These are words I heard today that broke my heart, and were the starkest reminder of why Simon On The Streets has to exist.
We’ve known Keith for years. We’ve worked with him intensively when he’s been in bad places, and supported him when he’s been doing well.
Today, as I walked down Park Row in Leeds on my way back from a meeting, I bumped into him for the first time in months. I was drawn to him because I heard an altercation taking place between him and a business man who was having a coffee outside a coffee shop.
The business man was having a quiet coffee in the sunshine, and Keith had asked him if he could spare any change. Keith isn’t aggressive by nature, in fact he is one of life’s real gents. He’ll hold doors open for people, apologise profusely for things he doesn’t need to apologise for, and say thank you for the help he receives more times than he needs to. Today he was desperate. The difference was that he wasn’t desperate for money for drugs anymore, but for money to get a sandwich. He had lost weight and looked ill and beaten.
The man got up from his chair and shouted at Keith to leave him alone, get a job and shouted “the job centre is that way”. Keith shouted back that he couldn’t get a job because of the state he was in. He smelled, he looked dirty and shouted at the man to leave him alone. He shouted “I’m beating down doors for help, but no one is listening to me”.
I intervened. I took Keith a few yards further up the road to talk to him and to take him away from the business man to try and diffuse the commotion before the police were called. As we talked, and Keith tried to step out in front of a bus to end his pain, the man started to shout again. It made me angry and it hurt to see someone try to carry the argument on with someone who was clearly in no fit state to stand up for himself. Keith began to cry and told me that I’d next see him on a slab in the mortuary of the LGI.
As I talked to him and listened to him, he calmed down. We had a sandwich and a chat and we agreed that one of our support workers would call him and meet with him the following day.
As I left Keith and thought through what had happened my anger towards the business man rose up in my chest. But I caught myself. What had happened to this seemingly affluent and well-presented man to make him feel the need to launch such an attack on someone as vulnerable and mild mannered as Keith? How bad had his day been, did Keith remind him of darker times in his own life, or was he simply not able to recognise that some people don’t have the skills, upbringing and support network to function in society unsupported?
Whatever the answer, the facts remain. There are a group of people that get no meaningful support from funded services because they don’t conform to a time-limited model that enables services to hit targets quickly enough to guarantee the repeat funding they need to survive. Keith felt that no one was interested in him, no one was listening to him and that there was no future for him without the right kind of help. He was being rushed into coming off the last tiny amount of methadone he was taking to deal with his heroin addiction after weeks of doing well on a reduction programme and he couldn’t understand why. He was scared that he would relapse if this crutch was taken from him and he didn’t want that to happen. He recognised that he wasn’t ready yet. I understand why; it’s because the service that prescribes his methadone for him is under pressure to reach their targets of “successful detox” regardless of what is the best time frame for the service user.
Simon On The Streets has to exist to support and advocate for people like Keith. No one else can speak up like we can because they have a fear of losing their funding as a result of upsetting the local and national government bodies who fund them.
As long as I have breath in my body I, and my team, will fight to give people like Keith a voice and to give them the tailor made support that they need.
Keith just wants to be “normal” (his words, not mine) and to make his Dad proud. I’m proud that we can work with him for as long as it takes for him to achieve this.
And as for the business man who was so hostile today, I have one thing to say, which I apply to my judgement of him too
“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind always.”