Recovering addict shares hell of rough sleeping over New Year

Blackpool Gazette

Richie Roncero has been told to 'get back to [his] own country', and openly offered drugs while sleeping on the streets.  Richie has been sober for nine years - but now he is spending 8 weeks sleeping rough in various towns and cities across the UK to change the perspective on homelessness and addiction.   He is also raising money for Steps to Hope - a free service to help addicts into sobriety.

Transcript

00:00 So right now I'm taking part in a UK national Sleep Rough campaign

00:05 where I'm sleeping rough for eight weeks in eight different cities to raise

00:11 awareness of homelessness and addiction and to try and raise funds for Steps to Hope.

00:15 Who from a little boy or girl dreams to be an addict sleeping on the streets?

00:26 My own experience is you lose the power of choice whether you're

00:31 going to drink or use. There is no choice. Addiction is an illness and

00:37 it needs to be treated as an illness and I think that's now coming in to play

00:41 when it comes to policy, certainly in Scotland. But yeah I think more

00:48 compassion and understanding and education is needed for the public so

00:51 that we can see that this isn't a choice. This is someone who's unwell on the

00:57 streets suffering from something they probably don't even understand the first

01:02 thing about addiction because I certainly didn't. I thought I did. 16

01:06 years in active addiction. It wasn't until I stepped into recovery and I

01:10 truly started to learn what I suffered from. I had two lads two nights

01:14 ago and I think in their own way they were trying to be helpful but they were

01:17 asking me if I wanted a smoke off a joint to help me get to sleep. Now I

01:24 think in their own way they were trying to be nice. I'm actually a recovering

01:28 addict and I'm nine years clean and sober so that's definitely not what I

01:32 want. But you just don't know who's coming round the corner as you're lying

01:38 down in a city, a country that you've never been in before.

01:42 You've just got to keep your wits about you so you're sleeping with

01:46 one eye open. In Belfast I had one guy sat right over me as my it was just my

01:52 head my arms were strapped into my sleeping bag and he had a bottle in his

01:56 hand he was drunk and he told me to go back to to my own effing country and

02:01 and yeah I was pretty shaken up by that experience. I've witnessed fights

02:08 and assaults out here literally right beside me people getting attacked.

02:13 I'm here for a week I've been I'm literally sleeping on concrete, sleeping

02:18 rough and begging to survive. I started this challenge on the 5th of

02:23 December and I never came out with one pound. The whole idea is to document how

02:28 difficult it is for rough sleepers around the UK. So in Blackpool I've been

02:34 begging, I've been handing out leaflets, trying to stay out the cold and rain

02:38 and just trying to get enough money to get indoors to charge up my phone and

02:45 stuff like that. I mean this time of year it was always going to be a challenge

02:49 but I'm finding Blackpool a bit cold. Obviously due to being New Year services

02:55 have been closed, cafes and shops and stuff have been closed or reduced hours

03:01 so that's been a massive challenge trying to access toilets and stuff like

03:05 that. A lot of people don't carry cash anymore when you're begging which is

03:10 really challenging but I feel like they're acknowledging me which is great.

03:15 There's not enough housing for people and it's not just about housing that's

03:20 the key thing here. There has to be wraparound support and when we're dealing

03:25 with you know trauma and addiction and mental health and a wide variation of

03:31 reasons why people are rough sleeping so it's not as simple as give them a set of

03:35 keys and job done. They have to be supported so that they can sustain that

03:40 long-term housing.

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