Down but not out in Oxford
Down but not out in Oxford
Volume 14 Number 1, Michaelmas 2001
There are many Oxfords, and Frank lives in the wrong one. It's an Oxford safely shut out by the college gates: where 18-year-olds with full-time catering jobs live in a tent, because even a single room requires a deposit of over £1,000; an Oxford where a 50-year-old man can finally be given priority on housing because he now has a brain tumour, and it's the first time he's had his own kitchen and toilet in his adult life.
Frank's story is typical: he hit the streets after a messy marriage breakdown, lost his job and couldn't find another, so came back to his home town. Knowing no one, he was grateful for 10-15 minutes of social contact daily with volunteers at The Porch, a soup kitchen in a convent in East Oxford. For five weeks he slept at the Night Shelter, which is open to all. 'I was desperate to get out: they're not nice people I met in the Night Shelter, a lot of drunkards and junkies.' In this kind of isolation, many people would reach for the drink and drugs. But where once there was virtually no way back if you dropped off the ladder, now there are the beginnings of initiatives in Oxford which offer Frank a safety rope for the long haul back to home and work.
Homelessness is a symptom, insists Lisa Brophy (Somerville 1984), project director at The Porch. 'If you have a good job and friends you don't become homeless. These are people who haven't developed the skills, or don't have the resources, to deal with a crisis.' Many older homeless people, like Frank, have broken long-term relationships: usually a mother gets the children and the home, so single men predominate. Many have come from institutionalized backgrounds, often prison or the armed forces, and find it hard either to get jobs or to live independently.
Frighteningly, more than three-quarters of the homeless population are under 25. Of these, many have been in care institutions; many have experienced violence in their families; 40 per cent of young women have fled sexual abuse. In such cases, self-esteem is often very low, and learning at school is likely to have been hindered. Literacy is often poor. 'Mental health, drink or drugs, low self-esteem, social exclusion: if you haven't got one of these problems, either you'll soon get one, or you won't be homeless very long', says Fiona Grove of the Luther Street Medical Centre for the homeless.
But if homelessness is a symptom, it is aggravated by the city's chronic lack of low-cost social housing. The city is bounded by a gravel flood plain, which restricts building options; a high proportion of the land is already committed - not least to the University. Meanwhile, the population is polarized between an unusually large, comfortably-off graduate middle class, and the poor - between earnings of £25,000 and £10-12,000. 'Oxford has metropolitan prices, while only part of the population earns metropolitan wages', says Duncan Hall of the City Council's housing policy section, 'and it has pockets of social deprivation (such as Blackbird Leys) comparable to those in Inner London.'
There has been a huge rise in young professionals sharing houses in Oxford. They can't buy into the housing market. The market is priced up by thousands of student tenants, willing to shoehorn another bedsitter into a front room: Oxford is a goldmine for landlords, and a deep, wide poverty trap for the homeless.
Temporary shelter
In some respects you're better off being homeless in Oxford than elsewhere. The council spends far more on provision, both per head and in total, than many comparable authorities. Rough sleepers, the visible emblem of homelessness, number only around 30 - 30 too many, but the huge majority of the 1,300 homeless are in temporary shelter. The pioneering Luther Street practice offers medical help, severely lacking in many other cities where GPs can be reluctant to take patients without a postcode. There are relatively plentiful 'frontline' services such as the Gatehouse, an evening sandwich stop in St Michael's Street, or The Gap, a day centre near the railway station. These focus on immediate needs: food, social space and activity.
Nicky Horne, St Anne's undergraduate and Gatehouse volunteer, explains how social contact is a key benefit of the service. 'You have to eat in - no takeaways. Many clients have become quite asocial, and we're trained in strategies for starting conversation.' Gervase Markham (Univ 1997) runs a computer project at The Gap. The equipment was donated by Oxford University Homeless Action, a student group that raises funds - for example, the profits of this year's Queen's Ball - for donation to agencies. OUHA also links student volunteers and the agencies. 'I think The Gap's clients try activities like the IT project for fairly immediate reward', says Markham. 'A music-mixing software package has been very popular, for instance, but they don't use it because they envisage a career as a record producer. Partly the benefit is just feeling connected, less alienated.' Horne agrees. 'These are people who've suffered so many disappointments. Their future is either uncertain, or all too certain - they're not thinking too far ahead.'
But three years ago, Oxford's network of agencies realised that a sector of the homeless population is ready for change, and poorly served. As a result The Porch has opened a far more ambitious operation called Steppin' Stone. Food and social space are still at its heart, and the café serves cooked lunch (70p) and dinner (£1) that you'd be happy to get in your college. In the same building, however, are various training opportunities. A core course will focus on life skills, social relationships and rights and responsibilities.
Basic skills (literacy and numeracy), IT and art classes will be offered by The Porch's huge volunteer base. The project already grows its own vegetables on two allotments, tended by clients. 'One guy with learning difficulties works there every day, and he's transformed: he's become quite chatty', observes Lisa Brophy. Frank has started an NVQ in catering, helping most days in the café kitchen. 'It'll take about eight months', he estimates, 'and after that, who knows?' Crucially, Steppin' Stone is dry and drug-free. It also operates on a membership basis, reflecting a heartfelt plea from an old client - 'I just want to be part of something decent and of value.'
Steppin' Stone is representative of a changed emphasis in work with the homeless, a shift from merely sustaining people at the bottom of the heap, to helping them to move on. Resettlement workers such as Kate Dyson (Trinity 1995) at the English Churches Housing Group hostel in St Ebbe's, work to get rough sleepers off the street into hostels, and to stabilise people in hostels to the point where they can move on. The Council and various housing associations working with the poor designate some of their stock for moving on, and an organisation called Connection supports these ex-homeless until they have acquired the skills necessary to lead an independent life.
Home shopping
Dyson is also overseeing one of the most extraordinary initiatives in Oxford, making the final connection with mainstream society: work. Aspire is the brainchild of two Oxford graduates, Paul Harrod (New College 1995) and Mark Richardson (LMH 1995). It is a form of 'social enterprise', employing homeless workers to deliver a home-shopping catalogue along a pre-set route and to collect orders. One fringe benefit for workers is a credible reference with which to move on in the job market.
'Neither of us fancied the career choices - offers from City firms - which came our way', says Harrod. 'This business is a means to an end. But it's still a business, not a charity. We have to offer customers a competitive product. Then the social dimension is the icing on the cake.' Aspire started in Bristol in March 1999, using £200,000 of 'social venture capital'. 'It's an equity investment by business angels looking for a modest rate of return, capped at 5 per cent', explains Harrod. The Bristol operation is predicted to break even by the end of 2001.
The Aspire catalogue has since been licensed to local groups in eight further cities, with Oxford starting up in September 2001. As the business expands, with a central warehouse, so overheads are falling. 'Some charities spend 60-70p for every £1 they raise. They give away £5,000 to a project, then it's spent, and the charity has to do it all over again. We're recycling the money, making it grow.'
The government Rough Sleepers Unit has been impressed enough to provide a grant (used strictly for support workers and kept separate from the business money). Harrod is bullish about the prospects. 'Home shopping will increase, with traffic levels as they are; and the Internet hasn't harmed mail-order businesses. We're looking to get 15 branches established, then start growing some secondary businesses. We already have a market stall in East London, and we're thinking about a café ...'
Colleges have built much new accommodation over the past 15 years, taking students out of the rented sector, and Brookes is set to build large halls on Marston Road. But it will take lots more Aspire-style creative thinking to bring Oxford's housing stock into line with the population and its earnings, and to give Frank a future that is more than a single room.
Home Current issue Archive Subscribe Contact Oxford Today Oxford University
Enter search term:
Back to top
.
Advanced search
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Produced by: Public Relations Office. © 2006 | Accessibility | Back to top
.
(http://www.ox.ac.uk/publicrelations/)
