For 35 years, Simon, 55, served in the British Army’s 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment. After enlisting in 1981 when he was just at the tender age of 17, he served in the Falklands War, 1982, First Gulf War, 1990, Bosnia, 1993, Kosovo, 1999, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. He was discharged shortly after his deployment to Libya, where he remained “unfit for service” due to his rapid decline of mental health. Simon was later diagnosed with PTSD, depression and a type of OCD that presents intrusive paranoid thoughts. “I wouldn’t sleep at night”, he told me, “I would keep myself awake because I knew as soon as I would sleep, I’d have some type of nightmare if that’s what you want to call it, that would scare me awake anyway.”
“I would keep myself awake because I knew as soon as I would sleep, I’d have some type of nightmare"
Simon moved back home with his family to Kent in 2016, his wife Natalie, was diagnosed with breast cancer a year later, and passed away in late February of 2018. “It felt good to be home. I missed Natalie every day when I was deployed, we would write to one another as much as we could - and I’d see her on the odd weekends we’d have off. She was just amazing.”
Simon’s mental health hit an all-time low in December 2018. “I turned to drinking, I didn’t know how to cope without her - I still don’t.” He explained, his voice turned breathy, as if it was hard for him to breathe. “I get choked up whenever I think back to last year, it was the worst year of my life!”
Ten months after Natalie’s passing, Simon was given an eviction notice for his home, and became homeless in February 2019. “I had no job; it was like I was trapped in my head when I left the military. I was offered support by everyone, but I just didn’t want it, I almost just wanted to go at it alone, deal with this myself, I had no idea how I was going to do it, but it’s what I wanted to do.
"I had no job; it was like I was trapped in my head when I left the military."
“I would check myself into cheap hotels for as long as I could, I had money, but I didn’t want to live in a new house without my wife in the state that I was. I remember some nights I would go to the pub as soon as it would open at 11am and spend the entire day there drinking and leave when it closed. I’ve spent many nights p****d out of my head on the side of the road. I didn’t give a f**k about myself.”
Shortly after becoming homeless, Simon visited a British legion drop-in centre where he was referred to a veteran’s charity for another assessment. The veteran’s charity supports soldiers who are homeless and struggling with mental health conditions. The diagnosis and realisation that he needed intensive treatment helped Simon warm to the idea of getting better. “I was sent to a jobcentre in Kent. The charity helped me find a job and a house and referred me to a specialist to help manage my mental health.”
Two months later, Simon is now living in a two-bedroom home in West Malling, Kent. “I now work part-time and spend the rest of my days focusing on getting better. The British Legion currently help pay for some of my rent and living costs, but soon enough I should be able to do it all by myself.”
It has been nine months since Simon’s wife has passed away, and three years since he was medically discharged from the military. With rigorous treatment and extraordinary support from the veteran’s charity, Simon has managed to turn his life around from spending his days in the pub to working and focusing on his future.
Much like Simon, many veterans find themselves homeless after leaving the military for a variety of reasons – and it is the military charities that help them reinvent their lives and give them the aid and support they need to help them get back on their feet. There are currently 187 charities dedicated to helping veterans across the UK according to a group case report led by GOV.UK in 2007.
Rock2Recovery, a charity founded by Jamie Sanderson and Jason Fox (SAS: Who Dares Wins?) is one of the hundreds of charities available to veterans in the UK. They told me of their thoughts on homelessness, and what, in their opinion, needs to be done to help eliminate the issue. “The only thing we can do is to keep trying to educate the military that it [mental health] can happen to anyone and to treat it like a physical injury in that you will not be the same afterwards, but you can recover.
“I would use the huge reserves of cash that the RBL (Royal British Legion), SSAFA (Soldiers, sailors, airmen and family’s association) and H4H (Help 4 Heroes) have to establish five centres in run down places. These would be in Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester, London and Bristol. Any homeless vet would be taken there. Service proven and then address the physical and mental issues they have. Once that is done, they then go back to some sort of education and learn to live, as well as hold down a job. But if people and businesses would pay their taxes then the system would work. But 80% of the country are too greedy and selfish to recognise their need to provide for the community.” Charlie, former Brigadier for the British Army expressed.
In the years 2010-16 alone, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust have dealt with 149 patients diagnosed with PTSD, according to a TVI Freedom of Information request, in comparison to a figure of 126 cases of which non-military were diagnosed with PTSD. Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust have also dealt with 274 cases of veterans who have been diagnosed with PTSD between the years 2013-18, with over 30 of them referral cases being from those who are homeless. In addition, a staggering 5,746 veterans where referred to the practice for other reasons during this same time period.
Susie Hamilton, Head of External Relations at Scottish Veterans Residences said: “Veterans who are deemed vulnerable should be flagged to support organisation at the point of leaving. However, a high percentage of the homeless veteran’s population find themselves in difficulty, years after leaving the services so in those cases a more holistic approach is required: ensuring that veterans have access to mental health services, housing advice services, debt advice services, employment services, etc.”
According to an article published by NPC, there are over 78,000 homeless households in England that are in temporary accommodation. When pressed about whether she agrees with the statement issued by the Government in that they will eliminate homelessness by 2027, Susie said: “sadly the absolute eradication of homelessness is probably not feasible by 2027, although improved services as mentioned above will go a long way to reducing homelessness. It is encouraging that homelessness had been given much more priority.”
Harvey Taylor, Media and Communications Officer at Alabaré Christian Care & Support, said: “The national figures surround homelessness clearly suggest that there remains an awful lot of work to be done to address the situation. Breaking the cycle of homelessness takes a huge amount of care, expertise and multi-agency working. It also takes time to address the issues and to find suitable accommodation. However, there is further action that can be made by the government including tackling the issue of a lack of affordable housing.”
Armed Forces charities have been around for hundreds of years, establishing specific support for past and present members of the Armed Forces and their families. Charities can be traced back to the 19th century, with the Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund, founded in 1803, which assisted casualties from the Napoleonic War. Charities such as SSAFA, which is the UK’s oldest tri-Service charity have been around for 134 years, when it was founded in 1885 by Colonel Sir James Gildea. The UK Armed Forces sector plays one of the biggest roles in support the Armed Forces community, and without them the number of homeless veterans would drastically increase.
The charities that still operate today offer a broad range of services and support to soldiers and veterans, ranging from mental health support to physical injuries to providing accommodation and a helping hand – According to research provided by the DSC, there are only 78 Armed Forces charities specifically dealing with housing support. 47 of the charities provide accommodation with 4,700 properties. 20 of the charities deal with those who are disabled or injured from service, 9 of the charities provide shelter for those who are elderly and 5 of the charities provide shelters for homeless veterans. Alongside this the 78 charities also offer other services such as mental and physical health support, education and training, etc.