“At first, I assumed they were another tragic statistic...”
Why would an elderly woman and her son choose to live for years on a bench in south London? And what – if anything – is being done to help them? Tom de Castella reports from Tooting
A large bulky object wrapped in a bright blue tarpaulin. It is sitting in the middle of the pavement. It could be an old piano, maintenance equipment, a delivery waiting to be unpacked. But then the tarpaulin starts to move, an arm appears and the cover is pulled back to reveal a man and a woman, swaddled in blankets, sitting on a bench. They have been living on this bench on a busy London street for more than four years. By day, they sit there watching the world go by. At night, they pull the cover over and sleep. The bench has become their home.
When I first saw them, I assumed they were another tragic homelessness statistic, abandoned by society. But the more you know, the more complex it becomes. So who are they? As I looked into it, I discovered that the bench people are a mother and her adult son, originally from Somalia. The mother is in her 70s, the son in his 30s, though he looks older. And bizarrely, it turns out that they’ve been offered a series of flats by the council. Each offer has been refused; they haven’t even gone to look.
Living on this bench in Tooting appears to be a choice.
A survey for the Greater London
Authority and the charity St
Mungo’s found a total of 3,289 people sleeping rough in the capital at least once between October and December last year, the highest figure since records began. But less than a quarter of London’s rough-sleepers have been on the street for two consecutive years. Could it be that the mother and son have lived outdoors, in the same very public place, for longer than anyone else in the UK? I do some checking and the bench people’s back story is this. For a few years they lived in a council flat in nearby Battersea. But after the death of a family member, rent arrears built up, and in February 2014 Wandsworth Council evicted them. Sources close to the council say temporary accommodation had been lined up for them, but the mother and son never showed up. No one foresaw what would happen next.
The first bench they made their home was outside a TK Maxx store on Upper Tooting Road, a few hundred metres from where they are now. But in December 2014, they were hospitalised because of the cold – and while they were away the council had the bench removed, claiming this was “in their best interests”. When the mother was discharged – her son remained in hospital for a while longer – she headed home to the bench only to find it had gone. A reporter for the Wandsworth Guardian described the scene: “The woman is now huddled up on a chair, using an umbrella to shelter her from the rain. She is wrapped in blankets, alone, on the exact spot where the bench once stood.” There was also, for a time, a bench in Balham. Then, no later than April 2015, the mother and son moved to a bench outside Tooting library. And there they have stayed.
It’s 2.15pm on a weekday afternoon. The mother and son are pulling the tarpaulin over their heads to have a rest. A bus is stuck in traffic beside them as they do this. Everyone on the lower deck turns to watch. You can see the curiosity on people’s faces: “Do these people really live here?” There’s something incongruous about the blue-tarpaulin structure in among the hipster barbers and market stalls serving locally distilled gin. Tooting is rapidly gentrifying. But here are two people with nothing apart from a few blankets.
From a distance, the mother and son seem lost in Zen-like contemplation of their surroundings. He occasionally reads a book or brushes his hair. She tends to sit and stare. The practicalities are hard to fathom. How do you fit two sleeping bodies on that bench? Do they sleep sitting up? (They do, with the help of suitcases to support their feet.) Are they warm enough in sub-zero conditions? Can they stay cool at the height of summer? What about noise? There’s the beep, beep, beep of the pelican crossing, the bass roar of buses and the screech of food-delivery mopeds that rarely stop, day or night. I am guessing here, but it seems they are able to zone out. Their demeanour suggests they’re watching telly in their living room, not feet away from pedestrians and traffic.
“The mother and son are pulling the tarpaulin over their heads to have a rest. A bus is stuck in traffic beside them. Everyone turns to watch”
They never beg. There is no drink or drugs problem, people who work with them say. They don’t accept food or blankets from passers-by but seem to enjoy talking to them. They survive by having a pile of blankets and an array of food and drinks beside their feet donated by local restaurants and fast-food outlets. They use the toilets and washing facilities in the library or local cafés. I learn that minicabs give them free lifts. The son goes to the local mosque each day to pray. They have become a fixture on Mitcham Road, supported by the community, a part of Tooting. But what do they say about the experience?
It’s the end of January and so cold I can see my breath, even though it’s almost midday. I’m curious to know how they’ve been coping. When I approach them, they smile back. Although their answers sometimes get lost in the noise of traffic, the son is happy to tell me that they have been there for a long time (“years
and years”) and that life on the bench can be “very cold”. He is, however, unable to confirm whether they would move into a council flat, if one were offered. “I can’t tell you now, I’m sorry,” he says.
At this point, the mother starts laughing and the son starts chuckling too. It’s contagious, something to do with the absurdity – I laugh as well. They can tell I find their situation bizarre and I sense they, in turn, find my questions bizarre, as if their answers are obvious and I am being obtuse. I tell them I worry about them being here, and wonder whether they wouldn’t prefer a bed in a house. “House needs heat and outside it’s the same,” the son replies. “Yes! Same!” agrees the mother emphatically. This is the clincher, she seems to be saying. Everywhere needs heat, it doesn’t matter whether you are inside or out.
I try to elicit more information about what it’s like living on a bench, but the son is not keen to explain further. “No, I’m very sorry,” he says with a smile. I ask if they’re from Somalia and he says yes. He says it was a long time ago that they came. We part smiling at each other, on good terms but perplexed by each others’ questions and answers. In the couple of brief chats I’d had before, I’d wondered if their English was good enough to talk. Now I don’t believe that basic comprehension is the problem. Instead I worry about their ability to understand their situation and the options available to them. They’ve told me that living in the open and living in a house are the same in winter. And that everywhere is cold in the winter.
What’s the difference between a bench and a flat? Who needs a bed? It’s hard to argue back.
“Some may regard their situation as a very British compromise, but can this really
be the best place for them to live?”
An hour later, I’m in Al Jazeera
Coffee, a nearby café popular with Somalis. Groups of men are huddled round tables, warming themselves with glasses of black tea. I’m directed to Abdiaziz Hashi, a man who knows their story well. He went to see the mother and son, he says, but they wouldn’t listen to him. The Somali community feel hurt by the case. They have repeatedly offered the mother and son lodging in people’s homes, but, like the council, each time they have been rebuffed. I am shown a Somali-language news report on YouTube interviewing Somalis in Tooting about the case. A woman in an embroidered headscarf says: “I am saddened by it. We have tried everything – she [the mother] refused to listen to our advice.” My companion shakes his head. There is not much more the Somali community can do, he says. He is in awe of their resilience, but worried about their mental well-being. Later that night I’m walking home from the Tube. It’s 9.50pm and the temperature is 5°C, the temperature of a fridge. On the bench, the blue tarpaulin is pulled down. It’s going to be a low of -3°C tonight, according to the BBC forecast.
Why would a homeless person refuse accommodation? It may be because the offer “doesn’t fit their needs”, says Hannah Gousy, policy manager at the charity Crisis. They may prefer sleeping rough to sharing a hostel with others who could have complex needs arising from trauma, abuse, addiction. They may not trust other homeless people, or the agencies who say they want to help. Having a place of their own could also be a daunting prospect for those accustomed to life on the street. You have to pay bills and get benefits. You have to obey other people’s rules.
I find myself pondering another question. Are the mother and son breaking the law by being there? I ask a range of lawyers what would happen if I were to occupy a bench in this way. Gary Rycroft, a solicitor put forward by the Law Society, says it’s a clear trespass. “Trespass will arise wherever there is a landowner whose land is occupied by an unauthorised party.” But can a bench on a public pavement be seen as somebody’s property? “There will always be an owner. The land may be owned by a local authority or part of the public highway.” Shelter disagrees. Their legal adviser says it is “not either a criminal offence or a breach of the civil law to move your belongings and family onto a park bench – unless there is a local by-law which makes it unlawful”. Wandsworth Council later informs me it has no by-law. The usual offences used to justify moving rough sleepers on are begging, anti-social behaviour or blocking the highway. None of these apply here – and anyway, say sources close to the council, it would be futile to move them on. The mother and son would find another bench, if necessary in another borough.
I began by thinking that something must be done. I instinctively felt the mother and son needed help. Now I know they don’t want to be moved, and that they may not be breaking the law, I find myself turning to another question that can no longer be dodged. Are they capable of making a decision in their best interests? By law, a person lacks mental capacity if they cannot do one of the following four things: understand, remember, communicate or weigh up information. I talk to two well-placed sources. They say the pair have not been found to have any serious mental health issue. The mother and son see the bench as their home, the sources tell me. They like being part of the community, and would not feel safe living in a flat. Soon afterwards, Wandsworth Council sends me a statement about the mother and son. Over the past few years, the council has offered them four different properties to move into, it says – but all have been turned down. The council also continues to work closely alongside other agencies and partners to monitor their physical and mental well-being and their capacity to make decisions, it adds. For now, however, it is stalemate.
My last conversation with the mother and son was back on a spring-like February day. The mother smiled in the sunshine and we talked about how nice the weather was. I asked if she was happy here. A flicker of annoyance spread across her face. Was I intruding? She said she didn’t speak English and we said our goodbyes. I wanted to solve the mystery of what they want from life, but they remain an enigma. During the summer heatwave, when the temperature reached the high 30s, they had replaced the tarpaulin with an umbrella, which they used to shelter from the Sun. Now they are under cover again as I pass every morning; there has been heavy rain and they are back in hibernation mode.
They seem content on the bench. Their behaviour isn’t anti-social, the authorities accept their presence, and mostly the locals treat them with kindness and tolerance. Some might regard it as a very British compromise, but can this really be the best place for them to live? I find that hard to accept. When the council unscrewed their bench in 2014, it said it was acting in the mother and son’s best interests. Now it has concluded that it is in their best interest to leave them be. It says it respects their choice, but perhaps both sides, in their own ways, are taking the path of least resistance.
If the mother or her son were to become seriously ill – or worse, to die – the community would surely blame itself for doing nothing. But for now it remains numbed to the strange permanence of their blue plastic shelter. A longer version of this article appeared on the Stories section of BBC News (bbc.co.uk/news/stories).