“I’ve been at Emmaus for twenty two months. I do all the gardening here. I put loads of tubs around the building to give colour throughout the year. People are often not in the best of moods first thing in the morning, but if they see a bit of colour it improves their mood and makes them feel more enthusiastic.
When I left school I went to college in Somerset and studied horticulture and agriculture. I came out as a qualified Assistant Estate Manager. When I was twenty one I started work for the council. I worked for eleven and a half years as the Assistant Head Gardener in the parks department. Then I went to Roedean Girls School and worked as a Grounds Man and Gardener.
When the school couldn’t afford to keep all the staff on, my contract wasn’t renewed and I began working as a chef. I moved all over the country and then worked for a while in a country pub until the owner decided he wanted to do my job himself. I was in Brighton for four months before I came to Emmaus. I stayed in B&Bs until the money ran out and then I started sleeping rough. I was sleeping underneath the Palace Pier.
The worst thing about sleeping on the streets is that there is always the possibility of being beaten up. You feel very vulnerable. When you are asleep someone could always come along and take everything you’ve got. Once you get the cold and damp in your bones, it’s impossible to get warm again. It’s also hard to get out of the rut of homelessness. Every time you try and dig your way out, there seems to be someone pulling you back down. When I went to the council and told them I had diabetes and asked them to help me, they said they could only help me if I was insulin dependent. I was supposed to be taking tablets at the time, although in fact I hadn’t taken any medication for two months. Not having any medication for my diabetes and sleeping rough meant that my health started to deteriorate. When I came to Emmaus I was very ill.
This is the first homelessness place I have ever stayed in. Emmaus isn’t run on religious grounds. If you want to go to church, you can, but it’s up to you. You have your own room. Once you close that door behind you, it’s your own space and no one can come in unless they are invited. They expect you to work to the best of your ability. It’s not a great hardship. You just get on and do what you can in your own way. There are 40 of us living here. Like any family situation, you are always going to fall out with someone. You have times when everyone is getting on fine and other times when things are not so amicable. The Community gives you an allowance of £42 a week. You can blow your allowance all at once if you want to, but having it encourages you to budget. The Community keeps seven pounds each week for you for when you leave so that you have something to set yourself up with.
I always say you are only two pay cheques away from being homeless. There are all sorts of ways of becoming homeless like bereavement or family break down. When you are on your own it’s sometimes very hard to cope. When I came here, not only was I very ill, but my self esteem was very low. The support manager here encouraged me to improve my reading which was very poor. I was able finally to join a library and get a book out. There is plenty of opportunity for people to train and learn. Emmaus will try and help you and support you in whatever way they can. I recently did an NVQ level 2 in horticulture. Emmaus paid the fees and my transport there and back. Part of the course was that we had to submit a design for a flower display at Hampton Court. It was the first time in the history of the Hampton Court Flower Show that they have ever had a tropical garden entry and we got silver gilt.
Two counsellors come to the Community each week. I am trying to work through some particular issues with them and I find it helpful. I was drinking seven cans a night, six nights a week. Now I’ve got it down to three cans on Friday night and three on Saturday. I want it to be that I just drink on Saturday night like normal people do. When you are on the streets you drink a lot because it seems as if it is knocking the coldness out of you. At least you get to sleep. It’s not proper sleep though.
Coming to Emmaus you don’t need the alcohol. You can rebuild your life and turn it all around. I am doing that. There are challenges every day. I try to be realistic and think to myself that if I start drinking again I will slip into the way I was before I came here. All the good work I have done and the fact that I am beginning to get my health back will be thrown away. It doesn’t feel as if I have been here for twenty two months. You work from nine to five and that means you have a focus for your time.
Last Friday I did the soup run. We distribute tea, soup, bread and fruit to the homeless people who come along. It’s very rewarding because you know they are waiting for you. They talk to you quite freely. It’s a way of them having some contact. The public don’t talk to homeless people very much. They think that all homeless people drink out of brown paper bags. That’s not the case. Some people do drink. Some people do take drugs. That doesn’t mean that everyone who is homeless is an alcoholic or a drug user. People don’t get the chance to see the individual. They come here to the Community, to the shop or to the café and they can see us working to better ourselves and that changes their perception of homeless people. They sometimes come and talk to me when I am working in the garden.
At Emmaus you can stay for as long as you need. Although there is no particular rush for me to go, I want to move on eventually. I don’t know when a council property is going to become available for me. I’ve been bidding now for 16 months. I’ve only viewed one property and that had already been taken. You just have to wait. I’m not going to let it deflate me and get depressed, because then I would be undoing all the good work that I have done on myself. I want to get employment or to set myself up in business.
If it wasn’t for Emmaus, I wouldn’t be here today. They have given me back my health. I would be dead and in a box by now if I hadn’t come here. They have given me a roof over my head, my own space, two hot meals a day and that is much more than so many people out there right now on the street. This Emmaus has such lovely grounds. The peace and tranquillity makes it easier for me to face some of the things I need to face and to sort out some of the issues I need to sort out. Once I have left here I would like to come back as a volunteer. I could work on the grounds for them when they need it. I have had a lot of help from Emmaus and it would be nice to be able to give something back.”
Andy's story as told to Madeleine
Emmaus Brighton & Hove, Drove Road, Portslade, East Sussex, BN41 2PA
Tel: 01273 426470
Email: contact@emmausbrighton.co.uk
Emmaus Brighton & Hove is a community of Sussex Emmaus
Sussex Emmaus - Charity: 1053354 Registered Company: 3130876
