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The Oxford Outsider's Guide to Homelessness

**Note - the Oxford Outsider's Guide is written by an American living in Oxford whose husband is a post-graduate student. This guide is intended for entertainment value and, if you want, a little information. It should not be used as a basis for selecting a college or for a decision about applying to Oxford. The guide is written by an Oxford newcomer and meant simply to convey things as I see them.**

Unfortunately, I felt that this was a prevalent enough problem (and commonly enough discussed) to make an entry on it.

Oxford does have a rather large homeless population. There are lots of local charities created to deal with this problem. In addition, the large tourist population often donate to those who ask for spare change.

I will NOT do the following in this entry, and I respectfully request you oblige in the comments section and keep it free of the following:
1. make judgments on why these people are homeless and whether or not they want to be that way;
2. discuss how many, if any of, of the local homeless are addicts;
3. discuss my own practices as to donating or not donating spare change and whether or not it is right to do so;

Disclaimers over, I will address the topic at had as gingerly and honestly as I can. Now, keep in mind that I most recently lived in Tampa, Florida just off a major thoroughfare. Homeless people (or people purporting to be so) are nothing new to me. In Oxford, however, the homeless population has a different modus operandi. This may be the case in some other American cities, but my experience in places like Chicago, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Dallas has not been like this.

The Oxford homeless are the same people day after day, and they really do live and sleep on the streets. The vast majority are men, and some of these men even keep dogs as companions. You'll usually see the same people in the same general area day after day asking for spare change. About half of them simply sit or stand in an area and have a hat or cup. They say "spare change, please" or something like that as people walk by. As I said, I won't reveal whether I donate, but I do try to make eye contact with them as a human being and smile. I think a lot of people try to make them invisible.

There are at least three other common types of homeless people in Oxford, too, though. More often than not, every homeless person in Oxford takes on more than one role depending on their mood or the time of day. There's the aggressive, the performer, and the Big Issue seller.

The aggressive homeless people can be a bit scary to newcomers. These people walk right up to you, sometimes even follow you, sometimes tell you their story, and ask for money. Some of these guys are very rude or gruff. Others seem very sincere. This is similar to the type of guys who would come up to us in Tampa and ask for money to "get a bus ticket" or something. In Oxford, if you don't give to these guys, they can get downright mean (although I've never seen a homeless person be physically aggressive in any way here). They seem to be quite desperate.

Then there are performers. These vary from literally starving artists to some of the absolute worst musicians I've ever heard! They play a variety of instruments (there's one really creepy guy who sells bird-call flutes on the main shopping street) and keep a hat or case out for tips. Not all street performers are homeless here, of course. In fact, one day there was an absolutely FANTASTIC string quartet playing on Cornmarket. We have video of them. Impressive!

Finally, there are the gents who sell a weekly magazine called The Big Issue. This magazine was started by a formerly homeless man in 1991. As far as I've gathered it works like this: if you're homeless, instead of panhandling, you can go to the Big Issue people. If you qualify (you have to agree to their conditions on where to sell and how to sell) they give you an ID. Then you pay them a small amount of money (50 p each copy) and they give you a nice stack of magazines. You then sell those magazines to the general public (cover price is £1.20) and get to keep whatever you collect. In addition to the sales jobs, the magazine has a pretty extensive network set up to help them get off the streets. You see these guys on almost every street in Oxford, sometimes calling out things like "Get your Big Issue, please!".

So that's the homeless population in Oxford. As I said, it's a rather large population, unfortunately. On the plus side, a lot of people and organizations are aimed at helping improve their lives. As recently as this weekend we have seen individuals representing organization buying the homeless warm drinks and offering other help. Still, as the weather turns colder, especially, I think it's important to keep these often overlooked citizens in our prayers.

Posted by Erin at October 27, 2002 05:01 PM