Intervention——-event——-Cafe in the rain

In the last two weeks, I collaborate with 4 colleagues in the charity to hold a cafe in the rain next to Saint Martin in-the field in sunday afternoons. We give homeless people different kind of support, including hot food, drinks, clothes, and we also offer a platform for them to speak about themselves. I think what makes this charity different from others is passion and consistency. There are no other charity organisations operated outdoor in the rain like this.

What is the research?

—Research on how to help homelessness people in a better way, how to facilitate positive and constructive dialogue between homeless people and society. Do homeless people happy to talk to us, are they just passively accept our offerings? How do my colleagues think of this issues? How do they feel working in this environment?

Why it has to be this way?

—Firstly, this is one of the most practical and manageable way to help homeless people on the street so far. My colleagues contibute themselves to support homeless people by working hard and even risk-taking. These feelings and experience are real to us during the process. Also, this is a direct way to get in touch with homeless in groups. We are creating “flow”. Without some sort of tangible support like food, clothes, and humanity, homeless people will have little connection to normality life.

—Second, this homeless charity is like a material transfer station, or a “hub”, where people can donate materials to help with the issue. People in the charity can make sure these materials are safe and approapriate for people to use or consume.

What happened?

The rain is pouring over during the weekend. But still there were more than 50 people in difficulties come to us and ask for support. Some of them are our old customers, they had queued up before we arrived. During the process, I notice that they are in different ethnics, and most of them are middle-aged man. They treat the event like a ritual of a day. Their face is dusty and dried, the most deadset at the moment for them is warmth. At this moment, they are purely satisfied, I can see their smile. “I am so grateful that you didn’t forget us!” One said.

Our head Andrew knew some of them, he was wearing a thick body armor, but still feel generous to offer people warm greetings and sometimes a big hug. Also, he feel no shame about sharing their stories. “Hi George!……once George was a car thief…. Several years ago, one day I was having a meeting in Marks & Spencer. I saw him try to nicked my new van from the cctv” He grimed, “The security told me he was lagger and kicked him away….But we take care of him, he come here almost everyday, to chat and stuff……He hanged with wrong people in hostel previously.” He frawned.

Although the weather is bad, this gave me a great opportunity to ask questions. Since everyone is feeling cold and damp, and is keen to hold a group for warmth by sharing feelings. During the process, I had make some queries to my collegues about the homelessness problems and charity. Here are some gatherings:

“Why homelessness shuld happened? I think the COVID serve a big part since many people lose their jobs and they end up in the street.”—-Mark(a UCL master students studying Russian Literature)

“Oh I cannot imagine how they can live in this environment….why I work for the homeless charity? Working in charity can fill my free time, and make me feel that I am relavant to the town.”—-Mary(a civil servant in Borough Tower Hamlet)

“It is necessary to help people in needed! I used to come here everyday, but nowadays I am not fully available for this volunteering… Make sure you sign in a week before so that we can better manage our work…”—-Chan(A retired fashion retail manager)

“errr….It is hard to imagine what it is, there are many charities but govenments can do little help….it is so complex…Especially to immigrants, they will expell people from the country, but how they manage to do that…I am able to find a new job now Felix! I start to work in vaccination centre”—-Juan(A tour guide)

In the great fall, our cafe is like a lone island, a black spot on a white sheet. I cannot help to think about “why”. Why homelessness should happen here? What can be done to resolve it? In my home country, we have strong family values. The situations I met today happened very rarely——more than 50 people standing in a long queue asking for food in a rainy day. And there is no reasons to sleep on the street or asking food on street in this way.

For the open air cafe, we send them the warmth and necessaties to survive. But what next? Who they are talking to after this event? Who they are going to hang out with？Who is going to motivate them? Who will supervise them? Think of it here, I feel a bit sad and helpless.

Is homeless charity a necessary? After this experience, I firmly support it. During the event, we had gave out rain coats and hundreds of fresh cooked hot food to homeless people in this bad day, which are very solid and warm. We also allow them to talk about their lifes, to communicate with each other. Without the help of kind hearted charities, homeless people will have little chance to gain positive life support regularly, and even have no chance to went back to normal patterns of social life. Also, homeless charity offer us an opportunities to support community, which is very inspiring to me. In these days, I had witness some of the most dedicated volunteers who treat the volunteering as formal forms of work, with precision in timing, excellent working efficiency and collaborative spirit.

The problem are How we can do it in a more constructive way? How can we all collaborate together to discover how to build up the spiritual strength to overcome the life difficulties we all might face? How can we do better after support their basic needs?

Advantage of this intervention

It is always challenging in an relatively extreme environment like this time. It allows me to capture the genuine response of people on homeless issue and how homeless people are feeling in such a cold time with us. And it allows me to really sense the criticality of homeless people, the uncertainties, ruthlessness of their lifes. I can see, most of the volunteers I know come to charity for socialising and relaxing.

Also, this gives me an opportunity to reflect and think the deeper meaning of what I do as volunteer and my research. The reflection process is very meaningful to me.

Disadvantage of this intervention

It is hard for me to capture every homeless people’s response in this occasions. The working process is compact and stressful, which stress on efficeincy and flexibility.

Also, I am not able to collect the sound, touch, the smell information, which are inherent to the processes. Therefore, I will try to improve this area of data collection when I do the similar interventions later. I will also try to convert my research on homelessness into form of events or artefect to induce people’s curiosity and allow them to learn the homelessness as contemporary societal problem in a more comprehensible, interesting and active way.

Collection