Blooming marvellous
More than 300 homeless people will plant the largest show garden in this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. In the first in a series of reports on the Places of Change garden, Lydia Stockdale looks at how the project is boosting its participants’ skills.
Spring has sprung and to mark its long-awaited arrival, Inside Housing begins its coverage of the Places of Change garden, a project that brings together the work of 41 homelessness agencies in England and Wales in the shape of the largest show garden to appear at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show in May.
The garden, which will involve around 320 homeless people, is a joint venture between the Eden Project, the world’s largest greenhouse in Cornwall, Homeless Link, the umbrella organisation for homelessness charities, the Homes and Communities Agency and the department of Communities and Local Government. Through a series of articles and online features Inside Housing is going to track its progress in the countdown to May.
Last year 20 organisations fed into The Key garden, the first collaboration between the Eden Project and Homeless Link. The garden came third in the People’s Choice award competing against 12 other show gardens at the prestigious annual event. This year the project is back — and it’s grown. At 590m2 it is two-and-a-half times bigger than last year’s exhibit.
The project aims to break down the stereotypes around homelessness by demonstrating to the general public and those working in commerce that homeless people have talents and potential. ‘When visitors at the Chelsea Flower Show discover they are talking to homeless people, they are astonished,’ says Howard Jones, director of human networks at the Eden Project.
‘Something like this tells a story to the general public,’ adds Jenny Edwards, chief executive of Homeless Link. The hope is that people will see the work and realise that people who end up being homeless could come from any walk of life, and that given the right opportunity they can reintegrate back into society.
This year’s garden, Places of Change, will be seen in all its glory by nearly 160,000 visitors between 25 and 29 May. One of 95 projects funded through the HCA’s £80 million capital funding programme - also called Places of Change - which runs over three years between 2008 and 2011, and with additional funding from the Communities and Local Government department, the garden is managed by Eden Project staff.
Nearly 30 homelessness organisations across England and Wales, including Deptford Reach in London, the Freedom Centre in Barnstaple, Devon, SIFA Fireside in Birmingham and Cyrenians Cymru in Swansea, are growing plants and flowers for the garden.
Meanwhile, Churches Housing Association in Bournemouth, Supported Housing for Young People in Hereford, Noah Enterprises in Luton, Stonham in Maidstone and Hull, and Look Ahead, Crisis Skylight, one of homelessness charity Crisis’s educational centres, and Providence Row Housing Association in London, are fine-tuning the Eden Project’s garden design. Others have specific tasks — St Mungo’s in London, for example, is charged with hard landscaping, while Two Saints in Southampton and Shekinah Mission in Plymouth are working on construction, and York-based Arc-light is concentrating on art and media.
‘There are all sorts of jobs that need to be done,’ says Ms Edwards — and that’s just before the show even opens next month. During the four-day Royal Horticultural Society show, residents and service users of the homeless organisations involved in Places of Change will be on hand to show visitors around. They will also be exhibiting and selling their art and other handiwork at trade stands that will be situated alongside the garden.
‘It’s about engaging in small ways,’ explains Richard Cunningham, manager of the Places of Change program-me at the HCA. ‘Some of these people will have been excluded for years, their achievement may have been limited, and this is about finding a way in.’
The project will give those involved the ‘confidence to engage with other things’, he adds. ‘There’s an obvious sense of accomplishment and it gets people on the first rung, making them ask, “where else can I go?”’
Nick Wilkinson, a resident of Leeds homelessness charity St George’s Crypt, says last year’s Chelsea Flower Show was ‘a turning point’ for him. ‘It was so good to be part of a team and be treated like a normal human being which doesn’t always happen when you are homeless,’ he says.
The Eden Project’s Mr Jones says that although this year’s garden is a lot bigger than last year’s, the organisers have had more time to plan — and they’re keen for the project to be a starting point from which service users can gain qualifications.
‘This is much more complex than just building a garden,’ explains Mr Jones, who is working with qualification awarding body Open College Network so that participants will be able to gain qualifications in areas including hospitality, landscape and design and waste management (the garden is waste neutral) as a result of their involvement in Places of Change. Mr Jones explains that the broader aim of the project is ‘to maximise the opportunities for people after the show, including employment, ongoing skills development and mentoring’.
The garden may be just the beginning for many of the 320 people involved - but it’s going to be a beautiful place to start.
Weed it and reap
Paul Pulford, also known as Scruffy, is a former heroin addict who uses gardening to aid his rehabilitation. Mr Pulford was living on the streets until six years ago when he moved into the Providence Row Housing Association hostel in east London. The hostel had an unused courtyard which Mr Pulford transformed into a vegetable and herb garden.
During the creation of the Key Garden last year, film-maker Dan Brearley made a documentary about Mr Pulford called Weed It and Reap. In it, Mr Pulford says that he reached a turning point in his life when he asked himself: ‘What really used to make me happy?’ - ‘I remembered as a child working with my father in the garden, and that made me realise I had to get back into gardening again,’ he says.
Mr Pulford along with nine other service users from Providence Row will be at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, working on the Places of Change garden.
Turning over a new leaf
Another member of the Places of Change team is Lucy Frew, who in November 2008 got involved with Shekinah Mission, an agency in Plymouth which supports people who are homeless, have substance misuse issues, are ex-offenders or who feel socially excluded.
Ms Frew’s gone from being part of the Chelsea Flower Show project last year to managing a team at this year’s show.
‘At its peak, I had a £100 a day drug habit,’ she says. ‘I moved down to Plymouth for a fresh start. Shekinah has provided me with support for everything. They don’t judge you and aren’t interested in the past.’
Last year Ms Frew helped out during various phases of the garden. During the show itself, she was involved in hospitality, talking to members of the public about the project and about homelessness. ‘Working on the garden really helped to build my confidence and it was interesting to meet people from other backgrounds who found themselves in similar situations - it helped to make some sense of things.’
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