Sunshine. Beaches. Ice Cream. Cornwall. Poverty. Loneliness. Desperation. Cornwall. Between the commercial quilt of Cornwall’s tourism economy and the bed of nails that are the cuts to local services, Cornwall faces a growing problem that is hidden well out of sight to the naked eye. 

 

If you were to take a stroll through Truro’s cobbled streets or a gentle walk along Penzance’s promenade on a warm summers evening, you would be forgiven for thinking that Cornwall is a relatively rich and stable county.  Yet, if you were to divert course and stroll through any one of Truro’s narrow alleyways or take that gentle walk into Penzance’s town center you will find what most will not.  Men and women, young and elderly, war veterans and people with drug and alcohol dependencies will be sighted. Falling through the holes that our society has dug them.  They have no voice, yet their needs are no less.

Ofcourse, this issue doesn’t just affect tourist hotspots across Cornwall.  Camborne, Pool and Redruth or ‘CPR‘ as it is often referred to, is one of the largest urban areas of poverty within the EU. Having lived here for many years I have witnessed first hand people living on the edge with nothing to call their own.

A few years ago my path crossed with a homeless man named Ian. He introduced me to his beautiful golden Labrador and showed me where he was staying. At first, I found it very difficult to accept.  A semi gutted four-bedroom house with no electric, no running water and absolutely no security. Ian and his dog came here at the end of every day to seek refuge from the bitter evenings. As weeks passed and our friendship grew, we began talking about the reasons he was in such a predicament. It became clear to me soon after that he had not always had it so bad. In fact, he was married with children, owned a car and held down a successful job. “Everything a man could ask for”, I remember him saying. The recession - like most parts of the country - hit Cornwall very hard. A deadly combination of a large percentage of jobs owing to the tourism industry and a drop in disposable income the world over meant Cornwall was damaged intently from the outset. Sure enough this is how Ian came to lose his job. Just months later, his wife left him and he fell behind on payments for his house.  As things became worse and his situation became more desperate, he felt trapped in a system that refused to help, refused to care. He turned to alcohol to seek solace. Despite everything though, he remained a very happy, well-mannered and considerate man throughout the years I knew him.  As I would sit with him of an evening on a sofa we had salvaged from a nearby skip we would discuss anything from music and films to government policies and conspiracy theories.  I’ve recently met him again, after he disappeared for a couple of years. He explained that he is soon going into rehab for his alcohol addiction and after he has completed his treatment, there will be a permanent house available.  Luckily for Ian, things seem to be improving after years of hardship.
Homelessness and poverty is everywhere. We take advantage of electric, water and a roof to sleep under, forgetting that there are people completely at nature’s mercy. Sleeping in shop doorways and alleys, turning to drugs because there is nothing else accessible to them and eating from bins. Eating whatever the tourists don’t want.