placed upon them, but without them, the whole thing would collapse. They may not save everybody, they may not house everybody, give everybody relief, particularly in the winter months, but they help a lot of people. There's a big difference between being out on the streets and being in a night shelter, you know, with nice meal, good people to talk to. That kindness that's shown by people is quite humbling. encourage anybody who is involved in any of these night shelters and other organisations and community centres, you know, what you do really does matter. Don't ever feel that it doesn't. But if you ever find yourself questioning what you do, whether it matters or not, I'm really here to tell you it does. It makes a big difference to people.

Earl Charlton has been a long time big issue vendor and he advocates for us to support the social enterprise by buying the magazine. And it's not just the work that helped him. They helped me with my transport of removal. They helped me get my first provisional license. They help me get my first ever bank account. Now I'm learning to drive and I've got my first secure tenancy. A lot of people coming off the street, it's not as easy as people think when it comes to getting jobs and bank accounts because you need photo ID. A big issue had to fight four and a half months to prove who I was. If I didn't have the big issue behind me, I would have given up on the first phone call

or maybe second one, never mind the third, fourth and fifth. And finally, for the sofa activists, there are campaigns I'm told we can get involved in. Chase Archer Evans is campaigning to legalise homelessness in the US and there are many ongoing petitions and campaigns to scrap the Vagrancy Act in the UK. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can listen to the last episode.

But Kerry Douglas has one of those petitions going too. And here's why Chase thinks it's so important. This is the root of our problem. Ending criminalization, legalizing homelessness, and building impactful infrastructure is the most basic solution to a problem our governments can't seem to fix. This is the fix. This is the solution. We will never end homelessness. Someone will always end up here, whether they want to or not.

But we can absolutely solve these problems that we are having. Can you just explain what you mean by building impactful infrastructure? It's often said that the homeless. crisis is first and foremost a health crisis. So we need to create barrierless public lavatories, shower, and laundry facilities to give people a way to take care of their hygiene necessities because hygiene is the reason this is a health crisis. And we need to leave these places open 24-7. Storage lockers and safe parking lots where someone can store belongings and sleep safely behind the doors that they do have, whether it's a car or tent, and not ticketing them,

simply because they can't meet the standards of society can help immensely. We have people drowning for no reason other than that we require them to swim on their own. Our systems cannot continue to wade into the river water with arms locked trying to rescue every person caught in the current. And all we have to do is install ropes that stretch from bank to bank

and let people pull themselves out. What we have now is walls lining the river and we wonder why no one can get out of it. We need to remove these barriers and implement these simple solutions so that people can help themselves. This would relieve a massive burden from our support systems, giving them the opportunity to focus on those of us who truly need help instead of being flooded with millions of people that simply need their freedom and ability to take care of themselves. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with a deep dive into drug culture in the UK. Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcasts

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hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wardier and follow the show via at MediaStormpod.