Outonthe streets with theteam helping city homeless ROUGH SLEEPERS IN GLASGOW
APolitical Correspondent FOCUS on addictions as well as housing is needed to combat Glasgow’s rough sleeping issue, according to people working in the front line services.
The Evening Times accompanied the Simon Community street team dealing with people living on the city streets.
Addiction, mental health and relationship breakdowns were just some of the pressing concerns for the many men and women with no place to call home.
Glasgow’s ‘Golden Z’ of Argyle Street, Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street is the beating retail heart of the city’s economy.
Millions of pounds flow through tills of some of the biggest names as shoppers walk the streets with bags emblazoned with designer labels.
The same streets are also home for dozens of people sleeping in doorways and back lanes every night.
Others come into the city centre to beg for enough cash to feed an alcohol or drug addiction then go back to some form of shelter or temporary accommodation.
On a Monday 8am start, it didn’t take long before we encounter the first rough sleeper in Glasgow city centre.
Jim Thomson, a support worker, is doing the regular morning walk to check on rough sleepers to see if any help can be offered.
Minutes after leaving the Hub at Glasgow Cross, he sees a man lying in a doorway in Argyle Street.
Only a part of his face is visible as he is tightly wrapped in his sleeping bag and beanie had pulled down to keep out the cold.
He is still asleep. Jim checks he is okay and we move on.
In Royal Exchange Square under the arch, a popular spot for begging, another man sits reading a book.
He needs some hospital treatment for a long-standing problem and Jim is encouraging him to get seen. He checks he doesn’t need anything, sleeping bag? Clean needles? Then we move on.
We turn into Sauchiehall Street and head along towards the old BHS, whose now empty doorways have become home for many people.
A man and woman, a couple well known to Jim and other support workers are asleep in their sleeping bags.
They can’t be roused but are alive, so we move on. The couple have been on the streets for a long time and are well known to support workers and social services.
Further along there is a young woman sitting against a bollard, knees up to her chin and a homeless and hungry sign in front of her.
She and her boyfriend are sleeping in a tent just outside the city centre. She says she can’t get into emergency or temporary accommodation because they have a dog.
She is encouraged to go and present for accommodation anyway.
THERE is another woman on the city streets who is pregnant but we do not see her that day.
Further down sitting with his back to a street bin is a young man in a sleeping bag with another little bag of belongings.
Jim has met him before and thinks he can be helped today.
Adam, (not his real name) looks in need of some food, heat and hot water.
He has a few cuts and grazes but is awake and talkative.
When Jim asks if he would like to go and present for accommodation, he is up on his feet and eager to seek help.
We set off for the long walk from Sauchiehall Street to the TwoMax homeless centre in Gorbals.
First stop is a trip to Social Bite café in the city centre where he is able to get a free breakfast and hot drink.
On the way Adam tells his story. He is not from Glasgow but has family in the city and been living rough for some time.
Adam said his current time on the streets was sparked after relationship problems and leaving the temporary accommoda-
tion he was in with his girlfriend. He said a recent event meant he couldn’t stay there and left to go back on the streets and he thought he wouldn’t get accommodation because he chose to leave.
At the TwoMax, Jim and Adam disappear into a cubicle for an interview and emerge with good news. The flat was in his name, so he is to get a new set of keys and can return there immediately.
Adam leaves with Jim to sort out an emergency food parcel and try and arrange benefits for him.
Had Jim not come across Adam that morning he would doubtless still be sleeping on the street.
Jim said the lack of a roof is not the priority for most people on the streets only a part of the problem.
He said: “We need more emergency accommodation to get people off the streets and we need more supported accommodation. Most of them are just people lost in addiction who are in survival mode.”
Hugh Hill, director of Services and Development at Simon Community Scotland, said: “In addition to rapid access to housing people we need to deliver joined up and accessible responses to improving peoples physical health and interventions that respond to the mental health challenges people experience.” IN the summer of 2014 when Glasgow was celebrating the Commonwealth Games and putting on its best face for the world, Jim Thomson was living on the streets.
Spending his days raising cash to feed a drug addiction and nights looking for somewhere safe to sleep.
For 14 years he had been living the life of an addict moving from place to place wherever he could stay, friends, family, temporary accommodation and sleeping rough.
It had, he said become his normality and he was “comfortable in my own misery”.
He said he had long ago accepted this was his life.
Then the death of his mother sparked a change and he took the steps to turn his life around.
He said: “The pain that I felt made me realise I had to get out of this.”
Aware that addiction was his number one problem and everything else stemmed from that, his first step was the Drug Crisis Centre.
He then embarked on a remarkable transformation that now sees him working to help others in the situation he once was.
Because of his own experience none of the people on the streets are a lost cause to him.
He said: “If I can turn my life round so can they.”
Jim got himself clean of drugs and started volunteering with the Simon Community within six months.
Developing a passion for the work he studied to get his SVQ qualification to allow him to apply for a job and has been a support worker ever since.
Jim, 45, speaks to the people on the streets knowing he might not get through to them that day but by building a relationship, one day they might be ready to change their lives.
And when they do he will be there.