Homeless In The City

Only the Homeless… Can Know

London Homeless In The Snow

Suddenly there’s Nothing

In the year of the new millennium, my husband and I, in our mid years, began our journey to “start over”.   Through a series of disasters and catastrophes, the business we had come to London to do, fell through. Suddenly, we became homeless and (almost) penniless in the London winter of 2004 and we were about to become invisible…

At twilight, the stark glare of streetlamps began slicing through the dying light. A few possessions were in the little case at my feet and trying to keep warm, we were wearing most of our clothes. Hungry, tired and so very cold, the search for an affordable room had proved fruitless. Friday afternoon traffic was dwindling across the city as the lashing sleet turned to snow.

Hospitals are not Charities

Next to me, my husband coughed; a harsh, exhausted hacking, blue eyes over-bright in a flushed face. Touching his forehead, I could feel the fever burning. We needed a doctor, a warm bed, food… But on this bitter winter night, there was no waiting bed, certainly no shelter. By asking a café owner, we learned the Royal Chelsea Hospital was nearby, with emergency facilities for walk-in patients.

It was still too early for the party animals and revelers, the habitués of the trendy nightclubs and fancy restaurants in this area. In the twilight gloom between the end of the working week and the start of the weekend, there were no buses. Luxuries like taxis were beyond us and negotiating the icy sidewalks, the journey of a few blocks, took us over an hour.

The hospital waiting room was packed with more than sixty people in all stages of distress, but it was warm. Sometime after midnight, with a diagnosis of pneumonia and a clutch of medicine, my husband asked if we could sit in the half-empty waiting room until the snow stopped. He never should have bothered.  Exhausted we sat down anyway, hoping they might change their minds. Ignoring the drunks passed out on the floor, security hustled us out into the night. At  my whimpering protest, security revealed the staff had instructed. The homeless, crouching unseen in the shadows of a dark alley, are tolerable, but not in your face in a brightly lit waiting room. So out we went.

Move or Freeze

There was nothing to do but walk – we had to keep moving – though the cold was brutal. Passing a church, our hopes soared only to find the doors firmly locked and chained. The nightclubs had emptied out; the restaurants had closed long before. After what seemed like hours of walking, a 24-hour supermarket materialized out of the snow. Pretending to shop, we gained nearly an hour of warmth before the security guard started following us around. Leaving with two bananas and a candy bar to share, we saw a lone bus go by and came up with a plan.

Somehow, the long night ended and when day buses began running, at 6:am, we bought two weekly passes.  It took almost half our remaining money but we now had a warm place to go. Unwittingly, we were joining a community of invisible people who survived by sleeping on the night buses, changing every hour as each run ended. For three weeks, we avoided the icy snow as we searched for work and shelter. Fellow homeless refugees included university graduates, builders, retirees and laborers, even a ballerina. Many spoke only the most basic of English. One elderly Scotsman befriended us; he showed us where to get water (at night, one tap in all central London), where to get free food (occasionally), how to get a shower and find an unlocked toilet. We would nap, 40 minutes between depots, then brave the cold to find the next bus going back along the route we’d just come.

A Lifetime in a Moment

In daytime, seriously sleep deprived, we scrubbed up in the public showers at Victoria Station, the moment they opened, then looked for work. In our job-hunting clothes for a few hours every day, we became visible. Eye contact, common courtesies, we would re-join the human race. But stowing the clean clothes in the little case and bundling-up against the night-time chill, silent invisibility again settled over us like a shroud.

Seven years on, that winter remains a powerful memory. The London of Oliver Twist still exists today. Any kindness, any compassion toward us, came from those who had nothing left to give.

Homeless and Silent

The proud old Scotsman, with his once splendid clothes and good manners; what happened between his beginning and his end? Does survival mean pushing our humanity aside… What is the true language of the human spirit? Silence…

The cautious ones, the quiet ones; these invisible remnants of humanity have crossed an ocean of sorrows. Now, stranded on the edges of society, they must climb a wall of indifference.  For the old and the weak, the obstacles are sometimes too high: Easier to melt away into the shadows, invisible until it’s time to leave the party.

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