“I felt humiliated, an outsider, we became the ones people avoided\u201d says the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church as he speaks about his experience of homelessness.<\/p>\n
The Most Rev Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church will take part in the \u2018Sleep in the Park\u2019 event in Princes Street Gardens this Saturday to highlight the issue of Homelessness and to raise funds and awareness to bring Homelessness in Scotland to an end. Bishop Mark will be joined in the \u2018Sleep in the Park\u2019 with his wife and two daughters and his son\u2019s partner.<\/p>\n
In preparing to take part in the event, Bishop Mark reflects on his own experience of being homeless for a couple of years, saying \u201cI will always remember the day that my wife Jane and I were forced to leave our first home together, a home we had slowly improved as we enjoyed the first year of married life. We were forced to leave because the landlord had sold the property to a developer and the house was to be demolished. This also brought to an end my local employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe processes of applying to housing lists, housing associations and the Council were all unknown to us and life just seemed very scary and uncertain. We decided to take the opportunity to \u2019get on our bikes\u2018 and to find accommodation and work and so we placed the little furniture and possessions we had into a relative\u2019s cellar and set off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe slept on friends\u2019 floors, we slept in railway stations and on buses – we were always on edge wondering where we would be next. People were good to us but with each new month it became harder to look and feel smart and presentable for interview, harder to fit in. The final straw for me was when the verger at the church we headed for on the Sunday morning asked us to sit in the porch and said “the Vicar will bring you a sandwich when the service ends” I felt humiliated, an outsider, we became the ones people avoided.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis period of our lives lasted just under two years and, as I have said, many people – relatives, friends – were wonderful; and I am aware that my pride probably stopped us simply sloping off to my parents. Yet on reflection it was so easy to slip into a place where you began to disappear, where you were no longer noticed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when people ask me why I am \u2018Sleeping in the Park\u2019 this weekend, it is because I know what it is like to have no real home, no resources to fall back on and to live with the fear and vulnerability that this brings. I urge you to please support your local homelessness charities, and try to do something to help. I know how important this can be to someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
-ends-<\/p>\n
The Scottish Episcopal Church supports Homeless Sunday (28 January 2018) \u2013 an annual awareness raising day and works closely with Scottish Churches Housing Action.<\/p>\n
Full details of the \u2018Sleep in the Park\u2019 event can be read here: https:\/\/www.sleepinthepark.co.uk\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I felt humiliated, an outsider, we became the ones people avoided\u201d says the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church as he speaks about his experience of homelessness. The Most Rev Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church will take part in the \u2018Sleep in the Park\u2019 event […]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hillside.work\/sec\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}