Homelessness In Portsmouth

THURSDAY 19^th JANUARY. We found 2 new homeless men this evening, SIMON and GARY, we also see TINNY, PHIL, MARK, PAUL, SEAN, CHRIS, JAMIE and MAC.

Today I spoke with a local bakery to find out if they had any bread left over at the end of the day and if so could we possibly have it to help the homeless. The lady told me to go back at 3.45 of which I did and she gave me 2 bags full of fresh bread. I put most of it in the freezer for the other days we go out and cut and buttered a couple of loaves to take tonight to give with the soup.

Went out with Liam and Harriet this evening, first stop was to see Phil and Mark, they told us that the community wardens are wanting to move them on so they have now got to find somewhere else to sleep, they told me that they will see me next at the same place, they are going to go back and wait for me, bless em. We went onto the hard when we finished with these 2 and met up with Tinny, he looked cold tonight. He was in very good spirits and made us laugh, we gave him food and soup then went to Osborne road where we found Mac and Paul. Poor Mac was talking about Jon, the chap that was found dead in his flat by Ian and his brother. Macs friend drew a picture of blu the bear from jungle book on a wall in memory of him and his homeless friends wrote in it and signed their names as a tribute to him, I was touched by this as Mac is very sincere and a real softy, he does look a bit scary when you first meet him but he is adorable, kind and has a big heart. I asked if I could take a photo and mac said yes and asked if I could print a copy for him. He also said that the picture won’t be there for long so he wanted a little reminder. We gave Mac some soup but he did say that he only wanted pot noodles, I explained that I have to pay for some of the stuff out of my own pocket and pot noodles are too expensive for me to keep buying, he didn’t realise I was doing this off my own back, he thought I was part of the church group. He and the friend he had with him said I was an angel, I just said that I want to do this as I enjoy helping people, doesn’t make me an angel ha ha. We went down to see Paul after and he needed a jumper and food. As I crouched down to speak to him, a lady at the cash point said it was a wonderful thing we were doing by helping these people, I said again that I enjoy doing it. I went to the car to get the jumper and food and when I got back to paul he asked if I could stay because the lady we were speaking to gave him £10, she said it was nice to see people care and she wanted to help too. It just goes to show that seeing someone helping another rubs off and makes people think about their own lives.

We went to Albert road after and met up with Sean, he looked a bit low tonight but soon smiled after a long chat, we gave soup, chocolate bar, crisps, ham roll, bread and butter etc. We went back to the hard to see if Jamie and the others had turned up and he was there with Chris and a new gent called Simon. We gave Jamie the thermals as promised and some food for all of them. Jamie and Chris turned up just to see us , I thought that was sweet. Simon became homeless because he left his girlfriend as she was a drug addict and she overdosed again and Simon found this hard to cope with as this wasn’t the first time. He told me that he is a recovering alcoholic, he is finding it hard to keep off the booze but he does want to improve his life and be a better man.

We headed back home and spotted a young man, Gary sat outside the co-op in Albert road, we stopped and gave him some soup and bread. We never had much time to talk as I was parking illegally and got told off by a policeman passing by in a police car, I had to move asap . We went home after that.

Mac with tribute to Jon