​Homelessness is a symptom and for us to end it, we have to look at the causes. Jane’s experience with us is very brief, but we hope that by addressing the cause, we have been able to end her homelessness for good.
 
Our outreach team first met Jane in December when she had abandoned her flat after being bullied by her neighbours. Jane, who is alcohol dependent, was incredibly angry and emotional as she felt no one was helping and she had had to sleep rough for a night.
 
Jane came with the team to the Whitechapel Centre and we were able to offer her a room in one of our shared properties immediately. While she was there we helped her to access services for her alcohol dependency. She was quickly assessed and she started receiving support.  Jane is now doing well, she is enjoying her own space which gives her the time to really focus on continuing her recovery. 

Jack’s family kept in touch with us and were very concerned for him. One day they called with the sad news that Jack’s brother had passed away and they wanted Jack to come home. Months of searching for Jack went by but again we could not locate him. In December Yasmin walked out of a shop on her day off and saw a man walking up to people begging for money. He was on crutches, underweight and looked quite frail. As Yasmin got closer she realised it was Jack. He was pleased to see her, giving her a big hug and getting quite emotional, admitting that he was sick of his lifestyle and that he wanted to change. Yasmin told him how worried everyone was and that his family we desperately trying to contact him. Jack agreed to go to the Whitechapel Centre with her where he had a shower and a change of clothes before making contact with his mum. She broke the news about his brother.  This news strengthened Jack’s resolve to make changes in his life. 

Jack asked if we could help him get home and later the same day, we took Jack to the train station, with a bag of clothes, food, toiletries and a book for the journey home. The next morning Yasmin received a tearful call from Jack’s mum. He had arrived safely and was at home with her and planning to access a rehab and start a new life with his family. Jacks’ mum said she was overwhelmed by the support she and Jack had received from the staff at the Whitechapel Centre and was so grateful Jack was home for Christmas.
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Jack’s story highlights how it can take many months of contact and conversations before someone feels ready to change their situation. Yasmin is part of our Street Lifestyles Outreach team which supports people away from street living. The team work in partnership with Addaction and provides specialist addiction and housing support. 

 
James was living in The Whitechapel's Yates Court, one of our specialist facility for families who find themselves homeless. Becoming homeless had been very unsettling for James and as a result he had become quieter and had developed trouble mixing and socialising with other children. His mum said he only really seemed happy when he sat by himself playing with Lego and that he was a really talented model maker.

In order try to help James settle in, and get to know the other children in the centre, our Children and Young Person Project Worker, Sue, organised a Lego Therapy session over the school holidays and invited all the children. But when the day arrived James stayed in his flat, too shy to join the twenty other children. 

Knowing that James just needed a little care and reassurance Sue went and spoke with James and explained everything that would happen and then promised that if he came along she’d look after him.
 
James was still wary but Sue paired him with a child who didn’t speak English. This really took the pressure off James, who was still shy about talking, and they had to work together and follow instructions using non-verbal communication and play. In the end they’d made a wonderful, fierce Lego monster and were very proud of themselves.

​Lisa and Paulene, two of the Whitechapel Centre’s Street Outreach Team, have been working since 6am. They started their day in Sefton Park, following a report of a someone seen sleeping rough near Lark Lane.  They find a man asleep across the pavement.  He turns out to have hostel accommodation, but had been drinking all night and ‘stayed out’ on the street.  Lisa and Paulene help him back to his hostel accommodation. ‘He was so cold I could feel it through my coat as I had my arm in his.’ They agree a plan of increased support with the hostel to prevent him staying out again.  ‘He was a professor once.’ Lisa tells me.
 
Now it is 10am and we’re heading out onto the streets of Liverpool City Centre. Despite their early start, Lisa and Paulene are still full of energy and clearly passionate about the work they do. Together they have a combined twenty-five years of experience helping homeless people through various different stages of their route to independent living. It’s this expertise and insight that makes them perfect for Street Outreach work. Lisa tells me that Street Outreach is often the first experience a homeless person will have of the Whitechapel Centre and whether it goes well or not will often influence how likely they are to trust the charity and use our services.
 
It does take time, they say, to build up trust with people who have often had their trust abused in some way in the past. It’s a ‘slow burn’ and sometimes it can take months, or even years, just to establish a relationship. But Paulene and Lisa don’t give up. ‘People eventually warm to that consistency…and that means the communication is there, you can check they’re OK. They realise they can trust you.’  
   
And that’s the job of the Street Outreach Team, who not only try to ensure that those who are new to the streets are immediately given whatever support they need, including, most importantly, somewhere to sleep, but also to reach those who are what they term ‘entrenched homeless’. This means the people who are the very hardest to reach, have been on the streets for a long period of time and have become used to this way and are wary about giving it up for something new they don’t know.
 
As we walk into the city centre I ask about how their day works. They tell me they know everyone and will go see everyone who is out.  They see some people every day, to say hello, build a relationship and eventually help them access the support they need either through the Whitechapel Centre itself or through partner organisations. ‘There is a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues out there’ in that case they work with a partner organisation to make an assessment and offer help. They will also help them with welfare benefit issues, drug treatment and recovery services and access to specialised medical care – as quite often issues, such as trench foot or dental problems, have become far worse for lack of treatment.
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In the city centre, Lisa and Paulene walk directly to the clients they’ve been working with. Sometimes it’s as simple as a kind word, a chat about their current accommodation or immediate housing needs, support with benefits, even helping one man put up an umbrella as it’s now raining heavily. Sometimes the cases are more complex. At one point they approach a couple living in a tent in the city centre. Lisa and Paulene have secured a place in a local hostel, but it’s not in their preferred area of choice.  Lisa and Paulene discuss the pro’s and cons of the offer, looking at what might work.  The couple reject the offer, along with the offer of Labre House, the night hub, as this couple don’t wish to give up their independence and insist on waiting for hostel places in an area they know and will be happy to be rehomed to. Our team understand that listening to the needs of those they are trying to help is so important if they are going to truly make steps towards living a different life. Lisa and Paulene will continue to look for a place in their hostel of choice.
    
We have walked a full loop of the city centre, stopping to make sure people are OK, offer them support, let them know the help is there when they’re ready. I ask what the best part of the job is, and they tell me it’s the small things: getting someone to finally accept a shower and some food at the day centre; getting someone to at least go and look at a hostel, supported accommodation or the night hub; the times when, finally, a person doesn’t shout at them but instead accepts a cup of tea and is willing to just talk about the weather. That moment when someone agrees to go to the specialist drop-in doctor with them.     
    
It can be slow progress but it’s life changing progress because the change is so much more likely to be lasting if they’ve made those decisions themselves with our Outreach Team there to support them. Paulene and Lisa are experienced enough to understand this, they clearly care deeply about their jobs and about helping everyone who they encounter, ‘We’ll never stop offering help’ says Lisa, ‘We never give up on anyone.’
   
Back at Labre House, the night shelter which is being prepared for the evening, Lisa and Paulene dry off. I ask them if they’ll have a lunchbreak now and Paulene says, ‘I never take a lunchbreak. Why would I do that? I could be out helping people.’ ​

It’s fitting that today is both World Homelessness Day and World Mental Health Day as the two so often go hand in hand. In fact, our recent Impact Stats showed that mental health difficulties are the most common primary reason that people in Liverpool become homeless.
 
Sometimes understanding and overcoming mental health barriers is the most fundamental aspect of supporting someone who finds themselves homeless and that’s why our Outreach Team are on the streets every day.
 
The team offer to support those who have become entrenched in a ‘street lifestyle’. This means that they find it hard to adapt to independent living and either continue to sleep on the streets, return regularly to ask for money or engage with the street homeless community. Mental health, mistrust of outsiders and understandable difficulties in moving forward with their life can all contribute to this.
 
With years of work on the frontline of homelessness, mental health and drug misuse support, our Outreach Team go out into the community to try and establish a relationship with those who are hardest to reach with the long-term aim of helping them to live an independent life. People like Matthew.
 
Matthew had been rough sleeping all over Merseyside for two years when our team found him living in a tent. Matthew was very reluctant to accept any help and initially wouldn’t even open up the tent, only speaking through a small hole in the zip.  When our team offered to arrange a taxi to take him to our day centre for a shower, food and a change of clothes he would become hostile and aggressive.
 
Luckily, our team are highly experienced and know that often there are no quick fixes and it’s a case of helping that person build up trust in the relationship. With this in mind, they started visiting Matthew more regularly and often up to four times a day. Soon he started to open up and explained that he had been sleeping on the streets throughout his life. He also had mental health problems and a history offending both of which made it even harder to get his life back on track. Our team could tell that, as resistant as he seemed, Matthew really wanted to have a better future. ​

The next step was getting Matthew to accept any sort of help at all and that started with a cup of coffee. Each day our workers would bring him a hot drink and eventually he started not just accepting the coffee but also opening up the tent and coming out of it to speak with them. Finally, our team were able to get him to come with them to a nearby Greggs where they would sit inside together over a coffee and talk. Walking to a local café is something we would take for granted but, for Matthew, it was a huge step forward.
 
During those trips with our team who he’d come to trust and like it eventually emerged that the reason why Matthew wouldn’t attend either our day or night centres. He told them that because of his mental health problems he found it incredibly hard to be around crowds and doing so would trigger paranoid episodes that he was terrified of.
 
Once our team understood the barrier they started looking for a solution. They explained to Matthew that they could help arrange support without him having to go to a centre at all. From the same Greggs where they’d been having a coffee each day, where he felt comfortable and safe, our team did an initial assessment which meant they could start the process of finding Matthew a home.
 
Our team continued to visit him daily until a room was made available in supported shared housing and then our team helped Matthew move in within twenty-four hours. They also provided him with the little things that can make all the difference when settling into a new home - a food parcel until his benefits arrived, clothes and a toiletry kit.
 
Because we understand that the root cause of homelessness is not simply about having a roof over your head our team ensured that Matthew had mental health care and support for drug misuse recovery. Our team still speak to Matthew regularly on the telephone and visit him once a week to see if he needs anything or simply to offer companionship. After years of rough sleeping Matthew is finally settling in well into a home, gaining the help he needs and hasn’t been on the streets since.