This is homelessness | An Insight
By: Laura Ash
Tags: London, Homelessness, Suffering, Hope

There is an abundance of chairs. So much so that they are hung with thick plastic ribbons from the ceiling, where they swing motionless and limp like empty child swings.

The shop window is open and fake confetti has been plastered to the walls in a freeze frame-esque celebration of the event of overpriced furniture and consumerism.

Flags adorn the walls. Heals, it says. A clock costs £50. A vase: £70.

Across the street, there is a standalone Cafe Nero. Perhaps a relict from times past where bombs destroyed the surrounding shops. In the crevice between that and the American International Church — a brown brick building with steps arching to the middle like the Natural History Museum — a park. It looks cold and damp. The sunlight doesn’t hit it the way it hits other parts around here. It is scared. A place like this is devoid of happiness and, one would assume, devoid of life.

But, in a section of muddy peat, open enough for birds to build their nests but closed off enough to afford protection, 2 feet in navy and orange socks appear. Over the edge of that wall, where a head is blanketed by a pigeon poo stained sleeping bag, is ‘Eden’. Vantra Eden is a restaurant and it sells juices and salad-boxed food — all vegan. Eden. Away from the safety of that little cafe, there doesn’t seem to be much paradise here.

The man with the socks is curled up on a piece of cardboard to keep him off the floor. Everything apart from those little crossed over feet are covered. A form of shelter has been attempted where tarpaulin is strung between the trees. There is a plastic bowl on the wall and there isn’t much else. His sleep is deep and the gravity of his situation seems to be even deeper. We nearly miss him for his perfect camouflage, hidden like he is esconded from any form of compassion left in the government’s eye.

On the other side of the road from where the man with the flag of Armenia on his socks is, marks the other 2 points of this Bermuda triangle of poverty. 3 makeshift shelters under the cover of Heals. There are more people than tents. One man sits on the cold tiled concrete with his world bandaged into overflowing black bags. He stretches his legs against a pillar and looks at us, a group of 6 twenty-somethings armed with teas and coffees, with suspicion. His beard is tame in comparison to the wilderness in his eyes. They seem to choke on the sight of our approaching gang.

His name is Jeffery, we find out. He is bruised from a previous experience he had with a group like ours. A group lacking basic necessities for him. He is quick to judge, easy to anger but fast to trust one of the girls in our group. She talks to him as we make tea and slowly begins to chip away at the hardening concrete forming around his edges. He was a chef. He had his own burger joint. He now has ulcers and a transparent sandwich bag of pills to heal him.

Further along, a man adjusts himself. A deep bumcrack escapes from his jogging bottoms, which are grey; that classic grey.

Even further, 2 men: one who will speak and one who will not. They decline tea. It doesn’t feel as though they should, but some people are happy in their own company. Others are embarrassed. And others still, quite simply, don’t like hot drinks. Not everyone wants to be our friends, we must remember. Some people don’t want free hugs and time-dependent compaderie.

This is Sunday morning. This is the state of our country — an oxymoron of object placement. We are trying to fix and unseen and seemingly unmanageable problem by opening wounds before we bandage them. We don’t just want to give them hot drinks, we want to show them a way out. We want to be the green pastures outside the tunnel. The end of the tarmac. The freedom.

And so we will continue to come each week. We see different faces and we see the same ones. We will continue to give them what we can because not only is it their problem, but it should also be ours.