Jim was rough sleeping for 2 ½ years before he came to the 999 Club. He was a victim of escalating domestic violence. His whole world fell apart in a single night when he became homeless and suffered a severe mental breakdown.
“I didn’t realise she had mental health problems when I met her. And she wasn’t taking the medication she should have been taking so all the anger was aimed at me.”
What started out as psychological and verbal abuse gradually became more and more physical.
“It just got harder and harder to be around her. And she got violent. Started verbally then developed into physical violence. It started verbally. And then… it was like a slap. And I thought I can deal with that. Then one night it came to a head she came home, she was drunk. She got 2 carving knives out the kitchen drawer and she flew at me. I’d been in bed so I just come downstairs, I got a pair of boxers on a t shirt. When I did actually get out the house I left in a pair of boxer shorts and a t shirt. I was freezing cold, middle of the night, blood everywhere, nowhere to go.”
He didn’t realise it at the time but he was in shock and suffering a mental breakdown. Something he would have to deal with over the coming months on his own, while sleeping on the streets.
“My mental health went down really, really quickly. I was depressed for ages. I thought I could cope with living in the area and then I realised I couldn’t so I made my way back to London. Took me about 4 weeks to get back to London.”
He slept in doorways, car parks, woodland areas, wherever he could.
“I slept in car parks in Catford, behind Aldi’s in Catford, Ladywell park, I slept in doorways in Deptford High Street.”
His family and friends turned their backs on him when he asked for help. His self-esteem plummeted as a result and he stopped looking for help from anybody.
“When I got back to London, I’ve got family in London. I thought they’ll help me. And basically they all turned their back on me. It was hard. Even at the times I wanted to give up I didn’t. Did I think about taking my life, yeah definitely, on numerous occasions. I thought I’d be better off not being here.”
His self-esteem sank even further due to the way he was treated on the streets.
“Being on the streets you get people that abuse you “go away you scummy homeless junkie, drunk “or whatever. When everybody who should love you turn their backs on you and strangers on the street treat you like shit you start to believe that you’re alone and nobody is going to help you, so you have to do it yourself. You’re alone, that’s probably the scariest thought of all, scarier than anything else that gets thrown your way. I will always acknowledge a homeless person, because that was a big thing to me when I was homeless people… you say good morning to somebody and they won’t even acknowledge you… like people purposely make you invisible. It doesn’t take much to say good morning to somebody does it, or even a nod to acknowledge them. That used to really just **** me off, people just blanking you. It made you feel like you wasn’t there, sometimes I would doubt myself, ‘am I actually here?’. You’re invisible.”
While sleeping on the streets he’s been urinated on, kicked, robbed, somebody even tried to set him on fire.
“In London, up in the city that’s one of the worst places in the world to sleep. People go up there because there’s more money to get up there, that’s why people go up to the city because the cities always alive. But there’s little crews that walk around there targeting homeless people. I’ve had people threaten to kick the **** out of me if I didn’t give them 5 pounds to sleep in a doorway. The mentality of some people they just don’t see you as human. When I’ve been sleeping on the street I’ve been urinated on, they know I‘m there and its funny for them. They’re like ‘let’s p*** on the homeless fella’. I had one geezer try and set me alight. He actually got a can of petrol and just started spraying petrol over my sleeping bag. He was going round saying homeless people should be burnt.”
“Some young people go out and pick on the homeless people because they can. If you’re on the streets you don’t ever zip up your sleeping bag because if somebody starts kicking you may as well be tied up. Yeah I’ve been kicked in my sleeping bag.”
“I ended up sleeping with a piece of 4×2 because of being kicked and people giving you crap in the course of an evening. Being out on the street is unbelievably frightening. Knowing that there’s a chance that tonight you might get kicked, or peed on or abused whatever, who knows what will happen tonight. And then you wake up the next morning and you think ‘right I’ve survived another day’.”
Jim found that rough sleeping required a whole new set of survival skills.
“When you’re on the street you focus on how am I gonna stay dry?, am I gonna get anything to eat today? How am I gonna be warm?” That’s your main focus…dryness, food, warmth and somewhere safe to sleep. That was my mission and there was no time to think beyond that, that’s why so much time went by. If you’re up first thing in the morning, freezing cold, the first thing you need is see if you can get something hot. I’ve actually gone in cafés and asked for a cup of hot water before. Just so I got something hot inside me, to warm myself up a little bit. Some cafes would some wouldn’t. You’d get a load of abuse like ‘oh don’t ******* step foot in my café, I’m not serving you’ even if you got money and you try sitting in a café. ‘sorry mate you’re homeless you can’t come in here’ I can’t even be a paying customer. Because of the way you are presented. A lot of people do isolate themselves when they’re homeless because I felt dirty and I smelt. I didn’t want to be around people. You walk along the street and people give you a wide berth….And you realise how bad you smell. You might be in the same dirty clothes for over a week. When you’re dirty and you feel dirty you don’t really want to be around people because you feel lower than they are. You feel that low like do I actually want to go near somebody, do I stink of B.O.?”
“I always try to stay clean on the street, I would dive into a public toilet and have a wash. Not one of the best places to have a wash when people are standing using the urinals and your standing there stripping off in your boxers and trying to wash yourself. Yeah I did it and its embarrassing but I couldn’t stand walking around smelling. People think because your homeless you’ve got all the time in the world, well no you haven’t, you’ve gotta think if it’s raining where can I go that I can stay dry for the whole day where im not gonna be moved on. And sitting in a shop doorway youre guaranteed to get moved on at some point. Then there’s libraries. Yeah you can go sit in a library. But bear in mind you’ve been on the street all night long you’re dishevelled, you probably don’t smell the best, so you’re sitting in the library and the next thing you know you’re dozing off. So somebody will come over and tell you sorry sir you can’t sleep in here, you get asked to leave, so then your back out in the cold.”
”So if I come in here (999 club) If I sat down and put my head on the table and fell asleep I’d probably get left alone for a couple of hours, because people in here would understand like he’s been out on the street all night he’s knackered like.”
Jim first came to the 999 Club to get something hot to eat and to wash his clothes.
“It makes you feel more worthwhile inside, like you belong and you’re worth it…. Having somewhere that is this nice where you can sit down and eat with a knife and fork. Living on the streets I’ve had food literally thrown at me, like ‘here you go’….. no thanks. I knew where I could get food. If I needed to get off the streets for a couple of hours I could come in here and warm up. Or if my coat was soaking wet I could stick in next to a radiator and dry out a bit. I suppose I used it (999) because it was somewhere safe and just to get off the street for a couple of hours and be in a safe environment because if somebody kicks off in here the staff will deal with it, if somebody kicks off in the street you’ve got to deal with it yourself. That little bit of a safe environment, where you can go and use the facilities, you can come and chat, have a cup of coffee…..just relax for 5 minutes. If you’re walking on the street, you’re guarded, you’ve got to be guarded. You can come in here, put your stuff down, you can relax you can let your guard down. You can get off your feet, have a hot drink. There’s a toilet, that’s a luxury. If you’re on a high street you can’t just dive into a toilet. Being in here makes you feel like a human being again.”
It still took time for Jim to engage with services and ask for help. The traumatic experiences that led to him becoming homeless, as well as the traumatic experience of being on the street had deeply impacted upon how he saw himself and the world around him.
“I thought this is my life now and I’ve got to deal with it. I don’t like asking for help, never have done. I never ever wanted to ask for help. People turned their back on me I didn’t think I could take that again. Once you get in that situation picking yourself up is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. You think I’m not worthy, I stink I’m dirty, why would anybody want to help a stinking dirty person that’s rude sometimes because I’m tired and cranky and yeah defensive. When you feel unworthy you start to feel really depressed and you become very guarded and you shield yourself. When people offer you help. A lot of homeless people think ‘I’m not worthy of help’ you believe this my lot, this is where I am now. To accept help can be hard because you get to a point where you’ve looked after yourself and you just don’t accept that there’s somebody who genuinely wants to help you. I was proud and I thought I can do this myself. And then you realise I can’t do this myself I’m f*****, I need help. It’s not so much proving it to other people its proving it to yourself, you’ve got yourself into that situation now get off your ass and pull yourself out of that situation and it doesn’t work unfortunately.”
Jim did ask for support and was eventually housed. This will be the first Christmas in 3 years that Jim will sleep with a roof over his head.
“I’m in such a better place in my head. Where I used to be in a little corner like that…. My flat just seems huge. Now I can do things and think about things I haven’t for so long. Just going out and buying some food and planning my shopping for the week. Little things like the tins of food in my cupboard it’s just a different feeling knowing that I have that food to fall back on when I get hungry. Now I know I get paid on a certain day, I pay this I pay that and then oh I got this little bit of money left and it’s like I can either go and buy myself a cheap pair of jeans or I can have a chocolate bar. It sounds stupid but it’s a decision I haven’t been able to make in a long time.”
Jim is only now realising just how deeply sleeping rough for so long has impacted his mental health. The experience of sleeping rough is traumatic and many rough sleepers suffer from PTSD as a result.
“When I was out on the street I was on edge, I was alert all the time, every single second. Now I’ve got a fridge full of food. It’s like I’ve come out of war and there was bullets flying every day. Now I can start processing how I think, now I’m settled I can deal with what’s happened to my head. I used to be on high alert every second, like a soldier gets when he’s at war. Now I’ve got this lovely little flat but I’m still on high alert but it’s so quiet here.”
He feels optimistic about improving his mental health, his experiences have taught him that its ok to ask for help and he feels settled enough now to deal with his past traumas. Jim has always tried to help those around him, playing the role of somebody he actually needed himself. He recently became a Coproduction volunteer at the 999 Club. He now sits on the Client Committee, a group of individuals with lived experience who communicate directly with the 999 Club’s board of trustees, helping to inform and shape policy and strategic decisions. He is using his lived experience and knowledge of sleeping rough to help tailor our services for those who face similar issues.
“I feel like I’m part of something, just being invited to this made me feel like I had something to offer others. I want to give back I want to help people who are in the boat I was in. This feels like I’m doing something worthwhile, like I’m actually making things happen for the better.”