Please don't judge me... I'm a person

"My mum and dad split up when I was a kid; my mum used to beat me; so when I was 16 I went to live with my dad, but he was an alcoholic so in the end I just left and went to stay with friends..."

 "I didn't get on with my step dad; we used to argue all the time. In the end we had a fight and I left...I've never gone back."

" My brother abused me for four years, but my mum wouldn't believe me so I just went off the rails..."

"There's no work in my country. I came here to find work and make money so I can feed my family back home. But there's no work...."

So what do you think when you see when you see someone begging on the street or sleeping rough in a shop door way?

Did you know?

Amongst rough sleepers it is estimated around:
10% have been in care
6% in the armed forces
33% have drug problems
48% alcohol problems
30% mental health problems
(some ofcourse have a combination of 2 or 3)  
(source Homeless Link report on Rough sleepers- Key facts March 2011 www.homeless.org.uk)

In a sample study of 100 homeless young people
25% of girls & 9% of the young men cited sexual abuse as the main reason for leaving home.
Other issues included illegal drug misuse and committing a criminal offence (15%)
(source: Homelessness & crime- Jenny Grimshaw, British library www.fathom.com)  

Homelessness isn't just about young people, or people who 'do drugs'. In the 3 1/2 years I've worked as Dropin co-ordinator at Northampton Jesus Centre I've met men and women in their 40's and 50's who've been professionals with families and mortgages then through a combination of pressures of work or relationship tensions have found their drinking spiralling out of control leaving a car crash of shattered lives and broken promises. From there may follow mental health problems as they are unable to come to terms with the dramatic change in their circumstance which includes losing their job, relationship breakdown and finally homelessness. Often too proud or shunned by embarrassed family and friends who equally cannot come to terms with what has happened they describe how they become social lepers, treated like outcasts, 'the unclean', for fear that they might contaminate others. The seek solace in their only apparent friend, 'the bottle' in the hope of blotting out the nightmare.


The Inuits have a saying "Don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins";  Jesus said something similar, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (The Bible).
  
Here at the Jesus Centre we believe that every person is valued, regardless of what difficulties they may come to us with. We provide showers, laundry, an opportunity for social interaction and a listening ear which can go along way to restoring someones shattered confidence or broken self image. We can't re-build their past but we can help them to believe there is a future.