‘I WENT FROM A JOB AND £300,000 HOUSE... TO LIVING ON THE STREETS OF CARDIFF’
REACHING OUT TO ROUGH SLEEPERS CAMPAIGN STARTS TODAY
HUGH can remember the exact moment on September 26, 2016, when he realised he had nowhere to sleep but the streets of Cardiff.
He remembers the cup of tea which gave him warmth for the first time and the moment he slept on a mattress for the first time six months later.
Hugh had left his home in West Wales due to breakdowns in relationships. As he left, he thought he had places to turn. Both fell through.
The then-51-year-old trained accountant didn’t expect to spend eight months homeless but he found himself sleeping on the streets of Cathays.
The night he arrived he had two suitcases. He didn’t have a sleeping bag, a quilt or a pillow. He had no money, what he had packed were smart clothes.
“I hardly slept,” he says about that first night of living on the streets.
The following morning, he hid his suitcases under a tree.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do or where I was going. I came back into central Cardiff and met more homeless people who taught me the ropes.”
A friend discovered he was on the streets and let him sleep on her sofa for four nights. But then he was back on the streets. One of the tips he had been given was to sleep away from the city, and away from busy areas.
His home became a second floor fire escape at a university building.
By now, he had been given a sleeping bag – that was his only source of warmth.
“If someone had told me that when I was 51, that I would have lost my job, gone from having a £300,000 home, and even the static caravan I had, to nothing, I would have laughed. But here I was.
“What was I supposed to do? I told myself I just had to get on with it and make the best of a bad situation.”
He gained tips from other homeless people.
One is to get a free daily breakfast from charity The Wallich. The breakfast runs seven days a week. Staff and volunteers take breakfast rolls, boiled eggs and tea to people who have spent the night on the streets.
For Hugh it became a lifeline. He says the free cup of tea was the only thing that kept him going.
“I had to get myself up and out to catch them. They were around between 7.45am and 8.15am.
“I used to find them by M&S otherwise I would have to chase them down Queen Street.
“Every day I would get a cup of tea with sugar for energy.
“The priority was that cup of tea. When I found out about the breakfast run I hadn’t had a drink for a couple of days.