First shift in a homeless project

I blogged a little while ago about how hard it is to find voluntary work around a full time job. Well, last night I had my first experience of a voluntary shift with the homeless pilot No Second Night Out. It’s plan, though not as literal as the title suggests, is one of early intervention, working with homeless people who are new to sleeping rough. The plan is for the outreach team to bring these people in, to give them an assessment and then to generally try to reconnect them with their home area, if its safe to do so – in the interim they can remain at the hub for 3 days, although there are no beds, or may be put up in a B&B/hostel if the plan takes longer.

The main thing is how glad I was to get the experience to volunteer in a setting like this. It is a million miles from anything I’ve done and I apologise in advance for the insights in the rest of the blog, that were for me so new but to anyone who may read this, quite possibly ridiculously basic and obvious!

I was slightly anxious before I did my shift as to how I’d engage with the guests, but that was immediately overcome as they were an incredibly friendly and also very funny bunch of people. Most, as new to being homeless, were not dependent on alcohol or drugs and seemed in the most part to be in relatively good spirits. From the start they were interested in getting to know me and one in particular was joking around for the most of the session, trying to find out where I lived but in a harmless way. It was interesting though, this question of boundaries. It was obvious I wasn’t going to tell him where I lived and was happy to joke with him – “ok so tell me a shop near you” – errm “sainsburys”…but it did remind me of many of the things I’d learnt in my child mentoring training about ensuring you keep your boundaries in place. I had a great chat with one about the book he’s hoping to write about living as a homeless man – I discussed with him many of the books ive recently read on the subject (Stuart, Wasted etc) which he wrote down, and then in a slightly surreal way, we got on to the ad campaign I’ve worked on which has just launched and apparently they’d all seen – we got onto discussing why we chose Van Damme to star in the coors light ad over another celeb and then one was asking me about some of the strategies in the ads that were coming on while we watched tv.

I guess I was kind of relieved that it was so easy to have such light conversation, if anything perhaps serving to relax and slightly distract them from this interim phase they were currently in. While some were clearly quieter and more anxious, they did seem to be laughing and enjoying the general chat.

Later on in the evening one of them asked if anyone was doing a sandwich run. I’d been told that certain cafes sometimes call if they had extra food but I knew none had so far. I called up a couple and was glad to find two were happy to donate. I was then asked to go with some of the guests to pick up the food from the station – a 20 minute walk away. If I’m honest, I guess this was the first time I felt slightly uncertain. It ended up being just two of us, and although I was actually getting on very well with the guest, I wasn’t entirely sure how safe I felt as it was getting dark. We had a really interesting conversation and he told me more about his life and completely inspired me with his positive attitude but there were times as he talked about prison that I was a little nervous. I find this a difficult issue – as a SW-er you’re naturally going to be working with service users who’ve faced a number of issues, time in prison being one of them and in many ways my nervousness felt immature and naïve but another part was aware it was also at night and in a setting I wasn’t familiar with. I suppose it just led me to think about when it’s ok to say no or ask for another volunteer to go with, vs just getting used to something new. In this situation there were no more volunteers to come anyway, so if I didn’t go, there would be no food for the shelter, but I also appreciate that in theory that’s not my responsibility.

Anyway an interesting dilemma for me.

Beyond that, I got so much out of it.

Recently at the student social work conference, one of the emotional development points was about thinking of three things that make you happy before you go to sleep. Last night so much was in my mind, and although cheesy, I just felt ridiculously lucky to have my own comfortable bed –thinking of these people having to sleep on chairs and on the floor in sleeping bags, sharing with others they don’t know – it must feel at times pretty humiliating or difficult to keep your dignity.

Anyway, I look forward to my next shift in a fortnight.