S02E06 Transcript: Alex Stephany on Homelessness
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intro
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Gemma Styles: Hello, I'm Gemma, and welcome to another episode of Good Influence. This is the podcast where each week you and I meet a guest who'll help us pay attention to something we should know about, as well as answer some of your questions. This week, we're talking about homelessness, tackling stigma to help get unhoused people into jobs, the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on those experiencing homelessness and how we can individually help to support people. So joining me this week is Alex Stephany. Alex is the founder of Beam, a social enterprise which runs the first crowdfunding platform to help unhoused people access training, stable employment and homes.
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Alex Stephany: The message is: you can make a difference and you need to make a difference.
discussion
Gemma Styles: So if I could start by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself, then a bit about Beam and what is it that you guys do?
Alex Stephany: Sure. So my name is Alex Stephany. I'm the founder of Beam.org. And Beam is a totally new and totally different way to help a homeless person for the long term and to really see the impact you're having on that person's life. And this is how it works. You go to beam.org, you can effectively meet, on our tech platform, all the different people that we are supporting. These are individuals living in homeless hostels, living in women's refuges, overcoming all kinds of different challenges. You can then fund any of the barriers in their life that are standing in their way, could be stuff like training or childcare or tools or textbooks or rental deposits. And we take these funds, we buy the things that we're meant to buy on the campaign pages, and then we support them into stable jobs and stable homes. So this all makes a lot more sense when you go check out the website and you can just see the people there. You can read their stories and you can and you can back them. And the really, the sort of different thing about Beam is that when you support people on the platform, you get these transparent updates in the form of emails and you can actually see them progressing. You support a homeless person to become, let's say, an electrician. And a few months later, you're seeing a photo of them training to become an electrician. A few months after that is their first day at work. And you get to join them on this incredibly inspiring and exciting journey. And, yes, that's how it works.
Gemma Styles: It seems to me sort of off the bat, like a real kind of ‘give a man a fish’ model for kind of supporting people. So actually giving people the tools to then go on and be more, you know, sustainably in work and in housing rather than what you might typically think of as donating to somebody who is homeless, which might be when you encounter them on the street or something like that.
Alex Stephany: Yeah, it definitely has that sort of philosophy underpinning it. And I've always sort of been inspired by that model of giving people fish. And I think in pretty much every major religion, there's a similar philosophy around how actually it's so much better to empower people to be able to support themselves. I think, you know, no one enjoys being reliant on others. I think that's a fundamental sort of human thing, really, and Beam really got started kind of in response to the exact point you're making about how it can be better to give people a fish rather than just sort of short term relief. So I I live here in North London and about three and a half years ago now, I, I stopped and I spoke to a homeless man outside my local tube station, which is Archway in North London. And truth be told, I'd walk past this guy probably dozens of times before, but I decided to to stop and speak to him that day. And I remember he told me that he would sit there because there is CCTV and that CCTV made it less likely that he'll be beaten up. And that was you know, that moment I just realised that, you know, you can be living next to someone or in the same neighbourhood and just experiencing life in a completely different way. And he told me he was an Irish guy, mid 40s. He'd been out of work longer than he could remember. And over the coming months, we became friends and I would bring him cups of coffee and we would catch up. And when it was getting colder, I'd bring him pairs of socks. And and then suddenly the guy disappeared and I didn't see him for about six or seven weeks and I thought I'd never see him again, but then he suddenly appears [clicks] and he looks totally different. His beard is gone and he looks really old. He looks like almost like an old man, maybe 10, maybe 15 years older now. And I go to him and I say, what's happened? Where have you been? And he says, I've been in hospital, had a heart attack.
Gemma Styles: Oh, my God.
Alex Stephany: And so we we speak and I say, you know what I can say, which feels very limited. I feel very powerless even more so than ever. And I'm walking home to my flat and I'm so frustrated and I'm so angry. And I have been trying to help this guy. Other people have been trying to help this guy. And yet still, he is in a worse position than when I first met him. And I began to ask myself a question, which was, what could I have done? What could I have done to make a real difference to this man's life? And clearly, he didn't need another cup of coffee. What he clearly needed was the skills, the support, the training, the confidence to get back into work, to provide for himself so he could buy himself the coffees, the socks, the hundred thousands of other things, you know, in our day to day lives. And I thought, well, that's going to cost more than a than a Starbucks coffee. But what if we all chip in? What if we can pool our capital, pool our funds and be really smart about how we use that money and make effectively long term investments into people? And that's really how Beam works. And today, I'm really pleased to say we've supported more than 300 homeless people into jobs. We've supported more than 50 other homeless people into their own homes. And that's all come from this model of working together and pooling what we have and really providing long term support for people. And one of the I think unusual things about the model is it's not just money. You can go to the website. You can support someone to get into a into a job or a home. But it's not just about the money. It's so much about the support of the crowd, support of the community. When people donate, they can choose to leave a message of support. And we pass on all of these messages of support to the individual people. And that is so powerful in some ways it's so much more powerful than the money. People come to us, they've typically been out of work for five and a half years. They've been through all kinds of issues, as you can imagine, all kinds of mental health issues, substance misuse issues, a lot of people who have been in prison, on the extreme end. We have people who've been victims of FGM, who've been human slaves and gone through some really severe and difficult things. And so many of them have forgotten that their lives have any value. They're forgotten that people care about them, that people love them, and that has just become their new normal. And then suddenly they join this platform where two hundred and fifty people on average support them and they receive, you know, hundreds of messages from strangers saying that they care. And that leads them to totally rethink the value of their lives and how they perceive themselves. And that transformation is so essential for people sometimes to move forward with their lives.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, that's that's so lovely that you you know, they have the opportunity to then hear that people care about them. This is something that- I can't remember who I'd seen an interview with before, but someone was talking about their experience of being homeless. And the thing that kind of really stuck in my head was them talking about how dehumanising it is for people to walk past you all day and feel uncomfortable and not want to make eye contact with you and just thinking about how that must feel day after day. So I just I can't really imagine what that must do to you. So, yeah. Then having, you know, these messages, knowing that somebody does actually care, I can imagine that makes a huge difference.
Alex Stephany: Yeah. And it's something that I despite having had similar conversations with with dozens and dozens of people who’ve used Beam, it’s something that I cannot truly understand either. And I think one of the in one of the things I've always felt, having spent most of my life in London, is that we have become so inured, so desensitised to homelessness. It's in many ways the most kind of conspicuous social rung in our society. It's the most conspicuous sign of social inequality. We can go outside. I don't know where you are at the moment, Gemma, in London, but I'm sure you could walk outside within ten minutes. You could see someone who has nothing and you could walk right past them or you could speak to them or you could, you know, you have free will at that point. And of course, first and foremost, it's terrible for the individual in that situation. But I also think is terrible for us to to walk on by. We have a sort of innate humanity. We want to help. We feel emotion as we walk past people in that situation. And if we do that repeatedly, like a little bit of us, a little bit of of ourselves, of our humanity, of our souls, call it what you will, is is dying. We're switching off that fundamental humanity and saying, I'm actually going to just plough on forward and put my headphones back in or whatever it whatever it may be. And so when we address these problems for me, like, it's not only about supporting the people experiencing them, even though that is the number one reason we exist and we are all about creating this measurable social impact. It's also about how we can, you know, bond and heal as a as a society because it's not a healthy society where you have people with as much as as as some people do in our society and others with with nothing. That's that's not a healthy state of affairs for anyone in that society.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, absolutely. So who are the people who you usually end up working with at Beam and how do they come to you? Because I feel like them. There must be so, so many people who need support. How are you currently? Sort of being big, joined up with people who you can then help to fund?
Alex Stephany: Yes, a great question. So in the UK there are more than three hundred thousand people who are homeless. The vast majority of them live in homeless hostels, women's refuges, other types of temporary accommodation. Tragically, a lot of them are kids as well. More than a hundred thousand homeless kids in the UK. And we take referrals to the platform from a mixture of London councils. And also from charities, so all the big charities that that you might know refer to us as well, and the caseworkers in those organisations, whether they're a local authority or whether they're a charity, are effectively the eyes and ears for the platform. And they will be working with individuals who are reaching a point of stability. And they will have a conversation, say, do you know what, you know, you always wanted to be an X, Y or Z. Well, maybe you can join this platform called Beam, have a chat to them and see if they can help you. And then they have a conversation with one of our team. They work out whether they can, whether they basically want to want to join the programme. We give them obviously a lot of opportunity to ask any questions. We then set a plan for them. We then raise the funding that they need on Beam.org, and then we support them to achieve that goal. And after they start a new job or move into a home or both, we provide six months of support just making sure that they're settled and stable in their life. And I say the probably the final, final, final stage, which is in some ways the most exciting ones, is when people who have been through the programme and are settled and financially stable join the platform as supporters and donate each month through the platform. It can be something as modest as £1 or two pound is so exciting and so empowering for them to, within the space of often six months, gone from someone who has been reliant and dependent on other people for years sometimes, to being a patron of a whole new generation of people who they can inspire and they can support as well.
Gemma Styles: That's so lovely. And there's something really circular about it that just feels so nice that then they're able to be in a position where they can then help other people who they'll really understand what they're struggling with. Would you say there are particular kind of demographics or profiles of people who you tend to work with a lot more? I'm kind of thinking of… So you've obviously said that it tends to be people who have got to a certain stage and they're ready to kind of progress a little bit more. I am thinking about a conversation I had with a guy who was homeless in Kings Cross a couple of years ago. And I can't think where we’d been but I was with a friend of mine and he was outside McDonald's. We ended up being like, what would you like any food? Da da da, went and got him some food. And then we ended up having having a chat for quite a long time, actually. And he was telling us about how he came to become homeless and about his family, but was also then saying that for him he felt like he was quite far down the list of somebody who was going to be kind of who would be receiving social housing, for example, because - and understandably, because there's different types of danger, but women and children are quite often prioritised or there's more shelters that are specifically for women and children.
Alex Stephany: Yeah.
Gemma Styles: I don't know. I don't know if that's how it works or not, but it's always kind of stuck with me. And you think, you know, are these people who then come and work with you because they are have a lack of other options?
Alex Stephany: So there are, I guess, some different sort of demographic characteristics of of people experiencing homelessness. Of course, everyone is is totally unique in their story. But there are some common common trends unfortunately. I think it's probably a bit of a myth that often people say homelessness could happen to anyone or everyone is just one paycheque away from homelessness. I personally don't agree with that. I'm not one paycheque away from homelessness. And I think in some ways that acts as a bit of a smokescreen to the conversation that we should be having, which is there's real inequality and some people and some groups are dramatically more likely to become homeless than other people. And when we got started, we were working with charities who were focussed on rough sleepers. And we still find about a third of the people using service have been on the streets. And the people who are experiencing rough sleeping, they tend to be skewed to men for the reason that you just gave, Gemma, which is that on average, men are less likely to be in a priority needs category compared to women and children. Now, the majority of the people that we're working with are in homeless hostels, emergency accommodation, women's refuges. They're not on the streets, but they are often in dire, dire housing situations, often a family with young children living in one room with, you know, various sanitary issues within that one room. You know, it's really a pretty, pretty terrible place to be, but it's better than being on the streets. And these groups are skewed to to women and children. So at the moment, yeah, there is a skew in terms of the referrals to women is also skewed to BAME [Black and Minority Ethnic] individuals as well. About 60 percent of referrals at the moment are BAME. And, you know, our job really is to make sure that we are addressing the diversity of the homeless community and making sure that we're helping a diverse group of people as effectively as we can and that we are responsive to their needs. So, for example, when Covid happened, we suddenly saw this quite scary surge in the number of people needing our support. And we obviously have limited resources, a really small organisation, much, much smaller than the homelessness organisations that your listeners are probably aware of. And we have to think, you know, what's what's the most effective use of our own resources and our time. And so we went out to the group of people that we're working with. And we realised that because so many of them were single mothers with young children, they were really struggling to afford some fundamental things. And the organisations supporting them, whether they're charities or government partners, didn't necessarily have the same nimbleness as us to get the things they needed urgently into the hands. So we repurposed the tech that we'd built, the crowdfunding tech. We ran crowdfunding campaigns for emergency supplies. And within, within days, we were getting what we called emergency care packages to these families, and they included sanitary products, included food thaey also included things like educational tools and tablets for the children because the kids weren't able to continue their education. And there was just a real risk of a kind of divide being created where kids from more middle class backgrounds were able to continue to learn in a more uninterrupted fashion. And these kids just saw their sort of learning education ground to a halt because the parents can provide what they what what they needed to in terms of tablets and textbooks and that sort of thing. So, yeah, our job is just always to be as responsive as as possible, getting feedback from the people using Beam. So the homeless individuals themselves, we call them our members, is a huge part of the model as well. So we are constantly getting feedback from them. We send out all kinds of automated messages to make sure that they are constantly telling us how we can do a better job, they’re also constantly feeding back on the job that they've started and how well that is working for them. And we want to make sure that we are continuing to provide the best possible opportunities for people. So today, we have begun working with lots of really, really prestigious UK employers, we work with people like Ocado and BUPA and the NHS and many others. And our job is to continue to work with more companies because we're also providing a service and solving a real problem for them. And I problem we solve for them is that they are struggling to hire as diversely as they should be, and particularly in the wake of Black Lives Matter, people are aware that companies to be healthy, well functioning and effective organisations just need to be doing more, and at the same time, I think there's a general sense around people in HR teams and companies that they don't really know where to turn off. There's a lot of goodwill. They want to do more diversity. And I'm not just talking about ethnic diversity. I'm talking about every type of diversity, sexual diversity, age, socioeconomic diversity and others. They often know they need to do more of these things, but they don't quite know how to do it. They don't know where to turn to. And so our job is to provide them with diverse talent. And that's through a service that we've launched called Beam Recruit, which is effectively the sort of recruitment arm of Beam.
Gemma Styles: That’s reminding me of when talking about kind of getting people into work, as well there’s an advert that I saw over the weekend I think it was for a UK bank, which is starting to provide people with no fixed address with a bank account. And it was kind of talking about the, the sort of circle of issues that you get into whereby when you don't have a bank account, you can't be paid into your bank account, and that's something you need if you know, if you don't have an address, you can't provide it for a job. If you don't have a job, you don't get the money. And I can't remember all the stages of this, you know, circle that was going round, but it did just make me think... You really need that first step, like it has to start somewhere, which is when then when you look at a platform like Beam and you're obviously helping people just get that footing that you need, because I think it it's easy to kind of look at people who are in a very different situation to you and think, you know, a lot of people will look and be like, well, why don't you do this and why don't you do that? Whereas actually, it's very, very difficult to kind of pull yourself up out of a situation once you're in it.
Alex Stephany: Yeah, one hundred percent. I think it always takes that first step. I mean, sometimes people are so focussed on steps four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 that they actually just get distracted from what is the right next play for them was the right next move and sometimes, you know, it's a move for the individual we're working with and I'll give an example of that, and sometimes it's a move for the for the supporter as well, for the member of the public decide to take a positive step forward with their life in terms of how they can be part of a solution to these big, big problems that just should not be existing in 2021. I'll give you a quick example of of the sort of like example, I guess, of someone taking this next step for themselves and the impact it can have on their life. I remember. The second homeless hostel I went to, I met a guy there who listened to me explain how Beam works, and he sort of came up to me and he said, this sounds really interesting, but it's not right for me. I say, why not? He says, Oh, I've been smoking weed for years and I still smoke all the time. And we talk about that and I say, you know what? You're absolutely right. Beam is not for you, but you seem like a great guy. And if you can get clean, then we would love to work with you and we think you could do fantastic things. And so he sort of listens and nods. I walk out that homeless hostel. I never expect to see that guy again in my life, six months later, his caseworker gets in touch. He's been clean for about three months. He joins the platform, he crowd funds to get training as a forklift digger operator, gets his qualification, gets back into work, earning really, really decent money in the construction industry. And now he's away, you know, and I think what really hit me about that conversation was, this guy had been in this rut for years and he wasn't a young guy either, I think he was in his in his 50s. And so there was a real opportunity of him just staying in that rut for the rest of his life. And I think all it shows is that if people can cling on to a glimmer of hope and act on that hope, that can sometimes be enough and in many ways our product, if you like, to the people we work with is hope. It is hope that a better future and a better life exists for them. And our job in that perspective is just to make sure that all of the hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the UK and all of the millions of other disadvantaged people who don't have the opportunity they deserve, they all have that glimmer of hope. It's a little spark. It's a little ember. And our job is just to blow that gently and blow it into life and turn it into a raging, you know, a raging, roaring, successful fire where that person is thriving. So I guess that's the sort of step forward for the individual we help. And I think for the people that are listening to this, most of whom are hopefully not in that kind of position. I just say take a step forward now, be part of a solution to this problem, be part of civic society, go to an organisation that you think is doing good work in this space, or go to Beam.org, give a quid a month or give less. If you can't afford a quid a month, share the updates of people progressing with their lives, send some positive messages, send some love, send some goodwill, send good vibes and and do something positive. Because if we all do that tiny little thing, then truly we can solve this problem and we can solve this problem much, much quicker than we think. I think there's a lot of cynicism. You talk about issues like homelessness to people and there's a resignation. And I think that is for me that's just needless cynicism, because look at what we have done as a species. We've put people on the frickin moon decades ago. We've developed vaccines to viruses at lightning speed that no one thought was possible. You know, we've done a million other incredible things as a species. For F’s sake. I’m pretty confident we can solve homelessness.
Gemma Styles: It makes me think as well, like you say, you just were talking about vaccines and how quickly we managed to solve these problems. No, well, I don't want to say completely solved — we're on the way, we're on the road. We're doing it now. But it also makes me think of the response to housing the homeless community in hotels while they were empty. And it was a matter of Covid safety more than it was a matter of the safety of the individual people. What kind of effect generally has the pandemic had on the homeless community? Have you seen a lot more people becoming homeless? Has it been different? Because I'm kind of now imagining, you know, if you usually have a lot of people together in a shelter, that's a very difficult place to social distance and, you know, have these places had to close? What kind of impact have we seen?
Alex Stephany: Yeah, I guess one of the sort of early narratives that that was going around around Covid and that was is probably partly the sort of Tom Hanks effect was a narrative around kind of, you know, we are all in this together. It affects all of us equally. There's no hiding from it, et cetera, et cetera. True… to an extent. To an extent. Of course, we all know that. The reality is that these hardships and these challenges fall very differently on different types of people. There are some people who can very largely insulate themselves from these things and people experiencing homelessness, of course, not in that category.
Gemma Styles: Yeah.
Alex Stephany: If you're experiencing homelessness, as you say, Gemma, you're much more likely to to struggle to to socially distance yourself and you're much more likely to have some kind of underlying health issues and be more just, you know, physically vulnerable to to Covid as well. You're also much more likely to be impacted by the economic duress of of what's happened in terms of upheavals and layoffs and all of these things. And there are lots of people who are still homeless, but they're doing some kind of super low paid or really unstable work as well, and have been tipped into homelessness through the economic dislocation and the upheaval. So, really, it's been a problem that has been disproportionately borne by people who are going into this crisis in a more vulnerable situation. And we saw very quickly that there were four times as many referrals coming to the platform, and so the the need for organisations like Beam to step up and help more people has never been greater. And for us, the current bottleneck to helping more people is just the donations coming through the website. We have effectively a huge queue that's formed, of people that want the service, as I mentioned at the beginning, they’re referred to us by councils and charities and increasingly that also referred to us by people experiencing homelessness because they know other people in the same boat and they're recommending to their friends and contacts to join. The typical way that people support people on the platform as they donate each month. At the moment, a couple of thousand people donate each month through the platform. We think that's a drop in the ocean in terms of the number of people who care about this issue in the U.K., if that can become 4000 people, we can double the number of people. Brilliant. If we become 10,000 people, we can help five times the number of people and so on. So that's kind of where the bottleneck is at the moment. And that's why I'm constantly talking about Beam and doing podcasts like this to try and get the word out because we don't have a marketing budget. By the way, you know, a lot of people think that organisations like us are flushing millions of pounds and putting up billboards. We do not have a marketing budget. We do not spend money on marketing. So we are reliant on on word of mouth and conversations and goodwill of people like you inviting me onto onto your show to get the word out.
Gemma Styles: Well, I hope that after today we will have some some Good Influence listeners becoming, becoming donators on your platform, because I certainly will be doing that.
Alex Stephany: I hope so, too.
Gemma Styles: I have added Beam to the DO GOOD section of my website. So if people are looking for opportunities, for just little things to do that they can put some good out into the world, then you're you're on my list now, too.
Alex Stephany: Lovely. Thanks so much. You hero.
Gemma Styles: So actually brings us around really to talking about listeners who have sent in questions. And the most common question I think that I had is from people asking. I think it's quite a common thing that people say that- it's not good, if you see somebody who is on the street and who is asking for money, it's not actually a good thing. It's not actually a helpful thing to do that. And people wanting to know whether it's right? I think if you I mean, if you live in London and you use particularly particularly the London overground ever, you'll be familiar with that message of ‘if you see someone homeless or asking for money, donate to the Whitechapel Mission’ or, you know, which sounds very much like it's discouraging, actually handing money to people. I wonder if you've got any insight on whether it is a good or not thing to do because, when you hear people going around and they'll kind of tell you what's going on with them or say, you know, they'll say I need money for a hostel or something. And I think it's difficult anyway now because we carry less physical money at the moment. And, you know, pandemic especially, nobody wants to carry cash. It's becoming a more cashless society. There's been less people on the streets. But if we do have change, or have cash or have money on us. Is that an OK thing to do? Is that actually helpful to someone?
Alex Stephany: Well, it's a great question. And there are certainly people out there who know a lot more about this than me. Now, the reason why people will often say do not give cash to individuals on the streets typically is a few reasons. There have been reports that it's mostly or a lot of it would be spent on on drugs and alcohol. Of course, the counter argument is, well, it's up to them. And I would if I was, I was in their shoes. And another argument against it that people sometimes make is that there are people on the streets who are actually not experiencing homelessness, but they are just professionally begging, if you like, and you don't really know that these individuals need the help that they say they need. Ultimately. I feel like, you know, it's it's up it's up to each individual to make this decision for themselves, but I personally have chosen not to. And, you know, one reason I've built Beam is in response to my own personal desire to to do something long term impactful for those individuals.
Gemma Styles: Yeah.
Alex Stephany: Going back to the story at the beginning. I know that I could have bought that person a coffee, which, by the way, I think is- asking someone what they want, food or drink. I think that's a for me personally, that's a better thing to do than than giving someone some money, like you were saying before and having conversation with someone. Are you hungry, thirsty? I’m popping into Sainsbury's, can I pick up something for you. For me, that's a nicer thing to do. Of course, saying hello to someone, engaging with them, making them feel human and alive and valued is an even more important thing to do. But yeah, for me personally, I wanted to really have that level of comfort that I was helping someone in the long term to a better future, and also that they were getting the professional support that they need as well. So that's really how we've built how we've built Beam. So we're making sure that when people donate the cash isn't handed out to the individual, we purchase all of the things that that individual needs to progress with their lives. And it could be all kinds of different things that I mentioned earlier, from boots to training courses to childcare. But the other thing they get is that professional one to one caseworker who is super well trained and who can work with them on all the different challenges that they're facing in their life. So it's not a short or succinct answer for me. I guess we built Beam because I think personally, I think we can do better than, than hand out cash. For me, that is a short term solution sometimes for the individual handing out the cash as much as it is for the person experiencing the problem, it may make them feel better in the moment. It may make them feel like they are making a contribution to this challenge. And some of the time they will be, some of the time they won't be. And I think we've tried to build a system where 100 percent of the time they have the confidence that they will be.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, it's a tricky one because you can never speak for all individuals in all cases. But I suppose. Yeah, that is it's a good answer of just kind of saying. You know, if you're comfortable with doing that and you feel like that's what you want to do. Then go ahead and do it, but if not, then there are other ways that you can help people and also, yeah, like you say, kind of emphasising, if you see somebody, even if you say you think, oh, well, I would, but I actually don't have any change, at least I make eye contact and kind of like say that you hear them, because I do find it quite heartbreaking, like. It's usually on trains in London when I see a lot of people who are asking for money and yeah, it's just when it's kind of headphones in, eyes down, like you don't want to make any eye contact, like, it's just it's it's really awful. And I feel like even if you can you know, you make the decision for yourself whether get handing somebody actual cash or something you want to do, but at least, you know, like make eye contact with them, like, say, I'm sorry, I don't have any change or, you know, smile at them.
Alex Stephany: Totally. I think that is, you know, the big takeaway is that human social interaction, which just can be so valuable for people. And that is something that I would- I think is always welcome seeing how people are asking if they need something and if you'd like to pick up something for them. Also always, always, you know, can be a kind thing to do. I remember one time I was speaking to a lady who was sleeping in a kind of subway tunnel and I didn't have any, I didn't have any cash on me at all. And I wasn't able to give her any money. And I didn't then. But we did speak for about ten or fifteen minutes. And the thing that stayed with me was she said that she got given, she got given 50 quid, if I remember correctly, by some drunk person who just kind of came past and just sort of it was in the city and, you know, probably some, you know, well paid city person got out the money and just gave her 50 quid. But she actually said that the conversation she had with me was just, you know, the highlight of the day, way more so than getting that 50 quid because she didn't feel that there was any real care, authentic care in that person being drunk and just like pulling out a few notes and sort of throwing them at her, you know, figuratively. So, yeah, I think that, you know, try and speak to people even when it can be, you know, a nerve wracking experience, because, you know, I find it difficult to speak to people I don't know, let alone someone who is, you know, clearly in a difficult situation. I'm quite an introverted person. I'm quite a shy person, and it's not an easy thing to do. So it does take real, real courage. And that's courage that, you know, fails me often.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, I think, like you say, that's it's a nice way of doing it. You do you will quite often see people outside supermarkets or food outlets and things like that. And I think that's a nice way to strike up a conversation as well by kind of saying, you know, would you like anything? Is there anything I can get you? So that could be could be a way into it, too, for sure.
Alex Stephany: And like with all these things that become easier. Right. You know, when you when you've spoken to your struck up third conversation with someone in that situation, the fourth fifth say they will become easier every week.
Q&A
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Gemma Styles: Every week, my guest and I will be answering your questions on the first one comes in from Amber, who says
Homelessness is a cause I'm so passionate about. I used to work in adult education and specifically homeless and ex offender education and support. I'd be so interested to know Alex's thoughts on how we can tackle the stigma attached to being homeless, particularly when it comes to education, training and the workplace. I found the employers in particular were reluctant to take- to take on someone from a homeless background.
Alex Stephany: What a great question, Amber. So thank you for thank you for asking. Well, how do we tackle the stigma associated to homelessness? Well, I think for me, there's one way to do this, and that is by taking the conversation away from something abstract like homeless people and by making it really concrete and using real examples of people affected by this issue. And so all of the time we are talking to big companies, small companies, giant companies who are hiring people from Beam and the reason they have the confidence to hire people from Beam is because we have shared stories of people who have used the platform. We've shared the story of the young women who experienced abuse for a few years, and then we supported to become an accountant. We shared the story of the, you know, the graduate who was sleeping rough in the park for months. And we've supported to become a care worker. And dozens of others, like the man I mentioned before, like the first person we ever worked with, a guy called Tony, you know out of work for 20 years, in prison, drug addict, alcoholic, estranged from his family, living in a homeless hostel, out of hope, supported him to become an electrician, has been the most brilliant employee and progressed and progressed in his role. All of these different stories we tell and they give people confidence that these are decent, good people who will do a good job, who will look after a home. And in our experience, that is overwhelmingly true, and then some, because the people that we're supporting into jobs and homes have a gratitude for those things that so many people do not. They have an opportunity. They have a desk, disposable income and a salary and status and stability and all of these things. And they do not want to go back to where they've come from. So they have a determination and a resolve that is just absolutely unbelievable. And, you know, and then you take this story, as we do, of how we've supported people to work at a BUPA or an Ocado or supermarket or all these different companies. And then we tell that story again. And then other companies look at those companies and say, oh, that's great, they're doing that. Why can't we? So for me, it's about storytelling. That's what I would say, Amber, I think that is, I think an advantage that we've had at Beam is the ability to tell stories so each person uses the platform. Usually they use a photo of themselves, but not always. Some people use the platform without a photo, but regardless, each platform, each person has a story and they share that story. And it is a space for them to talk positively about their experience. And it's a space for other people to pause for a moment, to empathise and to reconsider the stigmas that exist and their prejudices conscious and unconscious. And for me, like, you know, that's that's the power of storytelling. I study literature, as you saw before Gemma I've got like a whole long, long bookshelves of novels and all kinds of other dusty crap on my bookshelf. And when I was reading all these things, I just sort of, I never thought there'd be any practical value to all these stories. I just enjoyed them. But as I guess I've got a little bit older and started working in social enterprise, I've realised that storytelling is so powerful and I'm just a novice. But what I do know is that you can change the world with stories. And I think what we're doing at Beam is hopefully going to be a great example of that.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, that's that's so lovely. Yeah, I think you're totally right. Is like a lot of things the way that you, I suppose, tackle stigma as by talking about it more, even though it's maybe a bit uncomfortable to begin with. And that's that's how you get places. Next question is from Ellie, who says
I'm a part of the LGBTQ+ community, even though I've never been homeless myself. I know that the rates of homelessness amongst young members of the community can be quite high. Could you give some information about what to do if you're in that situation or do you know of any resources that could help?
Alex Stephany: Ellie, thanks so much for that question. It's a really important one. There is, sadly, quite a strong connection between being LGBT and homelessness. And hopefully in the coming years we're going to break this connection. It’s something we see quite a lot with Beam, I think of one young woman, for example, 28 year old woman called Karen, became homeless after coming out to her family. She lost her home. She lost her support network. And we worked with her to fund her rental deposit, her first month's rent, and to get her stably into a new home with her with a dog, who I recall was, was called Linda! And and she was just one of the people that we work with experiencing that. In terms of where is the best place to go for advice, it will depend a lot on your own, your circumstances. If if someone is in Greater London and looking to join Beam, of course, would love a referral for that individual. Then there are also different helplines, for example, one run by Centrepoint. There's also all kinds of different advice on the major national homelessness charities’ websites. Stonewall will have advice as well, so it will depend quite a lot. But I would, you know, start with a start with a good Google. And, you know, one of the things that I've learnt is that people in the sector are so, so keen to help and, you know, up front. And if you get in touch with a charity and they are not the best person to help you because of your specific circumstances and of course, circumstances are hugely varying, then organisations will generally signpost you to a Third-Party organisation that might be better placed. The very, very, very fundamental thing is just ask for help in the first place.
Gemma Styles: Thank you for that. Next question is from Becky, who asks
I'd like to ask specifically about how the programme helps identify and treat mental illnesses that may be a contributing factor to homelessness. Both my brother and his girlfriend suffered homelessness for many years. They both battled addictions, that I believe stemmed from untreated and unmonitored mental illnesses. And ultimately the addictions took both of their lives. Our government and medical system failed them. I try now to help out people I meet in the streets, but often wish I could do more to ease the problems that lie deeper inside.
Alex Stephany: So Beam is not a what you call a wraparound service. We do not provide support to every person on every aspect of their lives. We provide a really focussed and effective employment service and a housing service. And then we work with mental health professionals and other professionals to provide the specialist support that individuals using our service would need or may need. So that might mean working with a GP or a mental health worker or a psychiatrist. And really, that's what we found works best is when you allow every specialist and every expert to play to their strengths. And and that's really how the model has evolved at Beam. And what we're doing also at Beam, is to develop more in-house expertise at the same time and to have specialists who are more focussed on working with different types of people or different communities with different challenges, but we will never have the expertise in to a complex mental health issue that a consultant psychiatrist will have. And we don't seek to do their job or replace them. So it's really about working hand in hand with the experts and forming a wraparound support service with all the other professionals that are best placed to support high needs individuals.
Gemma Styles: Yeah totally. So your position would kind of be to help call in those professionals when they're needed and help people access those services rather than obviously providing them?
Alex Stephany: Yes. So we'll do a risk assessment on each individual when they join the platform. Every person who joins we we assess and understand issues like mental health. And so we educate ourselves about the individual and work with them to understand their risks before they join the platform. And let's suppose someone does have some serious mental health issues that their mental health advisor or specialist considers this to be the right thing for them. Then they'll very much stay in the loop and we will all work together to get the outcome for that person. And I think in terms of mental health, I mean, one of the things that we found and that there's a lot of evidence for is that getting people into the right role for them is hugely conducive to their mental health. People being out of work for a very long period of time or people being in the wrong job can be really harmful to mental health, which is why it's so important that we are very, very personalised in terms of what we support that person to achieve and what their goal is. It could be a huge, very supportive people into, I think, more than 60 different pathways. It's everything from gardening and plumbing to caring and accountancy and lorry driving and 50 something other other things. And it's really exciting for people because, you know, often at that point in their life, they've not been given many opportunities or the opportunities they have been given have been very, very limited. That being pretty sometimes pretty shitty jobs, really, really shitty money. And understandably, it's not it's not appeared to them as a an avenue that will materially improve their life or their mental health and actually we’ll sit down with them and will think about their strengths and think about their ambitions and aspirations and start sometimes with a pretty blank piece of paper and say, well, you know, what’s the right thing for you? And and so that's why we have such a diversity of different pathways that we've supported people into. And I've seen that in my own life. You know, I'm not comparing myself to the people we support. But, you know, I've done jobs that have not been for me and have been really not good for my mental health. And I've done things that have been well-matched to me and have had a really positive impact on my mental health. And I think that's that's the same for everyone.
Gemma Styles: Yes. So very, very individual. And also, it's not just about shoehorning somebody into a job to say that you've got them a job. It's about really finding out what they want to do and what's going to make them happy long term.
Alex Stephany: Absolutely.
Gemma Styles: I hope that was helpful, Becky, for specifically how Beam works to do with mental health. Last question, which is maybe quite a complicated question, is from Ellen, who asks,
What plan do you propose is presented to the government in order to reduce the amount of homelessness and unemployment in a society where there is such a great range in wealth?
Alex Stephany: Well, that's a great question, Ellen, It’s a big question. For me, this is about a… creating a situation where everyone is playing to their strengths. Now, a lot of the time, everyone is focussed on what one single one single player in the ecosystem is doing. People are saying it's charities need to do better and fix this. People need to do better and fix this. Homeless people need to solve these problems for themselves or, you know, the government is failing. And for me, that whole approach to this problem is is unproductive. The reality is that everyone needs to play a part in making progress and ultimately solving this problem. Of course, homeless people need to be actively involved in their own futures and have confidence and hope to do that. The public need to be actively involved as well. And we've built a platform and a public brand for them to them to get involved. Charities need to be involved and they're referring people to the Beam platform as well. And the government needs to be involved as well. And they're also referring people to the Beam platform. And for me, what the government needs to do is to seek out the most scalable and effective solutions. And we think Beam is one of them, is not the only one, but you know, Beam is one of them. And to make sure that they're investing properly and in new solutions that can help meaningful numbers of people and and really move the needle on these problems and I think government is doing that, there is a lot of progress. It's very easy to to get frustrated. And I feel those frustrations very often. But I think we are beginning to head in the right direction. But I also want to, like, draw attention to a group of people who maybe should get more flak than they do and they’re people are a bit like me who are entrepreneurs and who know how to build things and who can, you know, release technology and use data and all of these things that are necessary to solve complicated problems like homelessness and many others. Entrepreneurs, you know, in the UK and around the world. We need to wake up. We need to start doing more to present interesting and innovative solutions to government. I would say that is the case as well. And I'm not you know, I'm not you know, I'm including myself in that group because, you know, it's only relatively recent in my career that I've been working on social impact, it’s the minority of my career, you know, spent a lot of time doing things that had nothing to do with social impact. But I would love to see entrepreneurs come together, step up and start building new services the government can use to to sort of turn the tide on these on these problems because, you know, governments great at lots of things. Governments are very good at collecting taxes. But when it comes to social innovation, which is often about building technology cheaply, quickly, that's not what government has or, you know, has ever pretended to be, to be great at. And so it requires, you know, everyone to everyone to step up government, the public, employers as well. And, and entrepreneurs.
Gemma Styles: Perfect. Thank you. I'm going to sneak in a last question, because I think it'll be a quick one and a nice one to end on. So last question from Debbie, who says,
If there was one message that you could get across to the general public about homelessness, what would it be and how can we help you achieve it?
Alex Stephany: Well, thanks, Debbie. I better not screw this up because this is really like the sort of golden ticket type final question, isn't it? [Gemma laughs] The message is you can make a difference and you need to make a difference. There is an individual responsibility on all of us to play a part in the solution, as we've talked about. So I think that's the message. It is an anti hopelessness message it is an anti cynicism message. And one of the things that I'm sure that gives that really inspires me is a new generation coming through now in their 20s who are bringing a whole new energy and a whole new dynamism and drive and idealism to social impact and who are blowing out the cobwebs of people of my generation who have often given up on these problems. And it's often said in a kind of like glib, throwaway way, you know, we can fix this, we can do it, we can change it. But like, it's bloody true. It is, and I think that is the message that we can get out there and so, you know, find organisations that you think are doing impactful work, you know, Beam is one of them. Beam is not the only one. Share their, share their good work, get involved and be a part of the solution, because together we truly can fix these things.
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Gemma Styles: If you want to know about opportunities to send in questions for upcoming guests, then followers on Instagram or Twitter @goodinfluencegs and email me at goodinfluencepod@gmail.com
recommendations
Gemma Styles: Before you go, I've got three things I ask every guest, and that's if listeners want to find out more about what we've been talking about today… Could you please give us something to read, something to listen to and something to watch?
Alex Stephany: So in terms of stuff to read, watch, listen. Well, a few things. I love this little book called The Little Book of Bob, and it's written by James Bowen and his ambassador at Beam. Some of you may know him. He's a bit of a celeb and it's full of all kinds of lovely bits of wisdom that come from James's life living on the streets with his cat, Bob. Something to listen to. I would check out a lovely podcast called The Blind Boy podcast, it’s really funny, but he also does talk about more serious topics like mental health and homelessness. And then in terms of stuff to watch, I saw this really cool documentary on Netflix the other day called Sherpa. And it's all about the relationship between people in the Sherpa community who are supporting foreigners to climb Everest and the social injustice that exists in that relationship. And it's a really, really interesting story, really beautifully told. But I would also say go check out the incredible stories on beam.org. There's so much there to read, to watch, to listen to. And these are the stories that are occupying my my thoughts at the moment. And these are the stories that I'm digesting and sharing and being inspired by.
Regina: So in 2016, I became homeless. I had the unfortunate experience of being in an abusive relationship. My daughter was only six months old and we left literally randomly in the same day with just bin bags. I didn't know where else to kind of turn to or where to go. I went over to the council and they were able to help me into a hostel, but I also needed extra help. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do career wise and how to kind of make money, because unfortunately, I had to leave my job in order to get housing and Beam was introduced to me and they were able to guide me in the right direction when it comes to my career. They were able to crowdfund for my diploma to be a dental nurse and they crowdfunded nearly four thousand pounds with loads and loads of messages from people encouraging me. Fast forward now, I started working as a dental nurse and was fortunate enough to move over to the personal assistant front as well. So I'm working within a dental practice over in Harley Street. Without Beam I wouldn't have had the confidence to even start working in that kind of field, the finances as well, to be able to even dream of doing that. But now it's become a really good dream of mine to help other people in that situation. And I've been able to use the skill sets that I've learnt from being a personal assistant slash dental nurse to be able to help lots of other people in this situation, you know, by being caring and and understanding and helping them with their mental health and everything. So I was able to start a charity called A Hand to Guide, which is a 24 hour buddy service for victims of domestic abuse and homeless people as well. We just are there to be the guiding hand and provide a nice buddyship to be able to get them into any services that they require. So, yeah, it's all down to Beam. It really is.
outro
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Gemma Styles: Thank you for listening and thank you to Alex for joining me. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love you to subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're currently listening on. And if you've got an extra minute, you can leave a rating and a review as well. Your views make a big difference and help other people find the podcast. See you next week.