Stop and Smell the Roses
“Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for roses, too!”
- Bread and Roses, James Oppenheim
Last Sunday was Mother’s Day when I got to spend Saturday with my Mum, and on Sunday we had a chat. As usual, she let me vent my frustrations and fears, this time about the upcoming Insight Assignment I had to prepare for, before convincing me that I had nothing to worry about and could tackle this head on!
So, on Monday, feeling confident and motivated I headed back to my Year Here placement. I am working as a Project Worker at Heather Court Foyer run by Swan Housing Association. The Foyer provides supported accommodation for single young people aged 16–25 who are in housing need and require support to acquire the skills to live independently. Referrals come from Havering Council, Social Care and other agencies. Some residents are referred as they are leaving care but are not ready for independent living, others have had no option but to leave the family home after relationship breakdowns make living at home impossible. At Heather Court, I realised, for many of the residents Mother’s Day hadn’t been a day to celebrate. Mother’s Day had been a reminder that they did not have a Mother to celebrate with, or they had gone to celebrate with their Mother only to return disappointed and upset.
When I think about this, a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a resident, Laura (not her real name) and her young person’s adviser also comes to mind. At the time Laura was at risk of being excluded from her 6th form college due to poor attendance so we had called a meeting. Laura’s young person’s adviser suggested that what Laura was missing was a Mum. Laura agreed, she needed someone to hold her to account she said. I remember thinking of myself as an A-Level student, of the many mornings my parents came to knock on my door to remind me that I had school, and of the many, many, evenings they would spend listening to me recite lines of Shakespeare or the dates of the reigns of Tudor Kings and Queens; soothing my frustrations and boosting my confidence. Laura has since been permanently excluded from her 6th form and will not be able to sit her A-level exams in June.
Despite these thoughts being on my mind, when I sat down to write my Insight Assignment I started my research from a different angle; What is leading to a lack of affordable, decent homes? How can we build more houses? What innovative building ideas are being used to tackle this? This is not necessarily a bad place to start, certainly what I read most often in newspapers and hear on the news is that the housing crisis is caused by a lack of available homes; which it is. However, it left me confused, this focus on the physical structure of a home felt disconnected to the issues I was witnessing on my placement, yet I just knew the insights I had gathered at Heather Court were fundamental to my understanding of the housing crisis we are facing.
My insights were highlighting that many of the young people here do not have a support network that can provide them with positive support and advice, that they seek guidance and affirmation in the same places we all do but to often devastating effect. I spoke about this with a Project Worker, she suggested that this is a key factor in the recurring homelessness of some ex-residents of the Foyers. If this is not addressed their successful, long-term independent living is jeopardised regardless of the number of new houses we can build.
When I need advice and inspiration, I turn to my family, friends, and now an ever growing network of Year Here alumni. My Year Here buddy Olivia Head runs a social enterprise along with fellow Year Here Alumni Sneh Jani, called Bread and Roses. I had never read the poem of the same name before, but I read it this weekend and it struck me that in my research for my Insight Assignment I had focused on the bread, but in our fight against the housing crisis in the UK it is totally legitimate, and important, to fight for the roses too.
The young people at the Foyer have been provided accommodation, and the offer of more is there, yet there is a general lack of engagement, of motivation, or excitement for the future. Many of the residents don’t get up until the late afternoon and even then they do not get dressed or leave the Foyer all day. Despite pending exams, University offers and job opportunities they are being excluded from school for non-attendance and signing on to Job Seekers Allowance, only to have to make a new application a few weeks later when they can’t motivate themselves to attend their Job Centre appointments.
We all struggle to stop and smell the roses sometimes, to find the things in life that make us happy and motivate us to do things we don’t want to, but understand we need to do. It seems that what I’m seeing at the Foyer is the effect when nobody ever planted the roses in your garden in the first place. These young people will be provided independent living accommodation when they are ready to move on. However, for some of them, that won’t be enough to prevent them from falling back into homelessness when they face the many hurdles that the path to adulthood and independent living brings, that I had my parents to guide me around and pick me up from when I failed.
Through consultations with the residents we’re beginning together to build a picture of what might help to build a supportive community in their lives. Perhaps rather aptly I’m in the process of starting a gardening project with the young people at the Foyer. I’m as new to this as the residents, but I hope that with a watchful eye and some nurturing we’ll start to see the roses grow.
