#coulsdon

Old Post Office of Bradmore Green, Coulsdon, Surrey, England

Help the Homeless - Natalie Turner-Sylvester

Pictured above: Tent of the homeless men staying in Purley underpass

Natalie: Hello, today I would like to find out about your general opinions on homelessness, based on the two homeless men who have been staying at Purley underpass for 3 months. So first off, please could you introduce yourselves.

Michelle: My name is Michelle.

Alan: Hi my name is Alan.

Natalie: How long have you lived in Coulsdon?

Michelle: Well I’ve lived in Coulsdon about 10 years now.

Alan: Approximately the same time.

Natalie: Do you feel that homeless people are stereotyped?

Michelle: Yes.

Alan: Yeah, unfortunately yes. But that’s not my view.

Natalie: In general, do you think that the government does enough to support homeless people?

Michelle: Um, well there’s a lot of people that need council houses and you know there’s a lot of people who haven’t got any homes at the moment. So I don’t think that the government does support to be honest. I think they could do a lot more to support them. You know, especially when it’s freezing cold in the winter months and so forth you know, just giving them more shelter for food, clothes and so forth and somewhere to even wash, really.

Alan: Yeah no definitely, don’t do enough, there’s too many people on the streets you know, suffering. The governments got to step up, I know it’s not the governments full responsibility, but they could do a lot more.

Natalie: So, do you feel that homeless people are overlooked in anyway?

Alan: Most definitely, yeah people look at them like they are scum of the earth, but anyone can end up in that situation.

Michelle: That’s right because they can get into debt which is no fault of their own,. You know sometimes divorce and separation causes debt as well, you know many reasons.

Alan: And I know some of it’s self-inflicted, but it could happen to anyone, all it just takes is a run of bad luck and you could be out on the streets so I do feel sorry for them.

Natalie: So more specifically when you look at the borough of Croydon, when you look at the luxurious new developments being built in Coulsdon, how does this make you feel that there are homeless people nearby still suffering?

Alan: Yeah unfortunately, you know like what we said earlier, they just get overlooked. I mean they are building more houses, but they come at a heavy heavy cost. And even with people working they are struggling, so the homeless ain’t got no chance.

Natalie: And how does it also make you feel that on top of being homeless, they also sometimes have to suffer being either verbally of physically attacked?

Alan: Yeah unfortunately that’s the mentality of some people in this world. They just seem to want to downgrade people that are down already, so they just need to get a life themselves.

Michelle: Yeah, I agree with what Alan just said there, yeah.

Natalie: As we all know that the population is increasing, and you say you have lived in Coulsdon for about 10 years, have you seen an influx in the amount of people living in the area and if so what implications do you think this has on the homeless?

Michelle: I wouldn’t say influx, the only changes that I’ve seen, I would say is that they’ve built quite a lot of social housing, would you say.

Alan: Yeah, I don’t think the influx of the area has affected the homeless because I don’t see, I haven’t seen an increase of homelessness in this area specifically in my opinion, you know I think it’s pretty much the same. I wouldn’t say that for every area, but I don’t see an increase in this area specifically.

Michelle: Well I don’t agree. I think there is, you do see, past ten years, you do see one or two in Coulsdon I would say, not on a regular basis but sometimes you do see it. There are some people that are hanging around the streets, not many. Every now and then, you can tell that they’re obviously destitute, you can tell they are. At one stage you wouldn’t get people selling the big issue but now you do see that, in the high street.

Natalie: And lastly, according to to Croydon Council, a £500,000 government grant to confront homelessness in Croydon so we’re looking out from Coulsdon, is proposed for Christmas. With this in mind, do you think that the vast amount of homelessness in Croydon as a whole, so not just Coulsdon will actually improve?

Alan: Well it all depends how well, how wise they spend the money because you hear about these things all the time and you don’t see much improvement, so depends if they...

Michelle: /they do invest it

Alan: Spend the money constructively, and don’t waste it.

Michelle: I agree with what you said there yeah.

Natalie: Michelle and Alan, thank you for your time.