Homelessness In Portsmouth

TUESDAY 5^TH JUNE 2012. Tonight we found 3 new homeless men, GARETH, JIM, KEVIN and we also see Tinny.

The weather was awful this evening, windy and very wet but we carried on regardless. At the end of the day we are only in the wet and wind for literally minutes at a time, not like the poor homeless guys who have to sleep in it !!

I picked Courtney up then we headed to the Hard interchange, we sat with Tinny for a short while, even though it was raining, he was feeling a bit low this evening, think it was the miserable weather ! We gave tinny some meat rolls, crisps, cakes and coffee etc and had a little chat with him, trying to cheer him up. I asked Tinny about the big building that was opposite him as it was empty and would be ideal for the homeless guys to do up, he said it was privately owned and had security guards there all the time. I told him I would look into it but couldn’t promise anything. Courtney and I carried on round in the car to the Gosport ferry end to see if the other regulars were about but they weren’t. There was a young guy who we got out to speak to, he was soaking wet, been begging most of the day and had nothing dry to sleep in now. We gave him some hot soup and food. His name was Gareth, he used to live in Wiltshire and has been in care most of his life, he said he has had to fend for himself since he was little which I found very sad. He was a chatty person. Another guy came along to where we were chatting then Gareth said it was time for him to give the pitch to someone else now, he was moving on for the next homeless guy. This is the usual way the homeless guys work, they share a pitch to beg or sell the big issue.

Anyway, Gareth moved off then this other guy asked me if I had any food, he was foreign, his name was Jim. He didn’t look homeless but he said that he and his friend, Kevin, had only been on the streets for 1 week. They travelled down from Liverpool as they were told that they would find work down here. When speaking to him his friend came along so we fed and watered him as well. They are both from Hungry. It felt so guilty as I didn’t bring any clothes or bedding out this evening and they both were very cold and had no shelter from the rain either. I advised them to have a chat with Tinny as he may be able to point them in the right direction for a nights shelter out of the rain, I did tell them about the hot walls as it was kind of closed in…

Courtney and I carried on our usual route but found no one else apart from a very drunk homeless guy sitting in a door way, this frightened Courtney and she didn’t want me to stop the car. He was a bit of a state and had a black eye, he did look a bit dodgy so we carried on. I’ll come back and see him next week as I don’t like leaving people if they need help but I was worried about little Courtney’s feelings at the time.