John shares his personal experience of homelessness, the challenges he faced, and the support he received from The Ferry Project. He discusses the impact of rural homelessness and the unique approach of The Ferry Project in providing hope and transformation. John's journey from homelessness to becoming a staff member at The Ferry Project is a testament to the organization's success in changing lives.
Website
ferryproject.org.uk
Takeaways
- Personal experience of rural homelessness and the challenges faced
- The impact of The Ferry Project in providing hope and transformation
- John's journey from homelessness to becoming a staff member at The Ferry Project is a testament to the organization's success in changing lives
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Rural Homelessness Podcast
03:10 Challenges of Homelessness and Hope
07:35 Impact of Rural Homelessness
11:32 The Journey to The Ferry Project
15:53 Transformation and Pride
[Music] This is the Rural Homelessness Podcast, where we discuss the important issues around rural homelessness. Hear from those affected by it and offer some solutions. Brought to you by the award-winning Homelessness Charity, The Fairy Project. Welcome to the Rural Homelessness Podcast. Hello, and thank you for joining me on another episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast. My name is Matt McCleary, and I am your host. And it's wonderful that you have chosen to call it on over to the Rural Homelessness Podcast today. On today's show, I'm going to be speaking with John, who has experienced homelessness first-hand. We'll be discussing his experiences as well as learning about how the Fairy Project managed to help him through some of those difficult times in his life. So let's welcome John to the show. Hi John, welcome to the Rural Homelessness Podcast. Hi there. Thanks for agreeing to chat with me today. As someone who has experienced homelessness first-hand, what was it like for you before you came to the Fairy Project? So, in the early 2000s, I was married to two children doing a above average. I think it was doing a above average. I had seven acres of land, horses, and everything was going well. And yeah, there's a question I still ask myself now, why? I got involved with the wrong people and ended up making some real bad mistakes that ended up in incarceration. Now, from the result of that, that ended my marriage. My wife relocated with a new partner up in Boston, the escape-ness. I'd make the decision that much, because much of them were still quite young, that I would try and move closer to them. Because I felt it would be an all that way and I said, I wouldn't see him much. So I made the decision to try and start a new life in this beach. When I first got it, it was an old friend of mine whose mother bought that she could go, and she lived quite near in Cheris. But that went badly wrong quite quickly. So I booked myself into a cheap bed and breakfast locally. I thought it might be long. I'll get myself a job. I'm not proud to do anything. There's not much I won't do. There's not much I haven't done in my careers. And once I'm back on my feet, I can start seeing the children and can start coming to date with me. But unfortunately, I run out of money. I run out of money, and therefore I was on the streets. I didn't have any priority needs. So I wasn't deemed priority to put into any temporary accommodation, plus the other thing I didn't have on my site was I had no local connection. However, I continued and I continued to believe that something would happen one day, something would go right. But I started drinking. First, I started drinking the vodka. And again, I had been asked why that happened. Not sure whether it was to numb out the cold, because it is a little bit colder in the fence than it is in Essex. So, was it to numb the despair or was it to numb the cold? Was it both? That's our insight. It became a vicious circle. I then become alcohol dependent. And my life revolved around alcohol from the moment I woke up in the moment. I passed out or went to sleep. So that was your journey on the street. Apart from your hunt for alcohol, was there anything else that formed like a day for you when you were homeless? So, and again, with that shadow of doubt, it's the most traumatic thing I've been through in years on the streets. You know, I'm not. Most timid as people. However, it is quite frightening and scary on the streets. I didn't know it was beach. I had no family or friend connections here. I was embarrassed. I didn't want to phone my family. I didn't want to phone my friends. They've often asked why didn't you call us? And I just felt that I've got myself into these people or this whole and I wanted to get myself out of it. And looking back now, that was the right decision to do. I think people would have been supportive around money. I think that all that would have done was fuel the alcohol that these decisions that I had to battle with and I had to make. But I spent more days trying to sleep and trying to keep myself safe and on the move of the night time and through the coldest hours. So I was not someone that would sleep too much into the woods. I try and keep myself visible. And that may be our park bench or some people's church benches at the time. But I felt more safe where I've catnapped and then in the evening, starting to go around more and more. And what would you say some of your biggest challenges were when you were on the streets? So, obviously alcohol was a priority and I was also a smoker. So to provide myself with food and tobacco, you know, you've had to do some things that I'm not that proud of. And that's when you start to move your self respect and you dig that when you're now funding the bins of fast food outlets to see what they've thrown out in the evening and, you know, picking up dog ins on the streets, even to the fact where you've run out of alcohol when you're walking around when pubs have shut and seeing what's left in glasses or someone's left in a can on the floor. It meant times I picked a can up and shook it and thought, I hope someone hasn't put the cigarettes out in this one or even worse. However, it didn't stop me drinking it at the time. So your experience of homelessness in Whizbeach and for some listeners who've been listening to this podcast so far knows that we focusing on rural homelessness and Whizbeach is a rural place. It's a town in the middle of the the Finland countryside in England in the UK. How do you think from your experience of being homeless yourself? How do you think homelessness is different for people who are homeless in the countryside or rural area as compared to say if you were in a big city somewhere. So, you know, the the vision that I had, obviously coming from Essex and actually being born in London is, you know, the tenants on the streets and people being shocked always and in sleeping bags. But in in in in Whizbeach serving in the fans, homeless people became invisible evening. They were entrenched. They went into, you know, the parks and the woods and Derek houses or garages or anywhere they could see cover really. So it's they were more visible during the day on the streets of an evening. They went into the sheltered areas. Like I said, I didn't know and I back then it was probably Eastern Europeans. I was probably one of the only English speaking. Which, you know, they don't just add into that trauma. Yeah, thank you for that. That's that's very interesting. And when when you were homeless, trying to think of some of the more positive sides of it, if they were any, were there, what was some of the most helpful things that people said or did when they came across you when you were homeless. I didn't. So with me, when I was homeless, people kept trying to offer me support and kept trying to refer me to the hospital. However, again, I had this vision in my head and pre saved, you know, of what hospitals were like and who went into hospitals. I felt that I was different. I didn't want to go to a hostel. And I felt that, you know, some people would turn around, but a lot of the help came from places like the library. And places that you could keep warm. However, the more you're on the streets, the more homeless you become, the more invisible you become. Right. People stop making eye contact. Don't put their downs and ask. They don't want to see it. They don't. And people were saying, go, go to the hostel and that word kind of puts you off. What can we say if we come across someone who's homeless and we want to try and offer them some help or point them in the place to find help, rather than saying hostel what what might be a better way of of. Getting that information across to someone who is in that very vulnerable sort of isolated state. Yeah, I think we've talked about a main change here. We've talked about because, you know, since, since being in the hostel and working through the hostel and now obviously employed it in the hostel. I don't think that the word hostel does it justice. It is nothing like you could ever think it would be. Therefore, you know, we've looked at changing it to haven't. And, you know, with the new opening of the Oxford accommodation being called destiny haven't, you know, a safe place to stay. So, yeah, that's interesting using the words that you, you have and the names are really important. Coming back to your story, you're on the streets of Whizbeach and I know people are saying, go to the hostel and you were resistant. How did you, how did you get to actually arrive at the ferry project? Yeah, so I remember I spoke and I said that I've lost self respect. I've lost dignity. But there was one thing that I had on to that was hope. That was the only thing that came going because I just hope things would change. I just hope things get better. I just lived on this hope. I just believed and hoped that something would change. Now, I used to like to sleep in public places. If I could, early evening. Now I've gone on to the streets. This would have been early 2009. When now, 2010, like 2010, I'm in the local church to Whizbeach and Peter's church. And I'm washing in the little pond that they've got there to try and turn yourself up because now when I'm practicing around the charity shops just trying to keep warm, they're looking at me like I'm a shop lifter. As I mentioned earlier, there was a shop lifter. I was window shopping to get a bit of respite from the cold and the wind and the rain and the snow and the ice that was out there and no longer. And a group of yolks that have told me to make for a few nights have recognized them, same group of yolks. And the same group of yolks that urinated on me the night before thinking it was funny while I was trying to cap that. Anyway, they for a way of a reason, they had their head that homeless people steal the fish from the pond to eat them because that's what homeless people do. And they seriously assaulted me. And I came to a kitchen at the hospital with a fractured ice socket and other serious injuries. And they said to me, when I was discharging, you need to go to the further country. And so I made my way down to a meal class. And as I approached the building, the building where the office was, I have a plaque on the wall that said hope, hope out. And I thought it just feels like I'm in the right place and I'm not on the door. And I said, listen, I think I need some help. And the staff there were great. There wasn't actually any spaces at the time, but I could come back each day. I think it might have only been a few days. And I was accepted into Arsenal. So when you were accepted in and you kind of entered for the first time, what did it feel like when you first arrived at the ferry project? Did it take time to settle into the new environment, or what was that like for you? Leopold Hospital was different to it. We shared accommodation. We shared kitchen, shared bathrooms. It's kind of a long way since then. But at the moment, I was offered somewhere safe, somewhere warm, some food, and washing facilities. That's stress. I'm not going to say the trauma that took a while to deal with. However, the worries, the concern is the first time I've slept properly in a long, long time. And I was greeted with people that I could see genuinely feel the pain that I could see, the empathy and sympathy that surrounded me. And realised that actually I wasn't any different to anybody else in the hospital. I was the same as then. I was having this and I needed help. So what are some of your highlights since coming to the ferry project? What are you most proud of during your journey? I think I'm proud of the ferry project. I'm proud of, you know, I'm not a shown to say that I was home. I'm not ashamed to say that I've been through the ferry project. I'm actually proud because of what the ferry project done for me. I'm not saying these things work for everybody. And they certainly wasn't working for me when I first came. I wouldn't say I was the easiest of crying. I was still continuing my ways of still battling without home. I was battling with a trauma when I was married. I wasn't very domesticated. I was just the one to win the money. I didn't really cook properly. I didn't budget properly. I didn't end up money. I could look after myself, you know, at hygiene wise. But there was a lot of skills I was lacking. Yeah, I'm proud of coming through. I've never ever thought of work at the ferry project. I looked at the staff here and I thought, you must have patience of a zone. How can you do this day in day out? You just want to go and shake him and tell him, wake up, come on, get on with it. And I've moved out and I was backing it into independent living. And while I was looking for a job and I was starting to get answers back on my city. We came into here in 2010. It opened on the 5th of the 6th, 2010. When you say here, where are you talking about? I'll tell you again. I'll tell you. It's on the 5th of the 6th, 2010. And that's where ferry project is based now. It's like the hub of operations. Yeah, this is the new hostel that moved away from the old hostel, which is now the move on and resell them and properties. And I started coming back volunteering. It's a bit of a thank you. It was a blank canvas. I started getting involved in the gardens. And I think my going through has been so many highlights here. One of the things that I needed to do when I moved out, I've lost that network of support again from the support workers, the people that was in the hostel. I started to quickly go back down that road to the drinking again because I was isolated. And one of the support workers come around to my flat and told me to get myself up on the Monday and get myself into October. I'm going to start volunteering with a volunteer care tank at the time. And I came in and I threw myself into the gardens and started to, you know, work on the gardens. I've not really had much to do with gardening before. But I've got so much enjoyment. It gave me something to get up for every morning. It gave me sense of achievement, it gave me routine. And I knew I was giving something back for everything that I've received. And again, like I said, I come from around here, so I do nothing about Whispeeching Blown. And the next thing I know, we're at an award party and we're within the best business garden in Whispeech. Hey, congratulations. Really good. I didn't have my eye on the Donald Shuffle. That's where it's actually a different category. Oh, very good. And so from volunteering in the gardens then, how has that sort of translated into you now being a member of staff and working for the ferry project? So yeah, I came back as a volunteer. I was doing a bit of maintenance and then they came to me and said, we're going to advertise for a concierge. I care second. Why don't you apply? So I said, oh, why not? So I was doing a bit of DIY. I was doing quite advanced DIY. I've been doing DIY since I was 15. It was a little smart father at an early age. So I became the DIY man at the age of 15. And started really enjoying what I was doing. And as the years have gone on, different roles come up. And they were after someone to run the night show up. And that meant I could work with the people that I'd walk the streets with all that time ago and try to have some kind of impact or effect or influence or encouragement for them to change. And let them know that the help was here at the ferry. You know, if I can do it, everybody else can do it. So that was my most enjoyable job. When I was running the night show up, that was my most enjoyable one. But unfortunately, Covid shut the night shower and shut night check was for good. All around the country. Yeah. Absolutely. So let's come up with a new idea. And the new creation is the emergency accommodation, which was trial during Covid. When we had bunk and bins that replaced the night shower in a smaller capacity. That then we come on to be coming with isolation units. And then as it started to phase itself out, comb it to a safer level. If a great for me to add them through a little while to try as an assessment center. And now off the back of that scene, destiny, haven't built those nine units of Australian accommodation, probably tops to build and all the achievements now to watch something being built. And it actually actually achieving. What what the hopes were of that accommodation to accommodate people from street. To accommodation. In order to offer them everything I was on this safe. We're born somewhere to shower and hot food. And there were different segments. And within four to six weeks, it means that person's life's changed. That they now are unable to map their own destiny from destiny. That's really good, John. What would you like people to know about homelessness and those who experience it? They used to be. Yeah, I think you're aware that used to be an after hours once a month. Up in the cafe with a twisted faith. And I used to probably see much my month there as a thank you, you know, to the King's Church. Because I haven't been for the King's Church all those years ago and what they've done. I certainly don't know where I'd be. Even if I'd be here. So I used to volunteer up there and there was a little group of elderly ladies that used to come in and they got to know me. And I was in this serving coffee one day and one evening. And they stood by the window looking out and they was looking down to the smoking jaw and the clients are. And they said to me here, John. Is that their moments people down there? I said, yeah, they they was homeless. I said, they're safe now because they're within the firm protector on the beginning of a new life. And they said, are they all those alcoholics and junkies? And I said, no, everybody that's homeless is an alcoholic or a junkie. And sometimes they become that way because of the homelessness. They said, really? I said, you do know I used to be homeless, don't you? I used to be one of them stood down there in that smoking shower. And they looked at me and said, well, you used to be homeless. So for me, anyone can be homeless. Life was good. And my life was, you know, my life was, I didn't have to worry about bills. I didn't have to worry about much really until I've done something really stupid in my life. But anybody's life can change. But the ferry project is so unique that if you want that up, there's no getting my idea. Everybody comes in and needs that help. But you have to want it. You have to want to change. And if that's really what you want, the ferry project can make that happen. And we've often been asked, we promote the ferry project saves and changes people's lives. It lasts. Does it really? Does it really do that? I've told people before I'm living proof and I've seen many more come through here that is living proof that that's what the ferry project does. That's great, John. Thank you. I think that's a perfect place. To say thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing your story with us. And we wish you all the best. So thank you, John. And I'm sure I know John's going to be chatting with us some more on some other episodes of the podcast, giving his view sort of from the other side of the table where he's talking about all sorts of things now that he's involved in the homelessness charity sector and is working for a homelessness charity, giving some perspective on other issues around rural homelessness. So we look forward to chatting with you again soon, John. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. I'll see you soon, man. And thank you as well for listening to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast. This podcast comes out twice a month on the first and the 15th of every month. Do come back again really soon to join us for another episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast. Thank you and goodbye. Thank you for listening to the Rural Homelessness Podcast brought to you by The Ferry Project. Visit our website on www.fairyproject.org.uk [MUSIC PLAYING]
