Focus on groups who help homeless
Charities, politicians, housing organisations and the public met to discuss the city’s homelessness problem. A conference at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution in Queen Square on Friday was organised by Wera Hobhouse MP and Roanne Wotten from homeless charity Julian House. Ms Hobhouse said: “I’m so proud to see we get a full room about an issue like this. “Bath is a beautiful city, it’s got beautiful buildings but I particularly like it because it’s full of people who care and I think today’s conference and the interest it has provoked in so many people is really a testimony that Bath cares about this issue.” The first speaker was Rick Henderson, chief executive of Homeless Link, a national charity for organisations working directly with the homeless in England. He’s also a member of the National Rough Sleeping Advisory Panel, and the European homelessness network. He said: “I didn’t come here to depress you all but homelessness is a tragedy, a travesty. It is entirely homemade and that’s sad… but I believe it’s going to change.” Lucy Bowyer has been assistant director of services at the Albert Kennedy Trust for the last seven years. The trust is a voluntary organisation created in 1989 to serve the young LGBTQ+ community who are homeless, living in a hostile environment or in housing crisis. She told the audience that one in four of the young homeless identify as LGBTQ+ and that 77 per cent said their primary reason for being homeless was family rejection due to coming out. She said: “We are an organisation that’s been around for 29 years… we do an awful lot for a very vulnerable group of people in society who often find themselves in extremely difficult situations and not really having places to turn to.” Paul Rhode, a local taxi driver, put a personal face on the issues of homelessness. He said: “Nobody when they are 15 years old goes to their careers teacher and says ‘I know what I want to be. I want to be homeless.’ They have no idea what’s going to happen.” He told how he went from being a stockbroker in New York to being affected by the financial crash and ending up homeless and sofa surfing in Bath. He ended his speech by saying: “Homelessness and addiction is the biggest thief because there is not one person in here that it couldn’t happen to. Hey I was in a penthouse with a swimming pool on my roof. You think it could have happened to me? No. There is not one person in this whole room that couldn’t be homeless at one point. ”You can lose your family, you can lose your money, you can lose absolutely everything so never ever think it won’t happen to you.” Roanne Wootten, operations director for Julian House, opened the second half of the afternoon by telling stories of her child’s reaction to seeing homeless people on the streets. She said: “I tell him the positives. I tell him that our outreach team have helped someone into hostel today when really they were too scared to come in. I tell him that we helped a woman and a dog to get a home and to get a new job so she can make it her forever home.” DHI’S housing director David Walton talked about the work his charity does, in particular around using social investment to build homes for the homeless. “The main idea of social investment is when you repay a loan to achieve social good as well as a return for the investor,” he said, Next, Off the Record’s operations manager Siobiann Chaplain told of the mental health charity’s listening services, counselling, and youth voice project. She said: “It’s really important if you’re a young persons’ organisation, adults have good ideas, but young people have better ideas. They are so inspirational and we want to grow with young people.” Hostel support worker Keith was the final speaker of the event. His emotional tale of being a heroin and crack cocaine addict for 22 years brought a standing ovation. He has now been over four years clean and works with those who were in need like he was, saying it was strange to be “working with guys I used with”. He said: “My fear of dying keeps me going.” The conference ended with a question and answer session hosted by Bath Chronicle editor Gavin Thompson. After the event, Ms Hobhouse said: “Bath is lucky to have some amazing organisations who fight homelessness every day. This event gave them the chance to share their experiences from the frontlines. “I encourage anyone who wants to help the homeless this year to support them in any way you can.”