They are parents, sons and daughters: Walking with Glasgow's homeless

We turn left onto Queen Street and then walk back west along Ingram Street, through Exchange Place, across Buchanan Street to Central Station then down towards the foot of Hope Street where Denholm’s and the Alpen Lodge still offer the best mid-afternoon retreats from the rigours of retail.

Along the way, we encounter 15 rough sleepers, beggars and homeless people. I must have seen them all often in the course of a lifetime, but today someone is calling them by their names. Today they have become visible.

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My guide for this tour of Glasgow’s other city centre – the one that hides in plain sight – is Alex Eadie, a support worker from the Simon Community’s street team. His job is to check in with these people daily and perhaps to nudge the odds a little more in their favour. There’s always a hope that one day they might be helped back on to their feet, perhaps to thrive. Today, in these sub-zero elements it’s all about helping them simply to survive.

Alex knows each of them and they all know him. We stop outside Marks & Spencer to chat with John who’s taken up a berth facing the store. He tries not to look miserable but his ears and face, rusting with the cold, tell another story. And so he accepts a woolly hat which Alex fishes out from a rucksack containing the outreach essentials for street dwellers: hats; gloves, hand-cream and sanitisers; silver foil blankets. There are clean needles and defibrillation equipment. He and his colleagues are all highly trained in their use.

Later, under the archway of Exchange Square, he hands a pair of gloves to a polite man occupying two metres of quilt and cardboard real estate. He sits facing the boarded-up art deco façade of the Rogano restaurant, once the grandest dining emporium in the city, but now also fallen on hard times. “Could I maybe get shoes too,” he asks. “I don’t have any with me, but you’ll get some in the shelter up by George Square,” Alex replies.

He tells me about the important distinction that must be made when discussing issues of homelessness and rough sleeping. “There are currently only seven, long-term rough sleepers in Glasgow,” he says, “and perhaps three of these people choose to live like this. The others flit between various temporary accommodations provided by service providers or are beggars taking advantage of the increased opportunities offered by the festive season.

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“My job though, is not to judge. A complex suite of circumstances, often rooted in trauma and addiction, have brought them to this place in their lives. My job is to connect with them; engage with them and ensure that their basic needs to survive are being met.”

The Simon Community have been walking with the UK’s homeless people since it was founded in London in 1963. It’s named after Simon of Cyrene who helped carry the Cross of another man whom society had shunned on the road to Calvary. In Scotland they are operational in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and North Lanarkshire.

Often, we self-styled liberals take refuge in a trite and simplistic apercu. “If you give them money, they’ll just spend it on booze or drugs.”

“Perhaps so,” says Alex. “But if you’re so worried about their long-term health that you can’t spare a few coins, then what are you doing about it? A few quid here and there is an act of kindness and besides, it might help someone choose not to sell their body that day or not to turn to crime.”

I ask him about public attitudes to the men and women who live on the streets. Perhaps in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis people who are encountering their own financial jeopardy might become susceptible to the right-wing narrative which says that these marginalised groups all bring their troubles on themselves.

“Happily, the overwhelming majority of Glaswegians shun that narrative and are very sympathetic,” says Alex. “We all know someone who’s fallen between the cracks and how easily it can happen and how much of it can be caused by mental health challenges and addiction. It can happen to anyone and someone has to be around to help them pick up the pieces.”

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In the Simon Community’s Argyle Street access hub, down beside the MoD’s Kentigern House, a team of about 45 staff and volunteers are ministering to the needs of Glasgow’s most marginalised people. On an average day (if you can call any day in here ‘average’) they will engage with around 80 people. At this time of the year though, that number increases to around 120.

Elaine Barrett, service leader of the Hub and Siobhan Page, service leader of the street team are talking about the miracle of Covid-19. “It was a game-changer for us,” says Elaine. “As the lockdown restrictions came in it became a national imperative to get everyone in off the street. To that end Glasgow City Council bought hotel space to accommodate all rough sleepers and those flitting between homelessness and sleeping on the streets.

“It gave our people an opportunity to get people in for an extended period and to build trust and relationships with them and then get them connected with case-workers. As well as that though, it gave these people access to basic services like having showers; eating properly and regularly and having basic health check-ups. We had doctors and podiatrists as well as veterinary services for their dogs and cats.

“Are they on a prescription? If they’re addicts are they injecting safely. Have they had their bloods checked recently? How’s their long-term health? Our teams are all trained in safe needle exchange. But it’s not just about this; it’s about making connections and building relationships; it’s about sharing a coffee with them and listening to them; giving them a voice and treating them with dignity and respect.”

Elaine and Siobhan and their teams know every one of Glasgow’s long-term rough sleepers and where they can be found. They know all those who flit in and out of temporary accommodation and the challenges they all face, much of it rooted in trauma and violence.

They’re both also aware that the low numbers of people sleeping rough on Glasgow’s streets can lead to questions about the flood of resources being devoted to them. “It’s not merely about ministering to the rough sleepers, it’s about giving so many others a place to stay and, ultimately a place to call their own,” says Siobhan.

“Last week we helped prevent 42 people sleeping rough, people who, potentially, had nowhere to go. We have two permanent Glasgow City Council case-workers on our premises who help us access service and accommodation points that help us keep most people off the streets. We’re working flat out on a daily basis to keep these numbers low.”

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And then I’m introduced to Kevin, who’s been visiting the Argyle Street access hub for nearly seven years. For years the roof over his head had been the bridge at Central Station. “People call us rough sleepers, but you’re never really sleeping,” he says, “you’re constantly on your guard for signs of threat. But the Simon Community have done me proud. I can’t say a bad word about them. They helped me get a tenancy and they’re always there for me. They’ve given me and many others hope.”   

Journalists and commentators become sanctimonious when reaching for the numbers around deprivation and social isolation: the drugs deaths; the child poverty rates; the latest homeless figures. We’re quick to condemn local and national authorities for letting this happen “in the 21st century”.

We rarely acquaint ourselves with the work being done on the streets by their agencies and those they fund. All of them exist purely to maintain lifelines for our most vulnerable and damaged people who – like those of us who have been spared their troubles – are mums and dads; sons and daughters; friends and colleagues. But then we never condescend to meet them at street level or spare them a glance.