Former homeless people trained to give guided Cardiff tours

Johnny Giles, who spent nine months in temporary accommodation, starts his tour of Cardiff at the Betty Campbell statue

"We tend to overlook the local."

The first line of a Johnny Giles poem read in the shadow of Cardiff's statue of Betty Campbell, a woman who defied the odds to become Wales' first black headteacher.

Johnny overcame a difficult experience in temporary housing to become a performer and now a city tour guide.

The Invisible Cities project trained Johnny and others with similar experiences to give tours from their own perspective of the city.

"I'm a Cardiff boy," said Johnny, 30, a former journalism student and activist.

Last year he lost his job, got evicted, and ended up living at the Salvation Army for nine months.

His tour is named for the three things he said he cared about most: poetry, protest and place.

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"Poetry because I love performing," he explained. "Protest, because I consider myself as someone with a social conscience and place because I'm introducing people to some of the stories about the city they might not know."

Johnny takes people to Womanby Street, his favourite in Cardiff

After starting at the Betty Campbell statue, Johnny takes his groups to Womanby Street, his favourite in the city.

It is an area synonymous with music and performance.

He gives another poetry reading and explains how, during a 19th Century cholera outbreak, 500 people were living in Jones Court with only four toilets between them.

"It strongly shows the link between housing and health," he said.

"At least when I was in temporary accommodation I had a room to myself.

"Where there is not as much of a risk to do with physical health now, I know my mental health suffered big time when I was in temporary accommodation."

Johnny does poetry readings during the tour

Johnny's tour finishes at the statue of Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS, who he called "one of my personal heroes".

"I would argue that this statue is incomplete, he was a very visionary figure in terms of social housing as well," he said.

The homelessness charity Wallich, which runs the project, said it hoped similar initiatives can be set up in all parts of Wales.

Homelessness across Wales

There were 9,246 households in Wales in 2022-23 that were threatened with homelessness, according to the latest Welsh government figures gathered from local authorities.

In 59% of those cases, homelessness was prevented for at least six months.

There were 5,481 household placed in temporary accommodation at the end of March, up 23% from the same time in 2022.

At that time were were 2,187 households placed in temporary B&B accommodation, an increase of 29% from the year before.

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