DeeKnow’s Grotto

Check out this collection of photos of London homeless folks and their meagre belongings where Moyra Peralta attempts to portray..

the gross poverty of the dispossessed by inviting some of the homeless men on London's streets to display their belongings - those carried in their pockets, or in a bag. The individuals' participation in the arrangement of their possessions, and their willingness to lay them open for external scrutiny, is a statement from the heart of their perilous and impecunious position

The homeless plight always fascinated while I was living in London, especially coming from a country where homeless means your probably building a house so you're living in a caravan temporarily. In the UK there were regular wine-o's at each of the train stations you passed on the way to and from work, sometimes entertaining, occasionally off their faces and friggin annoying, but they were mostly harmless.

Part of the furniture you might say. You kinda got to know them over time, often without ever having actually spoken to them, certainly never knowing their name. Many of them were nutters, Tennents-super will do that to you eventually, but often they were real characters.

I distinctly remember one old bugger in the Tooting/Balham area who had this amazing opera voice that would boom through the tube tunnel network as you threaded your way through the catacombs to the train platform. You knew you were getting close to him when his voice got louder or the smell of stale urine hit you suddenly.

The thing that disturbed me the most was the occasional morning that the tube would break down (that in itself is frightening enough) and we'd have to walk over the Waterloo bridge and under the motorway roundabout on the city side where there was a real cardboard city community.

Hundreds of homeless, old and young, whole families, children, pets, literally living in carboard boxes and crates in the dark under the ceaseless traffic of a busy motorway. Forgotten people, ignored coz of their low visibility, totally tragic, and definately not living that life by choice.

10:39:08 PM