LOOKING FOR DIRECTION:
Phil recently spoke to Edges. He has had his share of homelessness. Sometimes he comes to one of our projects for a hot meal.
I was born in Liverpool. I stayed with my mam till I was eleven and then I was sent away to a children's home until I was thirteen, then I had behavior problems. It was things like tantrums and that so I was moved to boarding school until I was seventeen and a half. From then I have just been dossing on the streets and at friends houses. I have now ended up in Blackburn trying to find accommodation for Christmas.
I applied to join the army when I was Twenty-one because it's a good career and you get to travel and meet different people.
For the last year I have been on the streets and dossing about. I have been as far up as Newcastle and back down to Chester and Liverpool, but there is nothing so I have come here to try and start afresh.
It's rough being on the streets. You've got to learn how to look after yourself, always be watching what you are doing and be careful of who you talk to.
I have never had a job because I have never settled anywhere long enough to get a job. I always mess up because of my past. I have been to prison, I have been to Lancaster Farms, I have been in a jail in Exeter. There isn't a best jail, they are all the same.
The reason I got into boarding school was because of my behavior problems. I used to get beat up after my dad came back from the pubs and that kept with me up until a later age. I always used to think back to that and flare off. I think that if my family life had been better in the past I would still be at home today, in college and looking forward to the future.
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