Putting lives back on track

As we sink deeper into recession the Star’s Ben Bentley turns the spotlight on the plight of the homeless in the county. 

It had all the boastful buzzwords of an appealing pad. Tim Pockett’s Shropshire home was certainly compact and bijou with more than a touch of open plan about it.

“For two-and-a-half years I was living under the archway by Shrewsbury library,” says 48-year-old Tim as he stands in a doorway on St Mary’s Street selling copies of the Big Issue.

Although his homeless days are now behind him, Tim’s is a cautionary tale that is doubly significant today when a new YouGov survey on behalf of the homeless charity Crisis predicts that because of the economic downturn more people will be losing their jobs, their homes and will end up on the streets this year.

The study paints a grim picture. Some 41 per cent of adults in Britain know somebody who has lost their job due to the economic downturn.

Unemployment is hitting home with almost one in ten of people with a mortgage or rent repayment already struggling to pay the rent or mortgage.

In addition, of those with an opinion, a third of people would lose their home within three months of losing their main form of income – leading to fears of a surge in homelessness.

Certainly homeless workers like John Woodyatt of Isaiah 58 – the Shrewsbury church-based charity which hands out free food bags, clothes and furniture – predict they will have their work cut out for them over the next 12 months.

John says: “We expect it to be harder. We’ve been busy over the last few months but in the last few weeks we’ve had 15 new families from social services with some form of homelessness and normally it’s just one or two.

“With some it’s financial difficulties that has led them into trouble, with others it might be domestic violence.”

John talks about a number of people he’s helping who have come out of prison and have found themselves homeless. He names three former inmates who are now on the streets.

And he says that any given night there are estimated to be between 20 and 25 people sleeping rough in Shrewsbury, but this could well be an underestimate.

“Seven years ago when Isaiah 58 started we used to have three people a night – now we have up to 25. It’s hard to find out exactly because you don’t know where they all sleep. If they’ve got a good pitch they clean up afterwards so that people don’t move them on.

“It’s been council and police policy to move them on or threaten them with ASBOs if they see them again, but where do these people go? They don’t disappear.”

Part of the reason for the suspected increase, John believes, is that there are fewer temporary beds for homeless people in the town after the closure of several shelters.

Also, being made homeless does not necessarily mean ending up sleeping in a shop doorway or park. John talks of the “hidden homeless”, the families who end up sleeping in a relative’s living room after falling on hard times.

He says this trend is like a return to the back-to-back living of the 19th century, adding: “It’s not acceptable in today’s society.”

He also challenges the idea that people become homeless because of drink and drugs.

“People think rough sleepers are drunkards and addicts – some of them might be, but that’s not the reason why they are there in the first place.

“It can happen to anyone. You could have a nervous breakdown or lose your job or a relationship, and it can happen very quickly.”

One further worrying concept, says John, is that if people find themselves living on the streets for more than six months they can become “lost to society”.

As he and his team of volunteers from as far away as Wem and Church Stretton, goes about distributing sustenance to those on the streets he reveals one of his food sources.

“I’m well known at the back door of Sainsbury’s in Meole Brace,” says John. “I go there every day and they give me things like food tins and babies’ nappies.

“With most of the stuff the wrapper has broken or it’s a dented tin but it’s still very useable. A homeless person is not really that bothered if the tin is dented.”

Happily it seems that Big Issue seller Tim Pockett is putting his life back on the right track. 

Today he is the Shropshire co-ordinator for sellers of the magazine, responsible for ensuring its vendors are in a fit state to sell the magazine.

But he recalls his days of having to illegally beg on the streets and how an incredible stroke of fortune changed all this.

Says Tim: “I started begging and then playing the tin whistle – not very well – but I played it. It wasn’t really a tune is was just a few notes over and over. People could see me making an effort.”

His endeavours quickly led to bigger and better donations. Indeed, two years ago he was astonished when he was playing away and a passer-by handed him a diamond ring worth hundreds of pounds.

He handed it in to the police fearing it had been stolen, but when no-one claimed the item of jewellery it was Tim’s.

And that ring, and the mystery donor’s act of generosity, put him on the road back to the land of the living, away from homelessness and a life on the streets.

He ploughed a portion of the cash into buying a shipment of Big Issues, with 80p from each sale going into his pocket.

It might not be an ideal world but today Tim has a roof over his head and is under a probationary tenancy agreement.

Others might not be quite so lucky.

To help with Isaiah58 or to make a donation email isaiah58.project@virgin.net