literally another aussie in london

jrod helps the homeless part 4

A week later, I was on my way back, this time for an overnight stay. I figured this would be easier, just me, one other fella, and a bunch of tired homeless people. And sleep, i can do sleep.

Before I went I had hamburgers, the steak had been bad luck the previous week. I took an Egyptian mummy style sleeping bag that I don’t really like, my floor mat thingy, and a pillow, later a homeless guy would snicker at my pillow, not sure why.

On arrival everything seemed pretty calm, a few were asleep already, and I introduced myself to the co-ordinator. She seemed very nice, she told me who was drunk, including my old mate scar face, and a few others, and took me through the names and numbers.  I asked who was on with me, she didn’t know, but it was only just after 9, and no one was due till 9:30.

I found myself a place in the hall, it wasn’t a great spot, but i wasn’t going to fight anyone with their spot. I put all my stuff down and then watched TV with an American guy, some Gordon Ramsey show was on. The American guy was a big fan, he liked that one show, hell’s kitchen, in which Ramsey yells at people. I couldn’t add much to the conversation, so I generally agreed with him and told him the swearing was good.

Scar face came over and had a chat, he asked what I was sleeping on, and I showed him my floor mat, he then got in my face loudly telling me that it was fucken luxury. I nodded. I didn’t think I needed to point out he was sleeping on a blow up mattress.

By this time it was about 20 to ten, and the other guy still hadn’t turned up. I went back to ask the Co-ordinator to find out who was actually supposed to be staying with me, in between I helped moderate a converstaion between the American and Scarface about Simon Cowell, even though they were both on the same side.

The Co-ordinator had found out who was staying with me, and according to her, he was a very reliable chap, I asked if we should call him “No, he’ll be here soon”. I was far from convinced. The thought of spending my first night sleeping with these people on my own wasn’t really what I signed on for.

20 minutes later, when he was 30 minutes late, I asked if she could call him, even knowing how reliable he was, I just wanted to make sure he was, you know, turning up and stuff. After 10 minutes of this sort of conversation, the Co-ordinator agreed to ring him.

It took her a few minutes to get hold of him, and due to a fairly major family emergency*, he would not be coming.

Suddenly I was getting a crash course in how the whole operation was run, while the guy who ran the whole program was calling people, Christian people, after 10 on a Friday night, to see if anyone could come in, surprisingly none of them was awake/free to come in and sleep with homeless people at the last moment.

The Co-ordinator tried to fill me in, but I think she realised that one person really wasn’t going to be enough, especially as I clearly showed no real understanding of what she was statying. Right after that she decided to stay. I hope she was told by the guy who runs it, that two people had to stay, and not that I was an idiot.

She was going to stay in the office though, so it would only be me out with the homeless. Not a problem, I could handle that.  Probably.

*Two weeks later I was rung as the same person was having a second family emergency, and had to pull out again.

TBC…

March 15, 2009 - Posted by Jrod | living in london | homeless