Meet the Mancunian - Talking homelessness with Yvonne Hope

Transcript: Meet the Mancunian: Yvonne Hope (Season 4, Episode 3)

Intro

Welcome to the Meet the Mancunian Podcast, Season Four. I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your friendly host.

On the streets and nooks of Manchester. My inspiring Mancunian guests tackle their causes with their grit and passion. They are leaders, worker bees, and community hosts, and they share their stories to inspire you all through the season.

Relax, grab a brew. And listen in to the Meet the Mancunian podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, or any of your favorite podcasting platforms. You can also check out all the episodes on my new website, www.meetthemancunian.co.uk.

Looking to help the homeless, overcome poverty? We hear from Yvonne Hope, CEO, Barnabus.

In this episode, I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Yvonne Hope, CEO, Barnabus.

Episode 3

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much, Yvonne, for joining me today.

Yvonne Hope: Thank you so much for inviting me Deepa.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe; It’s exciting. I'm looking forward to learning about all the great work that you're doing over the many years that Barnabus has been active in Manchester. But before that, can you tell us about how did your passion for the homeless really start? What's the origins of that?

Yvonne Hope: I guess I was always interested in working in a charity. I always wanted to help. I always felt like I had something to give back but I didn't really have the confidence to do that for a long time. And I moved to Manchester in 2002 to raise my family, and then about seven years later, I'd become a Christian in that time. I received what I could only call a call from God, ironically on the M 60, when I was driving to work one day. Wow. And that was, that was a very surreal experience, but I knew instantly that I wasn't supposed to be carrying on with sales and marketing and corporate careers. And I knew that was the time to give up.

I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted to help people who were finding it hard to have a voice. And in that, I guess a lot of my own background growing up in, I wouldn't say we grew up in poverty, but we definitely weren't well off. We definitely had a lot of disadvantages, particularly because my parents are immigrants and you know, we're first-generation immigrants to this country.

I really wanted to do something that made a difference. About three years after I had that call from God, I'd been volunteering all over where I live and trying different things because I thought maybe I was supposed to work with young people which was a real passion. I saw a little advert in my church magazine and it said, wanted receptionist, minimum wage, five pounds an hour. Come and work for us. And it was exactly the hours that I needed so that I could drop my children to school and pick them up. And I thought, you know, I have nothing to lose. I'm gonna go for this. But I really felt like it was my job. And my mother was horrified. She said she couldn't believe that she'd set me to university to have a great career and I was going to go and work with tramps in her own words.

And, it was very hard to convey how much this job resonated with me. I met the founders. They were inspirational. They had taken this charity from the back of their van, just the two of them going out with sandwiches and coffee to you know, pretty much where I took over and I realised straight away these are people who don't have a voice.

These are the least electorally attractive people in the country, and they don't attract any attention. And I knew straight away that that was what I wanted to do because I genuinely do not believe that anybody should be living on the streets. Or should be made homeless.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's amazing. So you had this calling from God as you said, and then you found that perfect advert in the church magazine. So you know, serendipity there.

Sounds like it's a great way to get involved. So was that charity that you referenced and you joined as a receptionist Barnabus?

Yvonne Hope: Yes, that is Barnabus.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So from receptionist to CEO, what's the story there?

Yvonne Hope:  So I have to be honest and say, you know, I wasn't a receptionist in the job I did before. You know, I had a career full of roles in different industries. All marketing and I'd really enjoyed my career. but it was feeling very empty, I suppose. And I really felt there was more to do. I've always been someone who worked from the ground up. I was never scared of going in at the bottom.

I never felt like I had to go in at manager level. Cause I like to learn everything about where I am. So yeah, going to, going as the receptionist it was good. It was good for me because I knew nothing. I was going into a sector I knew nothing about. I was literally like a sponge. I wanted to learn everything.

I was probably really annoying to work with because I was always asking questions and people were always thinking, goodness, how can she not know that? And then I was saying, well, I can tell you all about warehousing and I can tell you all about e-commerce, but I don’t know anything about helping people. So it was amazing.

Very quickly, the lady I went to work for, who's now our head of fundraising said, you're not really a receptionist, are you? And they said, well, you'd be the office manager. But it was very apparent that I joined at a point at which Barnabus was growing really fast. Barnabus was started in 1991 by our founders, Peter and Beryl Green.

They'd kind of got the whole of the churches in Manchester behind them. Because Peter similarly had a similar feeling that, you know, he should be doing something around his Christian faith and he couldn't believe people were still on the streets similar to me. And he, he kind of took this from, you know, just out of grassroots on the streets feeding organisation to buying a property on Bloom Street in the Gay village. And expanding from there.

By the time I took over the numbers of rough sleepers were going up by the, sorry, by the time I joined Rough Sleepers going up. It was not uncommon by the time I took over from Peter and Beryl in 2016 that we would see 90 people a morning just for breakfast. If you ever come to the Beacon, you would see what a tiny little space is.

And to this day, I do not know how we fed that many people. I can only say Barnabus has always been, it's always been powered by its volunteers. I've never worked with such inspirational people, people who give up their own time and really want to make a difference. I think that's what I really love about Barnabus is that it's not just the staff who feel this way, it's the volunteers, it's the supporters, it's the trustees. It feels like a movement of people all wanting the same social outcome that, you know, we are our own levelling up department, I always think

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: So, that is an interesting reference. But because I have international listeners you want to explain that, please?

Yvonne Hope: Yes, I will. So in Britain, we have a real problem with what we call social mobility. And I've experienced this first. It's very, very difficult to pull yourselves out of yourself, out of poverty. It's very, very hard to move towards a stable income to become a householder to be in this place where you are never worrying about where your next meal is going to come from, and particularly, I would say, social mobility has come to an almost complete halt in the UK. It's almost impossible for someone like me who grew up on a state education. Parents were earning very little and had many disadvantages. And my way out was education. And I could do that because education used to be free. A university education used to be paid for in this country by the government. When everything changed in the UK with the introduction of university fees, of changes to our budget, which we, we in the UK, you know, used to call the austerity years from 2010 onwards.Huge cuts to public services. All of a sudden, people who used to have a way out didn't have a way out anymore, and. The government has put this new department in called Levelling Up, which is supposed to bring all different areas of the UK up to the same standards as the Southeast London. But at the end of the day, it takes a lot of money to do that and it also takes a lot of political will. and certainly Barnabus is not blessed with a lot of money, it certainly doesn't have a lot of political clout in the UK, but I like to think that within Manchester, we have our own will. We have the wish to, that nobody should have to live on the street, that people should be able to have homes and a dream. They should be able to have a job, a car, go on holiday, and do all the same things as the rest of us. For us to do that  it really does mean that we have to overcome a lot of barriers, with the people that we work with, and that's the work I'm really interested in. That's really my passion.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And what does the name Barnabus mean? How does that come about?

Yvonne Hope: Right, so Peter and Beryl our founders were Christians and they didn't know what to call their little fledgling organisation. So one of their churches said, well, you know, in the Bible St. Paul went out to preach to all these countries, but he needed to be encouraged to do that. He couldn't do it on his own. And a man called Barnabus was asked by God to go and encourage. St. Paul and everybody said to Peter, well, that's what you're doing. You're encouraging people. You know, you're not preaching at people, you're encouraging them. You're walking alongside them. You're taking down the barriers. And really, that's what we are. That's what Barnabus is all about.

The odd spelling of our name, because Barnabus is, Barnabas is his name in the Bible with an ‘a’. A church in Manchester gifted Peter a bus, a double-decker bus, and he was famous for driving it around Piccadilly. He would drive it at night. He had had it all changed out so that there were medics on board because he realized it was very hard in the nineties for people who were rough sleeping to access the NHS. You needed a fixed address. There were all sorts of problems, but they had terrible health outcomes. And Peter was famous for driving this bus, so they said, actually, you should be Barnabus. And we never changed it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I love it.

Yvonne Hope: The bus is long gone, but I, I love the story. And we still have a picture of the old bus. I believe Peter did sell it in 2010 or something like that to another organisation that was doing in the UK that was doing exactly what Barnabus was doing. And I like to think that somewhere it is still trundling about.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Helping people, right? That is a great story. Thanks for sharing that.

What challenges have you faced, because obviously you've got a very mighty mission where you think nobody should be on the street, which I agree with, but it's difficult as it is with all the different constraints? So can you tell us some of what challenges you've had to overcome or you're trying to overcome? Maybe that'll inspire listeners.

Yvonne Hope: Yes. Lots. Just like all charities, you know we're here for a social purpose that is not fulfilled by, you know, these are the people that fall through the gaps. I think the number one issue is, you know, it's the housing crisis. At the end of the day, we're a housing charity. We're about getting people into a home. The cuts that the government have made to funding for homelessness means that there are less and less emergency beds to go around. Now in Manchester, we've actually bucked the trend where in fact, I think our local author has been absolutely brilliant working with the Department for Levelling Up what used to be called Departments of communities and local governments. And they've had some really good funding to be able to have emergency beds. But the major issue around that, is you can have as many emergency beds as you like… If you don't have affordable accommodation for people to move on to from there. Actually, what will end up is you'll need more emergency beds because people can't move on.

And that's the thing that's been a real problem for as long as I can remember that you can put someone into an emergency bed, but that's all it is at the end of the day. It's just somewhere to stay while you're waiting for the rest of your life to carry on. You can't really do anything there. You can't work there. You can't, you know, you are almost like in limbo and you are waiting for this magic moment where you get hopefully get a flat or a room in a shared house. Rents have been going up ever since I've been at Barnabus. To a point now where we are hearing it's, it's normal for a room in a shared house to cost anywhere up to 650 pounds a month.

When I started 10 years ago, you could probably rent a whole house for that. So to have just a room means that actually you are trapping people in poverty. People's housing benefits will pay for that. But what it means is that if you agree to take rent at 650 pounds a month, if you get a job, you still have to pay the money and you probably cannot afford to pay all that money and you won't get that much more help from the government.

I think another issue that we've had really, and again this is around housing, is actually the standards of housing. You know, we've always been lucky at Barnabus that we've worked with landlords who care about the people that we help and are willing to work with us to improve standards. In fact, you know, always gone out of their way to make sure that where we house people is fit for housing.

But we've come across some absolutely horrific instances of people living in, you know, unbelievable circumstances. And we've been very lucky to be able to work with Shelter to be able to tackle those rogue landlords and to try to help people bring the standard of living up.

If you live somewhere where you're dealing with damp and you're dealing with rats and you're dealing with you know, windows that are broken. Eventually, your health outcomes are going to be very bad, and you are going to leave that property, you're going to become homeless anyway. So yeah, that's been a major issue.

I think another major issue for us, one of the biggest issues that we had to deal with was the introduction of universal credit. Manchester, I think two areas of Manchester became the pilot areas for universal credit back in 2014, and we almost instantly saw lots of destitution happen right on our doorstep.

We went from people who were paid their benefits every two weeks to having to wait six weeks for their first monthly payment, and they're not understanding how to budget monthly. That's a real skill, isn't it? Being able to manage, and make your money go for the whole month. Oh goodness. I can remember we sometimes, we were handing out food parcels like you wouldn't believe.

And just the absolute desperation that people felt that was, that was a horrible thing to get through. The system has improved, and the government has listened. It needs more help really, it needs more feedback and I guess that we still get lots of problems with universal credit which I think are completely avoidable.

I think one of the other issues we've had is cuts to services. So it's almost impossible to get people into mental health settings now. You know, we've had instances where people have been really unwell and have been sent 200, 300 miles. Because that was the nearest mental health bed. So away from their family, away from their networks, away from all the things that matter to them.

But that was the only mental health bed, and that was what had to happen. I think the police have ended up acting as the fourth emergency service with regard to mental health, and that's certainly one of the biggest issues that we see is the lack of carried-on care for people. Once they leave a mental health setting, they're pretty much just thrown out and put on their own devices, and I kind of feel, gosh, you know, if I could do anything, I'd make sure there was more care for those people so that they never had to go through that again, and certainly never had to end up back on the streets again.

I mean, I could go on forever, Deepa. Honestly, I've got so many stories, but I'll stop there. But you get the idea.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that, Yvonne. And I know it's a very difficult subject and you know, there are so many aspects that you and other worthy charities that we have interviewed in homelessness are tackling. And thank you for what you do. And I hope my listeners can help.

What impact have you made so far? 30 years is a long time.

Yvonne Hope:  I was thinking about that. Barnabus has always been a bit of a pioneering charity. I think it's partly because our founder is not very, he wasn't very good at dealing with authorities or, you know rules, which on the one hand caused lots of problems. But on the other hand was brilliant because he was always thinking about what to do first. Peter very early on recognized the importance of health with homelessness, and that's why it's one of our charitable objectives to preserve the health of homeless people.

And we've been very lucky to work alongside Urban Village Medical Practice, which has had outstanding care, primary care for homeless people in Manchester for well over 20 years now. We still have a primary care nurse who comes in and delivers care for the people in our centre. She is also doing, you know, covid vaccines, flu vaccines, things like that. I can't overestimate the impact of having health in a setting where people feel safe. You know, things like podiatry, physio, mental health services, drug and alcohol services, all under one roof. It does work, and we know that because there are multiple charities all up and down the country doing the same thing. But Peter was one of the first that really understood the importance of ensuring that health was part of the offer, you know, from the very early days of having medics on the bus. So I'm very proud of that and it's work that I'm really keen to continue pioneering in.

The impact that we've had is also, we knew quite early on that we wanted to do something around housing and we set up a bond guarantee scheme whereby we were working with landlords where we would guarantee the rent and deposit for the people we placed there. And we realized quite early on also we needed some kind of workforce that just went out and went and helped people to become good tenants. Didn’t just say, right, pay your bills and, you know, take your rubbish out. But actually the whole thing of what are you gonna do with your day? How are you gonna change your day? Because, you know, three days ago you were sitting in Piccadilly Gardens. Now you've gotta think about what you're gonna do today. Cause you don't want to go back to that old way of living. And I'm really proud of our resettlement team. Got two people on the team. And they've got a caseload of 30 between them.

They really have created an amazing community of people who support one another, who really understand that it's up to them to grasp it and to, you know, move on. You know, if they can't work, at least find a volunteering job somewhere. There was a gentleman that we helped, he's not probably ever gonna be able to work, but he desperately wanted to PAT testing course. So that's where you test electrical appliances to make sure they're safe. So we paid for him to do that and you know, he absolutely loves it. He goes round doing his PAT testing, he comes in to do our PAT testing as well now,  and he, you know, that just gives him a focus for his week.

He might not work a week, but he will go every now and again and say, right, I'm gonna go and do the PAT testing for X, Y, Z organisation. And you know, just to know that he can do something worthwhile with his day. I love that impact. I think the other impact we've had really is we realised that actually you can't do everything on your own.

And when I met Hendrick and Risha who are the founders of Coffee4Craig, back in 2014, I, I pretty much knew I'd met kindred souls and I loved the way that they came in. They disrupted the partnership because they just kept asking all the time, very obvious questions like, Why don't we just house people or you know, you'd sit in meetings where they were going on and on forever and they'd just say the most obvious things, and I think working with Hendricks and Risha has really taught me to be brave as well. It's taught me to have the same bravery about asking the obvious questions, and maybe not always being very polite, which you know, as a diplomat's wife, you probably understand that, you know, you probably get people to do more by being polite, but sometimes a little bit of righteous anger doesn't go astray. Sometimes just having that moment in the, in the meeting where you say, well, actually that's just an absolute load of rubbish, and why are we still doing this?

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: We had Risha on the podcast a couple of seasons ago. And absolutely they do some really great work as well. (Note to listeners, you can listen to the podcast episode featuring Coffee4Craig and Risha Lancaster here https://www.meetthemancunian.co.uk/meet-the-mancunian-risha-lancaster/)

Yvonne Hope: Oh, they are amazing. Amazing. I think for me, I take a big leaf out of their book, which is don't be frightened. Don't be frightened, to just do it. Just go out and do it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And I think sometimes it's also like, you know, the status quo we just accept it. Maybe you just need to question it and say, you know, let's take a fresh look. Let's see what we can do. Context has changed. You know, what were the rules absolutely a few years ago and not the rules now. So that's great.

Yvonne Hope: Absolutely. And I think that's something we have to keep doing. You know, I think the pandemic taught us we can, when there is the political will house everybody, we did during, everyone in, during that first lockdown managed to house thousands of people and helped, I think they, I can't remember. I think it's something like 300 people went on to long-term accommodation. And prior to that, they'd had hundreds of people on the street. I think the last count had been something horrific, like 140 people sleeping rough.

And the actual numbers are much bigger than that. That's the national count. And there are all sorts of stupid rules that sitting around that, which no one understands, but. I think. I'm constantly now saying, well, we've gotta do something different. How can we still be in the 21st century? And it's okay for the rough sleeping numbers to go up.

Why is that acceptable? I don't think it should be. I think people should be up in arms about it. I think we should be up in arms about everything and the number of people we've got coming in now who are on the verge of homelessness, they can't afford their energy. They can't afford to eat, so they're looking for hot food.  They don't want to be given a food pack because they can't go home and cook it. They haven't got the electricity or the gas because they're on a meter. So they're paying much more for their energy than if they were a household paying a direct debit. How is that fair? I mean, that's something I'd love to campaign about if I ever found an extra five minutes in my day, but, you know, but you know, it's things like that. It's stupid structural things that make people homeless, and I think that's what I'm interested in challenging. That's what I'm interested in saying. Why would you want to put more people in poverty? And then you don't ever give them the ladders to climb out. How does that work? Actually, wouldn't we all as a country benefit, if more people were able to climb out of poverty and become, I think the term is something called economically viable? It's something, something ridiculous. It's to do with the fact that you're contributing to the economy. Yeah, and I absolutely believe that actually if, if, if we were able to put money into housing, into mental health, into taking care of the barriers that are stopping people. We're stopping people from being useful citizens here, and there's no need for it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I totally hear you and yes, I hope there is a day when this problem doesn't exist. You know, with all the good work you, your volunteers, and the other organisations are doing, I hope that day comes soon.

How can interested people reach out to you and learn more? This is when you can give out your website, social media.

Yvonne Hope: Yes, certainly. So we're on all the social media and I think most of our social media is at Barnabusmcr. We're on everything you can think of. I think the only thing we haven't done is TikTok, but that's probably to do with the age of the people working at Barnabus. Not because of any disinclination. But yeah, the website. So barnabus-manchester.org.uk has got all the information on there. There's information on there about volunteering, about fundraising, about what we do. And obviously, you know, the usual thing about getting in touch with us.

But we really do like talking to people on social media as well. I'm sure I shouldn't be telling people this, but I am always rumbling around on our Twitter account just because I like talking to people. So, you know, I'm always responding to people and, you know, thanking them for what they do and answering questions.

So yeah, please do get in touch with us, we'd love to hear from people who are interested in hearing more about what we do.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Lovely.

What advice would you have for people looking to start something similar in another part of the world or another part of the UK?

Yvonne Hope: You know, I think a lot of it is about not allowing yourself to be hemmed in by whatever the local situation is. I think I take a leaf out of Coffee4Craig's book, go and talk to people who are already doing similar things, and if there is no one doing similar things, then by all means get in touch with organisations all around the world, there's no reason you can't do that now, to just really find out what they're doing and find out what the issues are where you are.

I can't stress enough how important it's to work with your local authority. All over the world, there'll be people in charge wherever you are and find out, you know, what are their constraints. Often people like to blame their local authorities for everything, but often local authorities are working under incredible constraints, not just budgetary, but legal constraints as well.

Maybe there's a gap there that you could fill. Maybe, you know, your local authority is desperate to be able to provide showers for people. You know, they maybe can't afford housing, but they want at least people to have showers. Maybe that's something you could do, and I would definitely go and find out where all the gaps are.

I think one of the clever things that Coffee4Craig did was they came in, The sector was already very crowded with charities. Manchester's got so many homeless charities, it's ridiculous. But they came in and they said, well, where's the gap? And they could see the gap was the evenings. Barnabus used to be open five evenings a week, but we weren't open on the weekend.

So Coffee4Craig started off with the weekend. And they have become our defacto evening provision in Manchester. It meant that Barnabus was able to focus on other things as we moved along because they came along and made that their own. I think if I was gonna tell anybody in another country to do this, I'd say go and talk to as many people as you can and look at where you can be the most use. Are you a campaigner? We need people to be campaigners. We need people to stand up to the governments and say, this needs to happen, or to local authorities and to ask questions and ask for information. We need people who are practical and on the ground and delivering, but we need people who are really happy to get onto social media and raise awareness of the problem as well.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much for sharing those tips. It's great advice, especially, I like the one about talking to your local authority and finding where the gaps are. It's not easy to do, but if you can find the gaps and you probably add real value because the solution doesn't exist in that part of the world.

I'd like to give you the opportunity now to talk about anything that I haven't asked you about, anything that Barnabus is focusing on for the next few months.

Yvonne Hope: Sure. Over the next few months, we are really focused on this cost of living crisis and really trying our hardest to ensure that people don't end up sleeping rough.

Increasingly, we're having families coming into us, which is heartbreaking when you get under sixteens walking through the door with their parents, and their parents are frightened to death. So we are gonna be really focusing on trying to understand how to support those families and to get them into accommodation to work better with our local authority.

The other thing that's really exciting for us is we've always, always wanted to have our own property, and we are on the verge... I hope I haven't jinxed it by saying this, but we are on the verge of hopefully buying our first property in Manchester, and I really hope that this is the beginning of our new direction.

For a long time we've been moving towards this much longer-term focus of helping people, of helping people overcome the barriers that they have faced for many years. And by that, I don't just mean housing. I mean, you know, people have often been misdiagnosed. Maybe they were dyslexic and no one picked it up. Maybe they were autistic and it was never diagnosed. You know, we really want to work with people in a much longer-term setting. Having our own property is absolutely key to that because we are not then gonna be reliant on landlords saying, well actually I might sell this property, it'll be our property, it'll be a home. That's what I want for someone. I don't just want a bed. I want it to be their home. I want them to feel like they can really thrive. So that's super exciting for us. I'm really excited.

But yeah, I think, I think there are two main focuses for the next. Six months is getting this property up and running and really starting to understand what we can do to change things for families who are finding themselves literally without anywhere to stay that day.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that.

I'll now move to the signature questions that I ask all my guests. After all, it's the Meet the Mancunian podcast.

So the first one is, can you describe the Mancunian spirit in one word or one phrase?

Yvonne Hope: I would say ironic.  I've never met people who love irony more than the Mancunians. I absolutely adore that dry wit that most Mancunians have. Having grown up in London with sarcasm reigned supreme, I found it a very blunt instrument. I love the fact that Mancunians love irony and they understand it, and they wield it really well.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Okay. That's a great one to pick.

Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and why, and they can be living or dead?

Yvonne Hope: Mm. Well, I think for me it's probably always going to be the Pankhurts - Emmeline. And I look back and I think, wow, I would've loved to have been, I think if I could go back to anyone, I would've been a suffragette. I would've been throwing myself under the horse somewhere. . But I can't imagine what it must have been like. You know, they were willing to suffer all sorts of horrible things. You know, being imprisoned and hunger strikes and goodness knows what I like to think. I would've had the same passion that it would've mattered to me so much that I would, I would've done that. And I think we can answer the question on hunger strike for people being homeless. So we can probably say that, but yeah, I, you know, I think for me, when I moved here and I wanted to know more about the Pankhursts.

I think you know, it was an amazing thing to think, well, I'm, I'm living not far away from where all of that passion and articulation and education came from. So, yeah.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Oh, that I've only heard of Emmeline Pankhurt. Are there more?

Yvonne Hope: No, no, there, there were sisters and you know, I think there were four sisters and I can't remember all their names. But they were, they were amazing women and they, they all played a part in the suffragette movement. But Emmeline was the mom. And then she had four daughters and they were all involved somehow. But yeah, so it was, and even the dad was involved. That's what I like. Even the dad was a feminist. Yeah. Wow.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's amazing. I mean, at that, that time period, that is really amazing.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned?

Yvonne Hope: Oh goodness. I dunno how I would pick one. I think the most important life lesson I've learned is listening. I don't think I'm a very good listener. People say I am, but I always think your own head is full of your own story, isn't it? And whatever's preoccupying you, I think listening helps you to be a better human. It helps you to come down to somebody else, you know, instead of sitting up in your lofty throne room in your own head, it helps you to understand what somebody else is going through. And I don't mean that, you know, just, you know, in a crisis or a trauma situation. I mean, generally, you know, it could, it could be anything, but I think, yeah. Barnabus has taught me that more than anything else. Barnabus has taught me millions of things, but the thing I probably treasure the most is the fact that I get to listen to people. And in my old job, it was just me talking at people as a marketer, not really listening.

Now my day is better spent listening to people because I can really solve problems that way.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Oh, it is a really important skill to develop in any field. So kudos to you that, you know, you're starting to work on that, and that's a great skill to have I think.

If you could have one superpower, what would that be?

Yvonne Hope: Oh, I really struggle with this. If I could have one superpower, I think I'd like one where I could instantly transmit joy to people. I don’t know how I would do it. Maybe I'd touch their heads and they would have they'd be suffused with joy. I don't know. I just feel like there's so much that people are taught to focus on the negative, aren't we?

Particularly with the media, I feel where there's this constant focus on the negative, and I feel like there's so much joy in the world, you know, which is partly what I was so interested in this podcast because I, I just wanted to say there's, there's so much more to life than you know reading the papers or watching the telly and panicking about what's happening to markets, you know, those things are important, but actually what's really important is to grab those moments of joy, isn't it?

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's right. And I think, you know, the joy comes from little things. It could be the sunrise or the sunset, A moment with a loved one. Or your dog depending on the person. And you know, there are so many little things that are amazing.

I hope you get a magic wand actually, rather than going and touching people, I'm thinking of you with a little magic wand.

Yvonne Hope: Yes, definitely, in these covid times, a magic wand…

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That's all we have for today. Yvonne, thank you so much. It's been amazing to talk to you. And you know, I'm really inspired by everything that you're doing and it's great to know you're collaborating with other homelessness charities to kind of say, let's change the equation. It doesn't have to be this way.

Yvonne Hope: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think everybody needs to have a little bit of that in their lives, don't they? A little bit of collaboration, some allies to say it's not just you that thinks this way.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yeah. And I think together we can do more than sitting and trying to do our little corners. Absolutely, thank you.

Yvonne Hope: Deepa, I really enjoyed it.

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you, Yvonne.

Outro

Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Yvonne, thank you for talking to me and my listeners. I really enjoyed learning about helping the homeless today. Dear listener, thank you so much for listening to the third episode of the Meet the Mancunian podcast season four. I hope this episode and the podcast itself encourages you to follow your passions inspired by the amazing Mancunian guests who feature here.

Tune in every Tuesday for a new episode or log onto www.meetthemancunian.co.uk to listen to all the episodes and learn more about my podcasting story.

Next week, on Tuesday, 13 December 2022, the Meet the Mancunian talks to Jez Myers about supporting the community and integrating refugees from Ukraine.

If you are interested in homelessness, you can listen to other Meet the Mancunian episodes on homelessness featuring Mustard Tree, Coffee4Craig and 2 creatives fundraising for homelessness charities. Just log onto the website www.meetthemancunian.co.uk and choose the episode category of homelessness.

Please do leave a review or a voice message on my website www.meetthemancunian.co.uk. It takes only a few minutes. Thank you.