The day I thought my Gran was homeless

Last summer, I had in meeting in the Colmore district of Birmingham. I arrived early, dressed in a tailored suit, wearing polished leather shoes and a big smile. The sun was shining and life was good as I popped into the art gallery for 10 minutes before my meeting. 

The meeting went well and I won some business. I left the office block to walk back to my car to go home, feeling pretty content with the day so far.

Then, as I walked across Colmore Square, in a split second, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my Gran, sitting on the pavement, crying and pleading with passers-by, all of whom ignored her. This was particularly emotive because my Gran died in 2004, though the shock of seeing a lady that I thought was my Gran delayed my conscious processing of the detail.

Of course, by the time I reached the lady I knew that she wasn’t my Gran, nevertheless, she appeared to be in her sixties or seventies and in distress. I’ll call the lady Mary, as that was my Gran’s name. I sat down next to Mary and started to speak with her and to cut a long story short, Mary’s mother, who was also Mary’s carer, had recently died. Mary was now homeless, living on the streets and suffering from mental illness. 

After I’d bought Mary some lunch, I set off to find a local community officer that Mary had told me about, whose job it is to help the local homeless people. In my search for this man I came across more homeless people and I started to talk to them, enquiring as to how they had become homeless, if they were in receipt of any assistance and if they had any plan to get themselves off the streets. Without exception, these were nice people, who seemed to have genuine, believable stories about their circumstance. They were living day to day and didn’t have any way out of this vicious cycle.

Eventually, I tracked down the community officer and we had a chat about the people that I had met, all of whom he knew and whose stories he verified. He also went on to describe some of the atrocities that happen to these people by day and by night, it really was the stuff of nightmares.

How can it be, in this day and age, in a first world country that a lady old enough to be my Gran, maybe your Gran, Grandma, Nan, who suffers from mental illness, can be begging on the streets of Birmingham because she has nowhere to live and nobody to care for her?

I don’t know the answer, but that is the situation.

So, I decided that I’d do something to help and earlier this year I was introduced to Launchpad, which is a charity that helps homeless people like Mary. 10th October is World Homeless Day which is why some colleagues and I are going to ‘live on the street’ for a night, though of course it’s only pretend because we’ll be going back to our lovely lives the following day. However, we may raise some awareness of the issue and with your help, we may also raise some funds to assist some of these genuine people who need a little support.

If you’re able to and would like to make a donation in support of our endeavour, then please do so via the following link; https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/TheBigSleepOut1

Thank you for taking the time to read this story and for any support that you’re able to provide.

Wishing you all the best,

Rupert and Mary.