Home & Homelessness.
Two neighbours tell me about their experience of having nowhere to be.
I've figured out a delightful way to get home.
I get off the bus two stops early. It drops me in my sister village, at the door of The Black Swan pub.
I drop in, stand at the bar and drink a half pint of ale, stooped over to avoid banging my head on the low oak beams, then I walk home through the fields along an ancient footpath.
Sometimes I'll read a book, or flick through the Daily Something-or-other.
Today I perch on the other end of a standing table and chat to a fellow with intricately tattooed hands and a high-vis work hoodie. He's rolling a cigarette and drinking a pint after a hard day's manual labour in the cold. He's a scaffolder.
The conversation quickly zeroes in on an area of mutual interest: we both like UFC. Particularly a fighter called Sean O'Malley.
Women, does this happen to you? The area of mutual interest could be medieval monasticism, air frying, a sport, no matter. It is zeroed in on in a matter of seconds. With a complete stranger!
The conversation ranges from there. He soon tells me, with no hangups, that until recently he has been living in his car. He's just moved in with a new girlfriend down the road. I asked him where he parked, and it's the carpark of my gym (he's a member. It's a relatively pricey gym, but nothing on rent I guess.)
Before that he'd been living in Norwich in a flat (translation: apartment) with others but it hadn't worked out. It was very noisy - right by the train station, and maybe he didn't get on with his flatmates (‘roommates’ to my American readers). He'd grown up in a nearby suburb, where his parents still live. But he preferred to sleep in his car in a floodlit gym carpark.
He's a nice fellow, and he seems to have found his feet. I'm happy for him, and we part, shaking hands and introducing ourselves. His name is H-.
I walk the 20 minutes home through the fields thinking of a book I've only half read, but the premise of which sticks with me. It's called Bowling Alone, and it introduced me to the concept of Social Credit. This is more important than money.
To assess the state of my social credit, it asks me to imagine how many people I could call on if I needed somewhere to stay for the night?
People with high social credit will never be truly homeless, because there's always a spare room or a couch. Others, with low social credit are not even welcome for a night at their parent's house.
The argument is that most homeless people suffer from low social credit. A lack of friends or family willing to help them, for whatever reason. Or a reluctance to ask.
Another neighbour volunteers at a nearby animal shelter and walks his dogs by my house twice a day. Once he popped over with a mower to tame our front lawn. His name is E- and he quickly confided in me that he moved to the area following a significant period of homelessness. He was married, and a father. Their child died. No details given or sought. No official link between the two circumstances. But in the way of a story, one thing follows another.
Our boiler broke on the weekend.
It's not as bad a situation as it would be in a couple of months time, but my wife and I are having renovations done, and we have no kitchen, or downstairs water, now no upstairs hot water, or heat, and it's freaking freezing. It's an insurance claim, and the insurers are moving like molasses to fix it. We've been debating whether the house is liveable.
We assess our options, with two kids. Those options are mercifully plentiful.
Pay for an Airbnb nearby
Go to my wife's sister's family 90 minutes down the road
Talk to our friends 10 minutes up the road.
Text our across the road neighbours - who have two young kids - to see if we can do our dishes there
We don't have a lot of local friends. We're working on that. But the ones we have are amazing. I brought up the situation on Whatsapp and we were immediately offered a room, or the loan of electric heaters. We were invited over for dinner the very next night.
So far, we've chosen to go with heaters and jerseys inside.
But I'm warmed by my social credit score.
I'm determined to try and extend that abundance with my neighbours and strangers.