By Steve Please note: The following report talks about substance use It’s the 27th of November, my name is Steve. And I wanna talk about a little analogy of addiction. So over three decades of addiction have led me to this understanding, retrospectively like you know. So when I was 17 I started to construct […]

This winter will be a difficult time for many households. Many will be forced into an incredibly difficult decision, do they heat their homes, or do they feed their family? But spare a thought for those that do not have a choice. For those that are sleeping rough, food is their fuel!  Photo by Mat […]

By Steve It’s the 5th of August. About five-ish. I just want to briefly talk about something that’s been happening quite a lot, actually, recently. So I live in recovery housing, and have done on and off for the last five years. Different associations, I’ve moved about a lot because of relapse, which for me […]

This picture sums up my most important recovery gift – connection 🤜🤛 Now, I make no apology for the team colours, proud black and white, but as a dad who took his eldest to his first game, excited, nervous yet safe with his dad, further games became more distant or fraught, as the grip of […]

This post mentions addiction ‘Connection and Connectivity’ was the first major theme reporters agreed to write upon in the Listen Up! phase of this reporter project.   Connection refers to the struggle to connect during the lockdown and the loneliness that many of us have faced over the past few years. I was going to […]

So, the day finally arrived, I’m nervous, excited and scared to unlock my new front door, it’s happening…… finally 🤫 To give you some context, in the last few years of my life, I’d spent fifteen months existing in a homeless hostel in my city, weaving my way through a complicated, disjointed resettlement pathway which […]

This is my first contribution for Groundswell for 2022. As requested, this is all about homelessness, health & digital connectivity. I focused on needing a device for everything, which means mental health & physical health is incorporated in that. I know Groundswell like to labour the specifics of a health issue, but I take it as […]

I woke up on Friday full of fear and anxiety! The day of my nieces wedding had arrived, a joyous wonderful chance to meet up with family and friends and the first chance to meet my sons partner of two years. So why the fear and anxiety? Well for the vast part of my recovery […]

Community Volunteering and Employment On the 12th day of Xmas Groundswell posed to me.. 11 reporters thinking 10 cuppas drinking 9 keyboards clicking 8 eyes now blinking 7 verses rhyming 6 poets scribing 5 video links… 4 voice overs 3 paragraphs 2 full stops And a report to Jenny with glee I’m Miles, dad of […]

Hello everyone, it’s John Chiko again. Before I begin, I want to say happy new year to everyone, I am glad that you made it and that you are here with us, here to have another rumble. As you can see, we are back to January again, the months have reset and now we have […]

In this piece Paul talks about the different ways he contributes to society and takes a scythe to the misconception that homeless people don’t work.   Transcription of audio. One of the biggest myths around homelessness is that people without homes don’t work. Well, anybody that knows me knows that’s a complete mythology, and many people […]

By Steve                                            Photo by Mat Amp Instagram @matamp67 OK. Third time’s the charm, this is the third time i’ve tried to upload this. This is Steve. It’s the 15th of October 2020. And I […]

So, following on from my last couple of posts (here, here and here), the Government’s house building plans have been revealed. Excellent hope for a future generation – my only serious concern is the 40% limit for ‘affordable’… and whether developers will still try to use loopholes, that have been played incessantly for years gone, […]

In this straight from the heart report, Steve talks about the issues surrounding isolation and comes to the realisation that isolation and loneliness are two very different things. “The isolation part, it’s a prison of the mind, isn’t it? Because, you know, like I said, you can be in a group of people and feel […]