Photo Credit: Marksteen Adamson
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio and St Martin-in-the-Fields have been in partnership at Christmas to provide year-round support for homeless people for 92 years. Thanks to the generosity of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 listeners the Appeal last year raised over 3 million pounds.
Unfortunately the need is more urgent than ever, with numbers of homeless people in London and around the country rising. The money raised is shared between The Connection, which is London-based, and the Vicar’s Relief Fund which operates across the UK.
One person who had his life changed by the Christmas Appeal was Andrew in Liverpool. With the help of his housing support worker Janet, Andrew received a grant for £200 from the Vicars Relief Fund in April this year, which meant he was able to leave homelessness behind and put down a deposit on the flat he had seen in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton and longed to live in. This is Andrew’s story.
‘I was a drinker... I was horrible, I was nasty, I was foul-mouthed, I was aggressive. I was married, two children, lived in a lovely house in Runcorn, and Christmas just gone there was an incident at my house with me and my wife which resulted in me being locked up Christmas night. I was given a Restraining Order from the family home which basically left me with absolutely nothing. So I was on the street with the clothes that I was stood up in.
I went and bought a bottle of whisky, cried my eyes out, slept wherever I could sleep… nobody wanted to know me. My friends turned their back, my family turned their back. ..I went and I was a tramp. I had nothing. I didn’t care. I’d given up. I hadn’t shaved, I hadn’t washed, I hadn’t eaten. I was a mess. The only thing I wanted to do was die. If I’d had any of my medication with me at that time I would have taken it all.
I’d gone from being a hospital manager, driving round in a nice car, had a lovely house, a lovely family, to find that I had nowhere to sleep. I had nowhere to go. It was cold, it was wet, and I was suicidal. Everything went wrong so I just gave up.’
The turning point for Andrew came when he met his probation officer Claire, and then Janet, his housing support worker from Riverside Housing in Liverpool.
'It was only a short meeting with Janet but that meeting was enough to give me hope. And that’s all I had. They lit a little candle inside, they gave me a little ray of hope. Hope and the clothes I stood up in and that’s where I was January 27th 2018. And I haven’t looked back.'
Janet applied for a grant for £200 from the Vicar’s Relief Fund, one of the St Martin’s charities which is funded by the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal, and this secured the tenancy for Andrew of a 9th floor flat in the south Liverpool suburb of Woolton which he desperately wanted.
'I’d seen this flat, I fell in love with this flat. I just knew it straight away ‘we’re a team, me and this flat are a team’. I cried when I viewed it. It was like one more grasp, one more chance, one more go at making this work. 16th April 2018 I was given the keys. To my flat. It was like winning the Lottery.
I go to bed now and I can turn my heating on, I can get a hot bath. I can have a cup of tea. I don’t need to go and buy alcohol any more. I’m just so happy inside. And if I have a bad day I just close the door. I’m in my safety zone, I’m in my bubble, I’m in my place. I absolutely love it, I do.
My health’s getting better, I’ve not had a drink since January. 5 years without teeth and I’m getting my teeth next week! My depression is lifted because I sit back and look at what I’ve got, what I’ve achieved and where I am. I’ve no reason to be down and that’s all because of the help, the people that have supported me.
My step-daughters come up. I don’t think they’ve ever liked me before. They couldn’t bear to be in the same room as me because I was drinking. But now they text me, they come up, and when they come they don’t want to go home. My whole world has totally changed. My confidence is starting to come back.
From sleeping under hedges, next to wheelie-bins and in back alleyways now I’ve got this flat. It’s paradise. It probably sounds like a cliché but I’ve gone from wishing I was dead to ‘I want to live till I’m 90.’ And now I get to spend Christmas in my flat.'
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