Finsbury Park station

 I write, upon my Macbook, whilst communiting to work on the train.

Warm coffee in cup, that emparted heat to my cold hands upon the station platform, wrapped in a green wool coat, jumper, wool socks and comfy shoes. Rucksack slung over shoulder with well intentioned fruit and sustenance, to ensure I don't get the daily reminder from my wife to "Eat,". The weight loss drugs are running through my veins and it can easily get to 3pm and I'll have forgotten about food entirely.

But it hasn't always been this way.

Food and I have a complicated relationship. Sometimes it's a need, an addiction, sometimes it's a purge. Sometimes, more often than not, it's the scourge on my life, longevity and best laid plans. It began in 1987, starved and scared in the cess pits of London town, and it very much circled back there. To which this blog is in remberance of.

I say probably once a week to friends, or close colleagues, the work I do is a giant trigger, it's a fine rope I walk keeping one toe in a trauma fuelled industry and one in my own sanity and safe place. But it is the work I chose, or rather, as I feel all the more; it chose me.

Yesterday, a message of help, and SOS in a community group seeking support for a homeless lady, sleeping rough in a tent outside a council building having received little to no support from statuatory services due to being another invisble woman slipping through the cracks in the system that in 2025, are more chasm than crack. 

It was cold yesterday up north, frosty winds that bite the face, the fingertips and a rain that only Mancunians will recognise with the ode of "it soaks you to the bone," and it does. Bitterly.

I read the SOS and thought, not today.

As I often do. I suppose the difference being, I had a certain power in my arsenal to be of small help. And so I set to work in sending emails, calling hostels, emergency accommodations, all who sent me round in circles "You need to speak to this person," "You need to apply through the gateway," "You're not one of our referral partners,"

So, community bank account card in hand, I booked private accomodation for lady in question, a few nights at a reasonable cost - and one that's costed beautifully into one of our more recent grant funding pots from GM Mayors Homelessness charity - to allocate a portion of that money to emergency accommodation costs. Emergency is a hilarious concept, as the council clearly don't feel it's urgent or this woman would not be in icy cold torrential rain sleeping outside their front door, with none of her own. Regardless. Housed, home, warm for a few nights, it was my small contribution to what I later described to my wife as "I feel like I'm plugging the hole in the titanic with my finger,"

I remember the cold wind that bites, and the fingertips that lose feeling, where you sit on your hands and hope the heat radiating from your bottom, or in fact, leaving your body and ebbing into a cold hard pavement, lasts. It doesn't.

It disappates, along with your hope, that it will ever be any different.

I remember my first night in a hostel; the sense of relief, repreive. The peeling of dirty cold clothes from my unkept and unclean body. Dropped to the floor, wrapped in budget and somewhat raw feeling towel. A hot shower that burned more than it cleaned, but the feeling is something I'll never forget. I stayed under that water longer than most monsoons. Bought and paid for, I was getting my monies worth.

Princes Square, London. Amongst the priviledge of town houses and Christmas film aestheics, a run away in my twenties, a strange concept. Mid night flit carrying just one bag. Naive and childish. I ran from my family. For the last time. I've never set foot there since. 

A top bunk is never my first choice, and it makes me smirk as I type, given that the next time I would be in a top bunk would be padded up in prison with two lairy scouse drug dealers who made much less amiable roomates.

In Princes Square, it was various Eastern European women, who hung their laundry from bunk to bunk like some sort of continental wash house, but it was dual purpose, drying - and privacy, and for that I was grateful.

Sleeping rough in London is a different thing. Although, I've never slept rough up North properly, a few hours slumped in the street after a binge, yes. But cold long nights as a single woman, young and vulnerable? No.

We gather, like pack rats in the dark. Under a bridge in Finsbury Park station, it's reasonable lit, only small patches of wet from the creaks above, and if you avoid the puddles and find an indent, it's warm enough to pretend you could get some sleep.

Fuelled on Tesco sandwiches, cast at your feet with piteous and well intentioned smiles, it's food enough to keep you alive, but you find yourself wondering, why? Because life isn't worth living in this moment and if you become and invislbe death on the streets of London, no-one will know your name, your real name. And even worse, no-one will care.

When you have enough money for a hostel, it becomes the ideal, the dream. If you make enough money, you can even book yourself into the Wedgewood hotel where you can shower in absolute private, pee in peace, spread out on a double bed, watch television and boil a kettle as many times as you like. Readers of the Daily Mail will tell you this is the luxury of what homelessness and emergency accommodation is. Or better; this is what prison is for many.

Imagine - a heated room with a bed, a dignity to far for the pariahs and the predators on our oh so moral society.

I imagine our fair lady who is still as I type, tucked up in bed, warm, she tells me so this morning via a message - felt that same feeling I did all those years ago.

Relief.

I said to Sarah last night whilst we walked in the rain, as I needed to move, to think, to process

"I don't know how I'm still alive, and I did this, there was no-one there to save me, I saved me, me,"

And it made me proud and sad all mingled into one ball of emotion.

I don't know how I'm still here.

A probation officer once said that to me, after my first misdemeanour and awaiting drug treatment 

"The life you've had it's a wonder you're still here,"

I laughed awkwardly.

Who knew it would become something so much worse in so many different ways.

I wrote last night that I am perhaps too invested in my work sometimes, and that much is true, it takes as much as it gives on occasion, but I think anyone who creates a movement or organisation from lived experience and desire to change something, does so in the knowledge of that. I responded to the need of that lady yesterday, because I could, because I felt it, because I've lived it. I've checked on her and worriedd about her and wondered what more I can do to help her.

Yesterday whilst dancing around statuatory services, I met one of our Coming Home ladies for coffee; she apologised that she couldn't treat me to coffee because she was barely making ends meet - I reminded her that when she meets for a check in, it's a Coming Home coffee, not a treat Fran coffee. She exudes gratitude. Every other word out of her mouth is either Thank you, or Sorry. I tell her neither are necessary. She's come from a meeting and she's working hard to recover, reintegrate, I see the progress and it's a joy.

We talk about the cost of living with Christmas coming up; and I share the plans for the Coming Home pop up shop and tell her not to worry as much about the little things she needs; she can find them there. I ask her her plans for Christmas, and I feel her answer in the pit of my stomach.

Shes spending it alone. Her family don't want her.

I know that feeling. I hear the voice of my mother of Christmas Eve 2010 saying "We've discussed it, and actually, we think it's better if you don't come,"

I put the phone down, and proceed to wrap all of their gifts in a disassociative state.

The next day I try to kill myself and wake up in hospital on Boxing Day. Merry Christmas.

So when she tells me shes spending it alone, we start to write a safety plan and I tell her what we did last year - knowing that Christmas is a giant trigger for reoffending, for safety, for relapse, last year, I created an event where Coming Home ladies could dial into zoom for an hour on Christmas Day and cook Christmas dinner with me.

It was me, my camera, pottering, basting turkey, dusting potatoes in flour, with an overseeing eye of approval from my Northern potato loving wife, and the opportunity for people to connect, share and have community on Christmas Day.

The same will happen this year; I said to Sarah last night "do you mind if I have an hour on Christmas Day to do the dial-in again?"

She's on board. Of course she is.

Important to ask, it is after all, our Christmas, her Christmas.

But she knows all too well, what Christmas is to me and how it makes me feel so she grabs my hand a little tighter as we walk home.

So, just your average Tuesday?

Homeless lady housed for a few nights.

Coming Home lady fed, watered, empowered and a little trip to Asda to get some essentials, because again, thanks to the design of bursaries into our budgets, I can.

And I will.

For those who need community, for those who need visiblity, we are here.

I can't change the world for everyone, but if we cross paths and it's in my capacity, I will do my damned best.

It's the little things that matter.

We all need to do our bit.

Christmas Day with Coming Home https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/christmas-with-coming-home-tickets-1974614331621?aff=oddtdtcreator