I heard James before I fully saw him. He seemed preoccupied in his tent but invited me to sit down on the blue bucket beside it. As he began to clamber out, I caught glimpses of needles dotted around the tent and track marks between his toes. I dared not bring it up just yet.

 

Looking at James, everything I had been taught pushed me to fear him and regard him as a danger. Or at the very least as nothing more than a homeless heroin addict. Common sense (I suppose) nudged me to fear for my safety. However, actually speaking to him and - more importantly - listening to him showed so much more.

 

Fortunately for me, James took an immediate liking to me. I was someone he trusted and a "kid with a big heart". He agreed to speak to me for this piece.

 

Immediately, the one thing I noticed that struck me as odd were the mounds of food packages they had in their tents.

 

Conventional wisdom taught me that the homeless were meant to be starving; but as James enlightened me "homeless or not, you'll never starve in this city." This was amazing to see and made me extremely proud of the city I live in. But unfortunately, for all of the amazing people who supported James, there were much more who were far less pleasant.

 

We moved on to talk about his experience with"joe public", as James referred to them. It was clear his experiences skewed to extremes. Stories of belligerent Mancunians getting rowdy and aggressive took hold of our conversation. Friday & Saturday nights were apparently the worst. The nights dominated by drunk people either trying to start fights or simply getting their kicks out of harassing them and pissing on their tents. Picadilly Gardens was strictly off limits to James at these times.

 

Though, don't rush to paint James as simply a victim. A rough childhood and violent past taught him how to take care of his and his own when needed.

 

Adopted at a young age with his sister, he never knew his real parents. Brought up in a family where he was the resident punching bag of his adoptive mother, he found school to be his only safe haven. Home time was a cause of dread, where having homework was compulsory - even if that meant inventing it himself. James painted a scene of a terrifyingly abusive childhood; such a controlling environment where even access to the toilet required express permission.

 

Seemingly, it all came to a head one day while doing maths homework. His adoptive mother peering over his shoulder, ready to give him a beating for every wrong answer. One blow too many, James had enough and bolted for the door. He made it downstairs and was almost out when his adoptive mother caught him by his hair, to which James reacted by throwing his head back and knocking out her front tooth. She screamed, exclaiming that she was going to call the police for assault, to which James replied by picking up the phone calling the police and saying "Yeah, me [sic] adoptive mum wants to report me for assault. However, I want to report her for assault for the last 14 years!" Immediately he was moved into a foster home in Wilmslow. He never mentioned what happened to his sister.

 

With such a turbulent childhood, I was left wondering whether the guy ever really had much of a chance. It was clear that in the few years after leaving his adoptive house, that he only became more angry, rebellious & violent. He was haunted by the same myriad of questions:

 

"Why choose to adopt someone, just to beat them up?"

 

"Why did it have to happen to me?"

 

"Who would I be if I had just been adopted by someone else?"

 

He seemed to spiral at this point in his life. A violent youth filled with depression manifesting itself as anger and aggression, he fell into a habit of drug use and burglary to fund his addiction. It wasn't long until he found himself in prison. 6 years in Walton. At this point he seemingly decided that "all [he] can do now, is try and make good out of a bad situation", and while there he managed to get clean. 22 months later he was off methadone, out of prison .... and back sleeping in doorways.

 

James felt as though he had very little chance to permanently overcome his addiction. Becoming homeless again meant he was around users. Some of whom may have become homeless due to their addiction, others who would have fallen into the addiction through peer pressure, and most whose use of drugs was simply a crutch to deal with the pain of homelessness. Either way, it simply made it all too easy for him to slip back into old habits.

 

This may go some ways in explaining why James and his group don't live with other homeless people. Though he is clearly the pillar of the group, he's also the only one with a serious drug problem - hopefully not living with other users will help him get closer to defeating his addiction.

 

However, this was not the only reason James gave for why he hated living with other homeless people.