Homelessness Project: Crisis Case Study

Steve (48), Open Christmas guest 2002

currently living in a squat

Steve grew up in Ireland and, in 1969 age fifteen, he joined the army as a junior soldier. He was posted to the Middle East and Germany as part of the British Army of the Rhine. It was well into his army career, during leave in Italy that he first met his wife in her father's restaurant:

"I ordered some tomato soup but as she bought it over I had somehow got my leg caught under the table and the soup went all over her. She starting telling me off in Italian - I'm glad I didn't understand what she was saying!"

But Steve went back to the restaurant to ask her father for permission to take her out. "Fortunately she forgave me! Her father agreed but the whole family were chaperoning us all down the road. I'd look behind me and they were all there."

When Steve was moved to Germany his wife went with him and they set up home together. Steve was now training Non Commissioned Officers and had risen to the rank of sergeant. Suddenly his wife became ill. They went to a see her family's doctor who diagnosed cancer.

She died soon after, age 26. Steve found this very difficult to come to terms with and started drinking heavily. "It really destroyed me," says Steve. "I used to dream about her when I was drunk. You never get over the grief."

His drinking started to interfere with his work: "I was teaching the guys about mortars and stuff and I was forgetting things. I would forget about a class I would have in the afternoon. There were about 50 guys waiting for me, and I didn't even turn up. It was the drink - I couldn't do my job."

After 14 years' service Steve was dismissed from the Army. The reference he was given was unusable as anyone familiar with the army would realise there had been a serious reason for his dismissal. He was in Berlin at the time and as he could speak German he managed to get a job in a nightclub. After six months the owner sold the club and Steve returned to Britain, still drinking.

Without references it was difficult to find work: "When I first arrived back in Britain I got a job at Heathrow airport. But because I had a big gap in my employment history employers would think I'd been in the nick. It caused me plenty of problems."

Steve had no home and could not turn to his family: "They are like strangers. I lost touch with them when they didn't like my wife. I had taken her over there (Ireland) and they just didn't take to her. I never went back. They don't even know she's dead."

He'd stay where he could, taking temporary work on building sites: "I'd stay in different places, on a friend's floor, flats, bedsits, sleeping in the park in a sleeping bag, (in the good weather) I never classed myself as homeless."

Steve lived like this for ten years. During this time he was still drinking every night, sometimes more often: "If certain contracts ended and it left you with time on your hands you might go on the drink for weeks and weeks. And that's when the problems start and your hands start shaking. I was doing that until 1997. I was doing that for ten years."

Amazingly, Steve was able to break his addiction: "I woke up one morning with a terrible hang over. I was walking down the road and stopped outside a corner shop; there was a very clear reflection of me in the window - I got a fright and I thought 'that's it, that's the drink finished.'"

Steve found a doctor who helped him with hallucinations and the other side effects of giving up alcohol: "At first I saw snakes and birds climbing the walls but the doctor gave me tablets to get over that. It lasted for five weeks and then it just went."

Steve has been sober ever since: "I realised I was only fooling myself. I tried to drink to cure all my ills but I was wrong, I admitted that to myself, which I think you have to do. I realised that when you looked at the bottom of the glass, your problems were magnified a thousand times."

Since 1997 Steve has been living in a squat in West London with two others: "The three of us cleaned the whole place, we collected furniture from skips - it's surprising what people throw out."

This is the second year Steve has been back to the Crisis Open Christmas.

Last year he didn't want to spend Christmas alone in his squat: "The doors opened and I couldn't believe it. You're not looking at the four walls back in your room. Every day is new. You meet different people here, you might meet someone you used to drink with from a couple of years ago now and you've stopped."

Steve seems optimistic about the future. He's now trying to update the skills he learned in the army and gain the qualifications he needs to find work. As part of the New Deal scheme arranged by the job centre Steve has received training in driving Forklift trucks. "I've passed the first qualification and plan to do the next level, then I can apply for jobs. If I get it I'll go to the job centre and I'll ask them to put me onto a job file and I can start off from scratch."

Brian and Kevin

Back to the top

Back