Talk with Andrea

Andrea is spot-on. As a boss, he knows what to wear. He likes wearing elite-vibe cozy grey suit with a dark leather drag case, which looks busy and confident. When he is working with us, he likes thinking and sharing his ideas without hesitate, makes himself like an emoji machine. From my observation to Andrew, running a charity is a difficult job which requires strong risk management, interpersonal skills, project management, operation management and most importantly, be patient. Be patient about mistakes and failures, be patient to different people from volunteers, suppliers, and homeless. In most time, Andrea is quite stressful since he has to face a variety of difficulties of the charity on his own, everyday.

But when talk to him one to one, he becomes very mild, with soft tone and relaxed face, a different person. He usually cling to stay in a corner of the room, for example (kitchen, office desk next to window) a place he feel safe and quiet.

After month of patience, I finally find a nice time to speak to Andrew one to one. It was on a sunny Friday afternoon. A beautiful day when people is hurrying to a train station and weekend. But I stay with Andrea in the charity and help him to prepared working materials for next week’s business.

When I was cutting the zuccini, and he is having coffee, I had this “comfy kitchen talk” with him. I raise the topic of his life, his business, he feels quite positive to talk about it, and expect me to ask more, think more. “it is good to ask question Felix, this is why I am here……we need to do more.”

Why you hold this charity?

“Yes, I want to pay back, and I think they really need support.”

How you overcome the life difficulties?

“Perseverence is my motto, can you see it on our website? I just want to get out of those situation, I want to success! It is about running a business, you have to know when, what is your value, what is your strengths are at the moment, your competitors and the field you are working in, it is important.”

How difficult?

“You see all these food and stuff…M&S, Waitrose, Wholefood, sainsbury…Those supermarket don’t give you food for no means. Many people just think I simply drive my van to their store to pick them, they do not know I have to compete with other charities for these resources. It is not take for granted. I have to do pitchings, meetings and stuff, show that my charity is unique and special from others… that is not easy… For example yesterday, and I am going to do another tonight. If we build a relationship we will make a contract, usually last for six months to a year.”

“Can I choose what I want? No, I can only got what they want to give me, or what they don’t want.”

How you know about your area?

“There are 20 something homeless charity in London…Now is even more, which makes me worried. Many homeless charities don’t do anything, some of them have old names, million dollars buildings, high salaries, but do nothing.”

How many of homeless people successfully get out of the bad situation?

“About 2 percent…2 percent of the homeless people that I served on the street get out of the bad situation. And yes, you ask a good question. It is about the same rate that homeless people can successfully get out of their situation.”

But Why?

“Many homeless people are faild to move on, but they have the opportunities to work, they just don’t move….. for example, Marcus(one of my colleague) was a homeless person, he ask me for help…..I gave my address for him to look for jobs, he is a good example, you see. I am open to homeless people for asking help, you see what I mean? Everytime I do food distribution to homeless people, I try to talk to them, I try to help them to think, and hope them don’t come to pick food everyday.”

What is your new plan?

“I finally employed a professional chef, he will be with us three times a day. He is professional. He helps me to make the working zone nice and neat.”

“This place is purchased for estate purposes, will shutted down soon. We will move to new office in Greepark, where we will ask homeless artist to make their artwork and selling them. You can come and help…..we need more hands than just me…”

Do you know what are you doing?

“Yes, I had liase with some stakeholders. I have the story, they have the resources…There are some other organisations working in this sectors.”

What is the mechanism of homelessness?

“This is a very difficult question…..I would say the class system, definately”

In some cases, I am very inconfident, clumsy and afraid of making mistake in the way I talk or make. I make this up by working hard and try to focused. But ironically, this makes me even more flustered and did not work properly in some cases, for example when talking to Andrew. He serve me chicken wings, I use fork in a way as spoon but faild to lick it up and put it in my plate, but the wings are oily. He feels a bit intolerable and complain very straight forward, “Why can’t you stab it hard….like this. Oh Felix I can’t tell you how to do this and do that” I said to him I just want to be gentle. He smiled and said “I see what you mean, one thing I like you Felix, you working hard, and don’t want to fed up with others. I had seen lots of volunteers having smoking breaks from time to time, why they need so many rest….” I am so glad to hear.

What is next?

The expert knowledge of Andrea gives me a relatively close look to how the homeless charity, homeless people like. These are very precious first hand knowledge. Especially like what attitude is mostly required to overcome the difficult situation like homelesness; the attitudes and spirits of running a homeless charity; and the current situation of homelessness. Also, he also shows that the difficulties understanding why homelessness should happened, and what are the mechanism behind the homelessness. The class system which he had mentioned is a new answer to this question after I had enquire so many people, which I need some further research and clarification on this matter.