By Nicole King
I bumped into Paul Carr of Collective Calling on Tuesday. He was in San Pedro with Andrew, one of the volunteers, preparing their mobile shower unit to head off to M谩laga to provide hot showers to the homeless.
Everything was well thought out and organised. Apart from the shower facility they also had bags of towels, small bags of hygiene products, some clothing, including fresh underwear, a garment I had never even thought of, but so fundamental.
I asked Paul if there is a common thread behind this plight, to which he replied: 鈥淭here are people who are here but were born in another country; they鈥檝e come here looking for a better life but challenged with paperwork, or thought they鈥檇 be able to find work a lot easier but then found themselves on the street.鈥 鈥淭here are addiction issues, there鈥檚 family breakdown, there鈥檚 trauma in the past, so I would Just say it differs case to case really鈥.
Andrew went on to comment :
鈥淚t makes a big difference, doesn鈥檛 it, once you get yourself up and clean? Well, the other thing is that a lot of people who are homeless are obviously trying to find work and just the basic challenge of trying to get a job when you haven鈥檛 had a shower and haven鈥檛 got any fresh clothes to turn up to an interview with.鈥
The mobile unit has two massive 500 litre drums, which enables Collective Calling to give four or five showers an hour to people. A lot of coordination, a lot of time but as Andrew said, 鈥淚f we can help change the world one person at a time, that鈥檚 a good day.鈥