On a shingle beach a few miles east of Hastings, 52-year-old Steve Snade is pointing out the spot where he and his son Billy lived for 15 months in a tent.
Steve had been a caretaker at the local football ground. He earned £9,000 a year and had access to a mobile home for a discounted rent. Billy lived with him. But when the club changed hands, they lost their income and their shelter in one fell swoop.
When they were first made homeless, in the spring of 2017, Steve assumed the local council would be able to help. But after six weeks of waiting, they decided to buy emergency tents and camp out. One night turned into eight months – their first stint on the beach.
When the pair finally got help from the authorities, the best offer was a bed and breakfast 56 miles away from their family and friends. They declined. The best option, as they saw it, was to stay in their tent at Pett Level, a quiet stretch of beach between Hastings and Cambersands.
But as winter arrived, they needed proper shelter. They managed to rent a caravan for six months, and then camped in some woods before heading back to the beach where they felt safer and less isolated. Their second stint of camping lasted for seven months, and only ended when they were able to borrow from the Credit Union in order to put down £1,600 for a flat.
In-work poverty of the kind Steve and Billy experienced “is the problem of our times”, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The latest figures show a rise of almost five percentage points from 13% to 18% in Britain over the last 25 years. With the cost of living rising and one third of British workers having less than £500 in savings, many are left living hand to mouth each month.
During their time on the beach, Billy was juggling sporadic work as a tree surgeon with whatever shifts he could pick up in a local pub. Meanwhile Steve was signed up to a recruitment agency and would sometimes work 17-hour days. He did a bit of everything – from cleaning public toilets, picking hops on a farm, to delivering curries.
But with a zero-hours contract, their earnings were unpredictable. Days would go by when neither father nor son had any work. Money was always tight, and they were forced to use foodbanks on occasion.
For Steve, even living in the tent had its expenses. “I had my car to insure and tax, and needed fuel to get to and from work and obviously we had to pay for food, and yes we would go for a few beers. But when you’ve got the option of sitting out here in the pissing cold and rain for 8 hours, and sitting in [a pub], I’m sorry but I was always going to sit in there and keep warm.”
The pub also gave the pair a sense of community. “We met all the neighbours and locals in there. It’s how we got to meet people and it was also a place we heard about work, and work was what we needed to get out of our situation. Everyone talks about work in pubs.”
When the weather was really bad, they considered squatting in two abandoned houses near by, but both times decided against it as they didn’t want to get in any trouble.
They were twice visited by the police, and once by the Environmental Agency. To avoid complaints, they made sure to use public toilets, and would even clear up after other beach visitors for fear of being blamed for any mess.
“We just told them we are not having bonfires, we’re not having parties, we’re not pooing on the beach,” Steve says. “It wasn’t like we were inviting others and creating some hippy commune. And because we gave them no excuse, they couldn’t find a reason to say fuck off.”
“I don’t know what we expected though because we never thought we would be homeless.”
But council workers repeatedly visited and tried to move them on, which felt like a kick in the teeth to the pair, Steve says, after they had repeatedly asked for help and had unsuccessfully bid for social housing after they were categorised as a ‘low priority’.
“It was a farce ... I don’t know what we expected though because we never thought we would be homeless,” explains Billy, now 24.
“Obviously we do know things are tight [for the council] and there are loads of homeless people now, but you see abandoned buildings with 40 rooms in and you think they could make use of it rather than just sitting there.
The latest official poverty statistics from the government for 2017/18 show that 14 million people are still locked in poverty across the UK despite record levels of employment and according to the housing support charity Shelter, the ending of a private tenancy remains one of the leading triggers of homelessness.
The limited supply of affordable accommodation is a “significant challenge” in Hastings and much of the South East, according to Andy Batsford, lead councillor for housing at Hastings Borough Council.
As of April, Hastings had 1,644 households on the social housing waiting list. The council does not own any housing stock of its own, but provides help to people in need through the Sussex Homemove scheme. The total number of properties let through this avenue until the end of March was 252, which gives an idea of the discrepancy between availability and demand.
Batsford said the shortage has led to increased waiting times for social housing and a rising number of households living in emergency accommodation but steps are being taken to address the issue.
“The council recently secured additional funding for a project working with homeless households, to improve access to long term accommodation in the private rented sector,” he says.
He adds that two new projects have been launched, which will improve access to services and temporary and long-term housing solutions for rough sleepers.
Although Steve and Billy remain mostly cheerful about their experience, there are hints of the toll homelessness took on them. Billy describes how his dad once destroyed his own tent in a fit of frustration about their situation. Steve’s health also suffered, and he gets emotional when talking about giving up his beloved dog, Chubs.
After leaving the football club, the dog had to be rehomed because Steve could no longer look after him. “I cried for days. I couldn’t stop every time somebody mentioned his name,” Steve says. “It was the lowest point of the whole two years by far.”
For Billy, one of the hardest moments was when the roof of his tent was ripped open in the middle of the night during a storm. Did he bunk in with his Dad? “He wouldn’t have let me sleep in his tent, no way!” laughs Billy. “I just slept outside in my sleeping bag and sort of used the tent as a secondary quilt, wrapping it around myself. I woke up soaking in the morning.”
The father and son acknowledge that not everyone would have coped as well as they did. But having a place to socialise nearby, being close enough to visit family members, and having the means to cook hot meals on the beach with their camping stove, meant they were able to get by.
“You do get depressed when people are having to help you out all the time. I felt like I should be the one helping people. It used to get me down a bit,” Billy says. “It was also really stressful at times … but we had to try and stay upbeat. I just put on a smile and got on with it.”
“You do get depressed when people are having to help you out all the time.”
Steve, who is hoping to start his own window cleaning business, admits he sometimes looks back at his time on the beach with rose-tinted glasses, especially because he feels so unsafe in the block of flats they now live in, which is plagued by “fights, drug dealers and cars being set alight”.
“I really loved it here. I know it sounds weird because we were homeless and we had tents ripped open and being scared and stuff but you do get used to it. There’s no police cars here, no fights. There’s nothing. It’s just beautiful and peaceful,” he says.
“If I could build a little shed down here, I would stay here until I die. Sod the rest of the world.”
Billy, who admits he is often worried about becoming homeless again, is shaking his head at his dad’s comments.
“I just want to be normal and have a roof over my head and be able to watch Love Island at 9pm.”
Steve and Billy appear in the first two episodes of Broke, a new documentary series which features nine families who are struggling to make ends meet despite being employed. The first episode airs on BBC Two on Thursday 25 July at 9pm.