I mostly help on the collections and delivery vans for the charity shops at Emmaus Glasgow and with house clearances. I’m part of the van crew, but I’m also a driver. I do maintenance checks on the vans, such as making sure they’re filled up with petrol alongside other things. I also get food for Emmaus Glasgow’s soup kitchen by picking up meals from businesses. Helping the soup kitchen is important to me because it makes me feel more directly involved.
We have three vans at Emmaus Glasgow, and we can take the newer one into Glasgow into the low emissions zone (LEZ); the other two we can’t. Until we got the new van, we didn’t take any big vehicles into the city centre at all, and we didn’t get any work there. Now we can do both collections and deliveries in that zone.
Three people work on each van. I don’t find it a problem working with others. It’s out we go, and we pick up things, mostly donated furniture. Deliveries are already loaded at the start of the day. Sometimes we meet the people donating, sometimes it’s organisations.
Helping with house clearances
People are happy to see us when we do house clearances. It’s very often a parent’s house and they want it cleared so they can put it up for sale. Sometimes their parent is going into an old folks’ home because can’t look after themselves anymore. The parent may need more care, so the children are selling the house to pay for it.
The training for how we do pick-ups and good customer service is all done in-house. Even the people who don’t have good English are polite. The way we are with supporters who donate, is picked up by everyone else at Emmaus.
Overall, my experience of Emmaus is excellent. I just found I fitted in very quickly. I found out about it through lawyers at Citizens Advice Bureau, as I got thrown out of my flat because I got evicted. It was a rented flat and I lost my job, so I was claiming benefits and housing benefit. They made a mistake in housing, and didn’t give me benefit, so I owed them £6,600 in back paid rent, which, of course, I couldn’t pay.
When I went to Citizens Advice, I got a lawyer, and they took me to Emmaus and introduced me to the support team who showed me the place. At that point Citizens Advice couldn’t stop me from getting evicted. I was going out and that was that.
At that time, I felt horrendously depressed. I was getting eviction letters, and I didn’t know who to turn to. Citizens Advice was the only place I could think of going to. They were very helpful. Through them I got a lawyer who took over my case and did an amazing job.
I was in my flat for five years and took what I could. I worked for a hygiene company, so I had a lot of plastic sacks. I dumped all of my clothes and things in bags at the back of the block of the tenement flats where I was staying; I took one van load because I was moving into a room in the shared house at Emmaus Glasgow. Three people came round from the charity, staff and companions, to help me get my stuff.
Sense of relief coming to Emmaus
While there was a feeling of relief for me, when I moved to Emmaus, there was also a sense that I had lost my own kitchen and my own bathroom. I miss all the things I had in my kitchen that I had collected over the years, and this oven is different.
I spend most of my time at work, but I know if I’ve any problems I can talk to any of the members of the support team at Emmaus Glasgow. They are all very approachable.
I’m not at the stage yet where I’ve got a plan drawn up with my support workers, but I don’t want to say at Emmaus for the rest of my life.
Coming here was something I was quite nervous about because I had never been homeless before… 61 years old and first time homeless. I had lack of experience. What I want to say to people is, don’t be afraid, it’s not a big bad world. I sort of had that fear, that a homelessness charity would be like a prison. But it’s not, it’s nice here.
If you or someone you know is experiencing homelessness and would like to get help from our homelessness charity, you can find out more and learn how to apply for a place at Emmaus Glasgow here.