Murder is Everywhere: A sense of home, temporarily...

Crisis at Christmas has been helping homeless people for more than fifty years

Craig every second Tuesday.

Kia ora and gidday everyone.

I've been thinking quite a bit about gratitude lately. I hope all of you reading this had a great festive season, however and wherever you spent it. It can be a stressful time, as well as a joyful time, and while it certainly can be a season of hope and generosity it can also be really tough for some people, for a variety of reasons.

Unlike last year, and many years when I've been living in the UK (COVID aside), I didn't go back to my homeland of Aotearoa New Zealand this Christmas. So it was a chilly London holiday season for me, rather than beaches and barbecues with family and old friends. My daughter and her mother did head back, so I was flying solo for the season too. (I'd spent four months back home when my father was terminally ill, so couldn't make this trip work).

The silver lining of this circumstance was that I was able to return to my volunteering with Crisis at Christmas for the first time since the pandemic. I'd volunteered with this wonderful charity four times in five years in the pre-COVID years; the first time in 2015, like 2023, was because I was stuck solo in London, but the later occasions I incorporated my several days of volunteering into my holiday seasons before flying back to New Zealand for New Year's and a few weeks of summer catch-ups and friends/family hangouts in January/February etc.

So what is Crisis at Christmas? It's an annual programme run by Crisis, a British homelessness charity (who also do lots year-round to try to alleviate the issue and help those suffering through homelessness) which provides not only food and shelter to homeless people over the chilly winter festive season, but a sense of community, clothing, medical and dental care, legal and housing and employment and other advice and assistance, and more.

In a way, Crisis provides a temporary home, and community, for people over Christmas. It's a remarkable thing.

Some guests are helped into new accommodation, jobs, and opportunities during and following their time at Crisis at Christmas, and from my experience of several years and hundreds of hours volunteering, all leave at least a little better off than when they entered. There are Day Centres and overnight centres catering to different needs.

Me at one of my first Crisis shifts in 2015; I was interviewed by the BBC
as a Kiwi volunteering half a world away from home over Christmas etc

Back in 2015, I was looking for a 'soup kitchen' to volunteer at on Christmas Day, since I wouldn't be home for Christmas. I found Crisis online, and thought what they were doing to help homeless people in a variety of ways for several days rather than a single meal etc, was really cool. So I signed up for three shifts; I ended up doing six.

Like a lot of community, volunteering and charity things, in a weird way you get more than you give.

My eyes were opened up that first year to the diversity of 'the homelessness issue'. I met guests from all sorts of backgrounds, who had a variety of stories for how they'd ended up sleeping on the street. (I volunteer at 'rough sleepers' centres, but homelessness is a far broader issue than the rough sleepers people may see as they go about their day in cities around the world. There's a lot of 'hidden homelessness' too.) Sudden relationship breakups before Christmas, unexpected job losses, people who were too scared or ashamed to let family or friends know about hard times that had befallen them so were sleeping rough rather than asking for help.

It wasn't at all the picture some politicians and media paint or try to downplay or minimise as a population of addicts and people with mental health issues (though of course there is plenty of that too). 'There but for the grace...' was a phrase that often came to mind. How tenuous we all could be without family or other support, especially given how many people live paycheck to paycheck and how tough times can be with high living costs and out-of-control rents and housing prices. I met homeless people who were working during the day then sleeping in parks at night, people who'd had good jobs for years but then quickly lost it all after restructuring etc, and now spent their days in the library and their nights on the street as they tried to find their way back to the life they'd known. White collar workers who'd had an untimely relationship breakup and had nowhere to live over the holiday season. Travellers whose belongings had been stolen, and now had no way over Xmas to pay for accommodation in a new country.

One of the wonderful things about Crisis at Christmas is it brings such a range of people together during the festive season; guests and volunteers. Every year I've volunteered I've met and been inspired by some really amazing people. As I said above, it often feels like I'm getting way more than I'm giving. And once again, like my first year when I signed up for a few shifts and ended up doing a few more, the same thing happed in 2023.

After a pretty tough year for me personally, in a strange way I think I really needed Crisis this holiday season. (Weirdly, 2022 should have been tougher given all that happened, but 2023 felt like this strange 'aftermath' year of not much and nothingness, whereas 2022 itself I was surrounded by great people to help us through the storm as we lived through some really tough things, so it didn't feel as bad as it could have at the time, if that makes sense.)

So I now look ahead to 2024 feeling somewhat rejuvenated, hopeful, and full of gratitude. Thanks to the wonderful volunteers - some old friends it was wonderful to catch up with, and new vols too - and to seeing the differences that were made for many guests lives in ways small and big, I'm feeling a little refreshed. Like our guests themselves, I came out of several long days at Crisis at Christmas better for the experience, more ready to face what's ahead.

If you'd like to help Crisis with the great work they do (I've barely touched on it), you can donate here.

Until next time. Ka kite anō.

Whakataukī of the fortnight:

Inspired by Zoe and her 'word of the week', I'll be ending my fortnightly posts by sharing a whakataukī (Māori proverb), a pithy and poetic thought to mull on as we go through life.

Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi

(everybody has something to offer, a piece of the puzzle, and by working together we can all flourish)