Scots on capital’s streets need our help, not pity

Anyone can lose their way, as shown by the number of Scots who still find themselves sleeping rough in London. population, 37% of Scottish clients have been rough sleeping across a minimum of two consecutive years.

The figure for UK clients as a whole – 26% – is significantly lower.

Happily, Glenn and Scott are now getting back on their feet thanks to Borderline, a charity which specifically helps homeless Scots in London.

It employs a Scottish outreach worker, Alex Lavin, to whom people are referred from around the capital.

A Scot himself, he gets to know them and finds out what kind of help they need, which could be paying for a ticket home to Scotland or securing a place in a hostel.

The particular difficulty he faces is having to prove a local link to access services, which are stretched as it is and so limited to people with a connection to the area.

For the men – and they are predominantly men – not from London,

Alex Lavin. this is much harder, even though they may have been sleeping in the same spot for months.

What’s key is that the support doesn’t stop there.

Borderline works closely with ScotsCare, which helps Scots in London more widely, including people coming out of homelessness.

It can provide access to a training course or basic flat furnishings, for example, depending on an individual’s circumstances.

In the case of Billy, also a Scot who was abused as a child and suffers from post- traumatic stress disorder, it is funding psychotherapy sessions.

This has enabled him to connect with his daughter after more than 13 years. Learning about these men, I’m reminded of the phrase attributed to English martyr John Bradford – “There but for the grace of God, go I”.

I expect many people reading this will think homelessness could never happen to them.

I’ll admit that previously I probably would have felt very much the same. But what their stories s h ow is that it doesn’t take much for a person to lose their way. Homelessness is not something that only happens to other people.

It could happen to your father, your brother, your mother, your sister; it could happen to you.

There’s also an ongoing issue of stigma.

In the days when he was sleeping in Hyde Park, cinemas, on benches by the Thames, Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport – wherever he could find – Glenn says he felt a total sense of isolation, that nobody cared if he lived or died.

But he also describes embarrassed.

“How did I get here? What did I do wrong?” he would ask.

Scott similarly remembers being “disgusted” when he looked in the mirror for the first time after moving into supported accommodation.

It’s sad that in 21st Century Britain homelessness remains a problem and can still invoke such feelings of shame.

Of course not everyone can help at the coal face like Alex.

But as a nation – at the very least – we owe it to the other Glenns, Scotts and Billys out there not to be judgemental.

R a t h e r, l e t ’s compassion.

show

feeling

some THE UK government needs to take a “long hard look” at how it is dealing with the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, says an MP.

Kirsten Oswald, SNP spokesperson on armed forces, said the UK had not raised the crisis in Yemen at any key meetings of EU foreign ministers for two years.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has backed continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia even after Saudi air strikes on a funeral in Yemen left 140 people dead and hundreds more injured, a probe by the MP has revealed. ALMOST 20,000 patients waited longer than the target-time for treatment since Scotland’s newest hospital opened its doors, according to the Lib Dems.

A total of 19,577 out of 159,123 people who attended A&E at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, waited for longer than four hours.

Since the hospital opened in May 2015, it has recorded an average performance rate of 87.7% against the Scottish Government’s 95% target, with the benchmark hit two weeks out of 92.

■