ugger utetown

This is difficult to write.

The ‘b’ key on my laptop is playing up.

It sticks.  It’s sporadic.

And so, I have to type and retype, use the spell check, copy and paste, to get the bloody ‘‘b’ into my text.

It’s 8.30pm on Thursday evening.

Some people are beginning to gather outside Ty Gobaith, the Salvation Army Hostel right at the top of Bute Street, and which borders (literally) St Mary’s Primary School. It’s a successful and valuable resource for those who find themselves homeless. They do amazing work.

Those who gather, though, are not one of the sixty or so residents there.

They carry their bags across Callaghan Square. Their heads are lowered, determined, they move on. They know where they are going.

I don’t know where they have been, what their story is, what has brought them to this place, at this time. So many traumas and tragedies. There are so many vulnerabilities, but an apparent Police Order* means they are dispersed from the area around the Huggard Centre (and the many businesses and the brand new apartments there) and so they arrive closer here, closer to the Primary School.

Many of their lives are so complex and so chaotic. There are so many issues, so many problems, so many unknown stories waiting to be heard.

Tonight, they stand and crouch and sit.

They look for a vein to inject, and then inject.

I stand for while and watch. And then turn away. Leave them to find their escape from the shit they have found themselves in.

They have been gathering here for some days now, maybe weeks.

This morning, I cleaned up needles from the steps of St Mary’s Church, a child’s stone’s throw away from St Mary’s School which begins its new term in a few days’ time.

My CCTV tells me that two males were here yesterday at 3.30pm, the same time as children will be spilling out from school in less than a week’s time. They leave their needles and mess behind, move on.

I clean up. Place their needles into a box. Dispose of the litter. Move on.

There has been an increase of commotion and arguments at the top of Bute Street over the last few weeks. More activity, more gathering, more chaos.

It’s beginning to get awful, often violent.

“What are you looking at? Fuck off?” said someone the other day as I passed by as they did their own thing in the street where I live, a yard or two from the school.

How do we respond to both the needs of those who are homeless and vulnerable and, at the same time, respond to the needs of children – in a “Child Friendly City?” My current experience in Butetown at the moment is that this isn’t being considered and isn’t being addressed as a pressing need, despite so many concerns.

Some years ago, when I began my time as parish priest in Butetown, after living here for much longer, many of us noticed a change. There was flagrant dealing and use of drugs which devastated and disturbed the community. It continued until it became commonplace.

I remember speaking to a young mother walking her child to school.  We had just passed a drugs deal on the street.

“How does that make you feel?” I asked.

“It is what it is,” she said, “we just get used to it.”

It had become the new normal. Something to put up with and not question. A problem pushed into our path, not of our own making.

However, things soon changed. People responded. Life seemed to become better. Lockdown improved some things too. But lately things have become worse.

This afternoon, as I walked around, I saw more discarded needles, here and there. The underpass at Letton’s Way between Lloyd George Avenue and Bute Street was littered with needles and, outside Cargo House – another facility for those who are homeless and run by Cardiff Council – more discarded needles, just a few yards from the Primary School’s entrance.

On my way home, I pass by two people sat on the kerbside in North Church Street. Two more skirt down North Church Street, wander into the Church Car Park, see that I am there ahead of them, decide to move on. Perhaps, it’s two less needles for me to dispose of. The least of my worries, and certainly of theirs.

Things are beginning to regress. It’s a return to how things were, some years ago, a slip back in time. Instead, this time, there is a new aggressiveness, a new anger.

Around me, within just a few hundred yards, there are millions of pounds of investment being made, ploughed into new buildings and shiny new developments like the new Cardiff Arena, and many Apartment buildings that rise up but do not include any social or affordable housing. Butetown gets squeezed out until it just becomes “the Bay.”

The city build up, builds out, brags and bulges but sometimes, like tonight, this just seems like it’s another case (thanks to copy and paste) of Bugger Butetown.

*since this was first published, the South Wales Police has confirmed there is no dispersal order in place. . Ty Gobaith had suggested this was the case from the information they had been given, but it seems it’s just the security measures employed by local businesses around the Huggard Centre which has moved people away from the area and so into ours