Postcard campaign highlights summer homelessness

Michael McMillan is backing Sifa Fireside's Wish I Wasn't Here campaign

"Have you seen the film Trainspotting? Well that was my life."

Michael McMillan was homeless for several years. He left care in Scotland at 16, went to London for a few years and eventually moved to Birmingham.

Now in his 50s, he works as a manager at Sifa Fireside, a charity which helps people to recover from the effects of homelessness.

Its current campaign, Wish I Wasn’t Here, is a reminder that the problems of homelessness do not disappear during the good weather and donations tend to dwindle in summer, making it difficult for the charity to continue its work.

Crisis and prevention manager Mr McMillan grew up in care after his mother gave him to social services.

"I left the care system at 16. I had no accommodation and £5 in my pocket," he said.

"My life was a mess."

Trainspotting, a film based on the book by Irvine Welsh, explores drug culture in Scotland in the late 1980s.

Mr McMillan hung out with an older crowd, drank heavily, and started to dabble in drugs. But then there came a point when he knew he would have to leave - his friend's baby was born with HIV due to needle sharing.

"I thought I have to escape before I die," he said.

He moved to London, where he had heard the streets were paved with gold.

"I was homeless for four years," he said. "I used a number of services, similar to Sifas, where I could go and wash and get something to eat. Those services were so important to me."

The card was designed by people who use Sifa Fireword and creative agency One Black Bear

Aged 19 he met a couple from Birmingham who were out on the streets looking for their missing daughter, who they have since found.

He said: "They took me home, they loved me and provided me with a job. I was still unsettled, made lots of mistakes, there was days when the impact on my mental health would give me insecurities and fear.

"I would go wandering and hit the drink, but they would pick me up, dust me down and support me."

Eventually Mr McMillan met his wife, settled in Bournville and became a housing manager for Birmingham City Council before moving to work for Sifa.

He has also reconciled with his mother, who he discovered had tried to get him back but had been told he had died.

Even with his lived experience, Mr McMillan said he could be shocked by what some of Sifa's clients go through.

"Systems in the UK have not improved as much as they should have. Care leavers can still fall through the net, for example," he said.

"This is why charities are so important. They fill the gaps. Local authorities have limitations with funding which often create a void, but without charities such as Sifa Fireside it would be a whole lot worse.”

Sifa provides a place to sit, eat and drink and have a wash as well as practical support

With a base in Digbeth, Sifa provides basic needs such as food and a place to wash as well as support including help with housing and medical needs

Its summer campaign, a postcard highlighting homelessness, has been designed by its clients along with creative agency One Black Bear.

Melissa Roche, head of fundraising, volunteering and communications, said the postcard was a powerful idea.

"It highlights the reality of homelessness in Birmingham that support is needed all year round, even during the summer, and not just when the temperature drops," she said.