Episode 3 Cardiff: Living on the Streets

I've been on the streets so long now, I've given up.

I'm going to be on the streets for the rest of my life, I think.

Cardiff is facing a housing crisis.

In just two years, the number of people sleeping rough on the streets

has more than doubled.

Here, I'm sleeping here.

I'm film-maker Chris Rushton and, together with Angharad Arnold,

we spent six months following the plight of Cardiff's homeless.

We want to understand why the numbers are on the increase.

I don't know what the council are going to do with my particular case.

I've just got to sit there, bear it and grin, and just keep on going.

The risks they take sleeping rough.

'It's dangerous. I've been beat up.

'Men's offered me money for sex.'

Find out how the homeless survive and the prejudices they face.

Get a life and get a proper grip.

There's loads of work.

And stop begging!

I don't like being like that. That's what I mean.

We need to get me off the streets. I don't like doing this.

Following the lives of those with nowhere to go

would prove to be an upsetting story.

I don't want to live like this no more.

HE SOBS

HE WHIMPERS Mama.

This is the reality of living on Cardiff's streets.

Four months into our filming on the streets, and winter is upon us,

and now Cardiff is transformed with Christmas attractions.

For most of us, the run-up to Christmas is when we look forward

to spending time with friends and family.

but it's the most difficult time of the year for those who are homeless.

I wanted to find out how they coped at Christmas,

especially those who have been rejected by their families

and have nowhere to go.

Despite the colder weather,

new faces were appearing on Cardiff's streets.

They include young people who've run away from home.

22-year-old Sam told us that, after a fallout with his mother,

he ended up on the streets.

Now, he's in unfamiliar territory.

I know I'm in Cardiff. Where in Cardiff am I?

St Mary's Street this is. St Mary's Street, is it? Yeah.

OK.

It's Sam's third night on the streets.

Um. Where can I go?

See, the problem is, I haven't got a clue, you know?

Here looks good, doesn't it?

I'll sleep here then.

Yeah.

Oh.

It's just so hard, guys.

You know, I'm a Valley boy,

and I just haven't got a clue about the city.

Sam told us he'd been attacked the night before.

He was vulnerable and, with just a damp sleeping bag,

he was ill-prepared for sleeping rough.

The Christmas lights make me so depressed.

HE SOBS

I don't want to live like this no more.

HE WHIMPERS Mama.

Please, God.

HE SPLUTTERS AND COUGHS HEAVILY

For the last seven years,

26-year-old Danielle has been in and out of Cardiff's homeless shelters

and slept rough in all weathers.

SHE COUGHS Freezing cold.

Sad, depressing.

Makes you mentally ill.

You end up being full up with the flu, chest infections.

I've been ill for weeks and weeks now.

Oh, my bum.

It's dangerous.

I can't sleep properly at nights.

You've just got to be alert.

She told us how her life spiralled out of control

after she lost her father.

I found him dead in bed, and then just become homeless since then.

I couldn't stay in the house because he died in the house

and there were too many weird memories and things.

And then my mother got institutionalised

into a mental hospital.

And then I've just been in this game since.

On the streets since 2009.

These traumatic events left Danielle struggling to cope,

and with no-one to turn to.

I'm 26 now. I've never had family, really.

I have family but they're not there when I need them, like.

Just get on with it.

She's trying to get help and, as Christmas approaches,

she's becoming more desperate to get off the streets.

Just before Christmas now, a week before Christmas,

they open churches.

I know it's only the floor in the church

but it's a roof over my head, you know, out of the cold and the rain.

So, hopefully, I get a Christmas dinner.

In one year, a homeless charity reported

that, in Wales, 140,000 16- to 24-year-olds

spent at least one night sofa-surfing or sleeping rough.

Some, though, find themselves homeless for much longer.

20-year-old Ethan told me

difficulties at home led to his mother asking him to leave.

And, for the last year, he's been of no fixed abode.

So, do you know actually where you're going to sleep tonight?

Not tonight, no. I have places I can go.

But I've got my stuff with me so I'm good, you know?

Over the 12 months, he's slept rough in Cardiff,

had a spell in a homeless hostel,

sofa-surfed, dossed in an industrial unit where he worked,

and camped out in the woods.

Ethan's an acrobatic free-runner.

Some of it came from, like, just sitting with myself, thinking,

what is the thing I'm most afraid to do?

And then just like forcing myself to do that stuff.

He's super-fit,

and taking risks seemed to be part of a bigger life journey.

I find, if I don't do it, then my brain just gets stagnant

and I get all stiff and rigid.

Ethan's a free spirit.

Tonight, he's decided to set up home deep in the woods outside Cardiff.

This is my roof and this is my hammock.

It's a really nice place to sleep.

The first time I used it was when my mum first kicked me out.

That was last year.

His relationship with his mum improved after he left.

What I like about hammocks is, because it's wet now,

so I could... Basically, I can turn up wherever I want.

It could be swamp, water this deep, it could be snow.

As long as I have two trees, I'm good to go.

For a homeless person, Ethan's outlook was exceptionally positive.

It's really nice waking up,

just looking up at the tree tops like this.

Beats sleeping on the streets.

He discovered this shelter in the woods six months ago.

A man with a bunch of sticks ready to get a fire going is very happy.

It wasn't the first time I'd met Ethan.

He was one of my son's school friends,

so I'd known him throughout his schooldays.

But Ethan found the rigid structure of school

very difficult to cope with.

He had the reputation of being unmanageable

and disruptive in the classroom.

It goes some way to explain why he's ended up becoming homeless.

As you're growing up, like, I'm not thinking,

let me be loud so I disrupt the whole classroom

and just, like, ruin everyone's day.

But, after a while, when it's just years and years of it,

it starts to, like, eat away.

In school, I wasn't really given the space to explore, be myself,

so I just like to put myself in environments

where I can do it peacefully.

His problems didn't end there.

When he was 16, his father died.

For a while, he managed to hold down a job,

but found it stressful fitting in to workplace life.

I need to, like, make the system work for me,

instead of working for the system all my life.

Ethan was trying to sort out his problems,

but I wondered how long he could carry on living like this,

with night-time temperatures dropping down to minus four.

Over the winter months,

the hostels and churches offer an additional 52 emergency spaces

for people with nowhere to go.

Most end up on what's known as floor space.

The lucky ones might get a little more privacy in a pod.

Which is where Danielle has ended up.

If she sticks with the pod,

it could lead to her getting a room in a hostel.

They said they might be able to get us somewhere.

It's just a waiting game.

But... It just makes me stronger

and just never give up hope.

Whilst we were making this film,

the Huggard Centre, who support those wanting to get off drugs,

saw a rise in the number of homeless people

registering as heroin addicts.

Alcohol was once the biggest addiction amongst homeless people.

Now, it's heroin.

Any spare change, please?

Thank you.

After her father's death, Danielle became addicted to heroin.

She's trying to get help for it but it's a battle

and the drug controls her everyday life.

I'm feeling ill.

Ill. I hate the word.

It feels rough.

It's when users go without heroin that they feel ill.

And long-term addicts no longer get any pleasure from the drug.

People think people take it for a buzz. It's not.

It's just to get yourself normal.

At least twice every 24 hours, Danielle is in excruciating pain.

It feels like you're dying if you ain't got it.

Your legs are aching, your back's aching,

you're spewing, you can't move, you're stuck.

The only way to stop the pain of withdrawal from the drug

is to get more heroin

and the only way she can do that is to make more money.

Any spare change, please, sir?

I wish I'd never started it.

I never had no choice, though.

I thought I was smoking cannabis but I wasn't,

I was smoking heroin mixed in with cannabis and, the next thing I knew,

within two weeks, I had a full-blown habit.

Each of her days blurs into one.

Driven by the power of her addiction,

she is left with little time to do anything about her situation.

I regret it. Biggest regret of my life

because, once you've got a habit, that's it. Your life's ruined.

Danielle eventually got the room she was hoping for in a hostel.

The increase in numbers of homeless drug users hasn't gone unnoticed

by the Huggard Centre's substance misuse team.

They told us they're struggling to cope

with the demand from users wanting help.

Another illegal drug that is verging on becoming

an epidemic among Cardiff's homeless is known as spice.

It's a synthetic cannabis that's cheap and highly addictive.

But its effects are much more dangerous than cannabis.

We'd seen this many times before,

uncontrollable fitting which can be life-threatening.

The Huggard Centre staff administer vital first aid

to the victim of a spice attack.

Over the last year, they attended over 100 serious incidents

related to drug-taking and those who'd overdosed.

If you've got some space,

I'll give you an actual pillow later, all right?

We'll have to wait to see if anyone else comes in. OK. OK.

Sam ended up homeless in Cardiff after a family fallout.

Tonight, he's off the streets

and he's got into emergency accommodation at the Huggard.

I don't really know how to make a bed, you know?

I don't know how they do it.

It's unlikely he'll get moved into a hostel or get help from the council.

They told me to go to housing options,

so I'm going to go there tomorrow,

But I know what they're going to say to me.

"You've got no local connections, we can't...

"We can't help you."

He told us he'd become addicted to spice.

Now, he's one of the many who has developed

a serious mental health problem, a drug-induced psychosis.

It makes him anxious and can cause him to hallucinate.

I had the psychosis and all that, innit?

And the police took me up to the hospital

and they sectioned me.

I was there for a month.

Because of what he's been through,

Sam wants others to know the truth about spice.

When you take it, you're like, at first, I done so much.

And you keep on smoking and smoking it, you know.

It was so addictive. I was on it for two years

and I was actually peeing blood.

Do not ever take it. Don't.

This was the last time we saw Sam.

Because of his vulnerability,

he got referred to the council's rough sleepers team,

who helped him get back to his family.

Whenever he can, Ethan heads to this industrial estate in Cardiff.

11 months ago, he had a brief spell in a YMCA hostel

where everything was laid on, but he handed in the keys.

Since then, he's stopped claiming benefits

and he's been living outside the system

and going to his jujitsu class.

He has no money,

so he's convinced jujitsu master Rob Taylor to coach him for free.

It's a Japanese martial art,

a form of unarmed combat and physical training,

and I was soon to find out it was a step toward a far bigger ambition.

Just found myself training just all the time.

What's the plan?

The first Welsh champion of the world, I guess.

With Ethan devoting more and more time to training,

I couldn't help but think that this could be

the impetus he needs to sort his life out.

With two weeks to go until Christmas,

people's thoughts are turning to those with nowhere to go.

Meirion is originally from Carmarthen

and he's overwhelmed by the presents given by passers-by.

Well, I've had loads of stuff.

I've had sandwiches, crisps,

toiletries, wet wipes, a scarf.

I've even got candles.

Meirion ended up homeless after serving a sentence for robbery.

He was recently released from Cardiff Prison

but didn't want to go back to his family.

I wanted to understand why he chose to stay on the streets of Cardiff.

Five years ago, his life was turned upside down

after his baby daughter died unexpectedly.

My daughter was six-and-a-half months when she passed away.

She died of cot death.

I'll never forget the girl.

It's always in there. She will always be there.

At that time, Meirion was a recovering drug addict.

The coroner found that neither parent was at fault.

Because I was the one to give her resuscitation,

and I took two fingers and I blew over her mouth for about 45 minutes.

And that's always going to stay in my head.

I don't know what to say.

Devastated by what had happened,

Meirion fell back into drug-taking and crime to feed his habit.

But I didn't even have counselling, nothing,

I had to do it all myself like that.

He came out of jail drug-free

and doesn't want to slip back into a life of addictions.

Just get my life back, just to be normal.

Just not being on the street, just being myself again,

instead of feeling like a loser.

It's what I feel like, a loser, I'm worthless.

Can't do nothing.

He told us he didn't get any help when he was released from prison,

and now he wants nothing to do with the agencies that could help him.

Each night, Meirion has to find somewhere to sleep.

The abandoned quilt is a bonus.

Oh, and it's dry.

It's cold.

It's going to be cold.

On the streets now for over a month,

he's struggling to make the fresh start he so desperately needs.

Do my bed.

Cor, stinks of piss here.

Clean all the piss up.

And this is where I've got to sleep for the rest of my life.

I used to work. I used to do loads of things.

But I've got no family, nothing, so I've got no-one to turn to.

In the weeks that followed, Meirion slipped deeper into depression.

I wondered if he would ever find a way

to solve his deep-rooted problems.

When we caught up next with Ethan,

he was on his way to the Huggard Centre.

It's cold and I don't want to be that cold.

I'm tired as well, so it's going to be a good night's sleep.

He's decided that being homeless

is making it difficult to focus on his martial arts training.

Now he wants to have another go at getting a place of his own.

The first step is to get back in the system and on to floor space.

It's not the first time he's stayed here.

Hi, Ethan. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, man.

The emergency accommodation is in a complex that also has hostel rooms.

Cool. Thanks.

I've got it. Cheers, man.

Ethan tries to focus on his training, which includes yoga.

It just helps remind my body it's time to go to sleep.

But, in here, that's not always easy.

RAISED VOICES ARGUING

I think someone wants to go to someone's room with a visitor.

there's five or ten minutes left before

you have to leave as a visitor.

Um. Yeah, it happens every now and then.

Either this, or someone smoking too much spice, or drinking too much.

At least now Ethan is back in the system.

Lights off.

Goodnight, guys. Goodnight, Mike. Night.

It wasn't unusual for homeless people to make

several attempts over many months

before they could make any real changes to their lives.

When we began filming in summer,

the first person we encountered was Raymond.

Surrounded by his kit,

he's still in the same spot as when we met him six months ago.

I actually didn't think it was that long.

Time has just, you know, it just gets away from you,

especially being out here where every day is the same.

I'm still on a waiting list for the council and the housing.

Um. They're still telling me I've got a long time to wait.

Living on the streets was taking its toll.

But it had become a normal routine for Raymond.

Desperately, he's clinging on to the idea that, one day,

he would get a roof over his head.

With Christmas around the corner,

most of Cardiff's street homeless have found a place indoors,

either sofa-surfing, or in the winter night shelters.

Another week on floor space has paid off for Ethan.

With help from the Huggard Centre,

he's got the chance of a room in one of their shared houses.

I still thought I'd be on floor space for a couple of weeks, months.

Didn't really have any idea what would happen after that.

I'm going to take you to view the property Wednesday afternoon.

OK. And hopefully you like it.

If you do, I will move you in on Friday.

Support worker Lorraine Blucher has been working on Ethan's case.

He was identified months ago by the Huggard Centre

as a young person facing difficulties.

I'll be Ethan's support worker

and I'll help him with whatever support needs he has, you know?

Nice big kitchen. That's your garden.

Yeah, cool, it's really nice.

I'll show you your room.

Awesome.

The room's big enough to do all my yoga, my training.

Everything I need.

I'm probably going to sleep on the floor still,

because I'm pretty tall.

It's better than floor space, it's better than Huggard,

it's better than the night shelter, and it's better than the YMCA.

For many young people,

managing a home and paying their bills can be challenging.

But with support on hand,

Ethan has a better chance of making a go of it.

It's 7.30am, and finally, it's Christmas morning.

We'd promised to meet the one person we knew

would still be on the streets.

Hemmed in by Christmas gifts, Meirion is fast asleep.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Struggling to come to terms with the loss of his baby daughter,

and with no family to turn to,

Meirion has resigned himself to spend Christmas Day alone.

At the end of the day, it's just another day.

Everybody's having family dinners and all that.

They're all happy with their families,

and I think, I'm on my own.

I've got no-one at all.

Come on.

Come on, boy.

Move you.

Don't need people. I've got friends, my buddies.

I'll sit here all day, I will.

Become a recluse.

BIRDS CAWING

Our six months of filming with Cardiff's homeless people

was at its end.

And we had a better understanding of why people ended up on the streets,

often detached from society,

trapped by addictions and suffering mental health problems.

Yet some end up trying to cope with these deep-rooted problems

out in the cold, alone and with nowhere to call home.