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A tour through London with the city’s homeless

Homeless people are paid to give street-level tours of the city that weave its history with their own stories.

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Unseen Tours was launched in 2010 as a not-for-profit social enterprise that pays homeless, formerly homeless and vulnerably housed Londoners to work as tour guides. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
By Rich Wiles
Published On 30 Nov 2016

London, England – Although originally from Bergen in Norway, Viv Askeland has lived in London since 1979. After her marriage broke up, she found herself living on the streets of the capital for six years.

“Everybody has a different story,” she says. “It can be a lost job, the breakdown of a relationship, losing a house … Anything can send people on a downward slope from which they end up homeless.”

Mike O’Hara’s story is quite different. He had enjoyed a successful career as a senior manager in facilities management until the economic recession hit in 2008. He lost his job and, two months later, his house.

“I decided to go to to Vietnam to ‘ride out’ the recession,” he says. “I found teaching work there. Things were going well but then I became seriously ill and was hospitalised.”

After two months in hospital O’Hara lost that job and was left with a huge medical bill that cost him all his savings. He returned to the UK penniless. Denied social security benefits because he had been out of the country for more than two years, O’Hara was left homeless.

But, in recent years, Askeland and O’Hara have found new, if unusual, work which has helped them to get their lives back on track and to put roofs over their heads. Both work for ‘Unseen Tours’ – a social enterprise through which homeless and formerly homeless people offer London’s tourists an alternative street-level tour of the city.

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The project has a clear ethical position. 'Unseen Tours are not part of the poverty tourism agenda – i.e. voyeuristically pointing out economically and socially deprived areas and the people within them. Instead, the tours aim to show London's quirks in an entertaining way and, where issues of homelessness are covered, it is meant to highlight issues of social injustice,' says its website. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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Viv Askeland ran her first tours in 2010. Her Covent Garden tour intertwines little-known tales about London's history with her own story of life on the city's streets. 'I have always been interested in history and I love London despite the challenges I have faced here, so this is the perfect job for me,' she says. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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A concrete platform under Waterloo Bridge was Askeland's 'home' for several months when she was living on the streets. She began knitting while homeless and would sell teddy bears and clothes that she had made to make some money. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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As well as being a senior manager, Mike O'Hara has worked in the music industry for much of his life, including working as a band manager and a DJ. His tour of the Borough of Camden blends his personal stories with those of the area's pop culture, including Amy Winehouse, who is commemorated in her home town by a statue. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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O'Hara takes all his tour groups to a vantage point on Primrose Hill from which London's financial district can be seen. "When I look at the City from here I get very mixed feelings," he says. "I have worked in some of those buildings ... Banks have cost us billions, yet the bankers keep getting bigger bonuses while normal people like me lose our jobs and homes." [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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O'Hara relied on a food-bank at Camden's Chalk Farm Baptist Church for handouts when he was homeless. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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Askeland spent two months researching unusual facts about London before she began working with Unseen Tours. Her tours include a visit to the famous Savoy Hotel, where the entrance road is one of the only ones in Britain where cars drive on the right-hand side. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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Askeland says that London's famous hotels sometimes throw away valuable items during refurbishments. 'One of my friends found a discarded mattress outside The Savoy's service entrance when they were changing the rooms. She slept on the streets with a mattress from The Savoy!' [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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Both O'Hara and Askeland say that one of the hardest things about being homeless in London is surviving the cold winter nights and not being able to warm up with a hot drink in the morning. [Rich Wiles/ Al Jazeera]
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Many of the stairwells and passageways in which Askeland slept while living in Covent Garden have now been closed by Westminster Council to stop homeless people sleeping in them. Askeland says that before the 2012 London Olympic Games, 'the Council moved all the homeless out of Covent Garden so the tourists didn't see us, and then let people come back once the Olympics had finished'.[Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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This bench in Temple Park was Askeland's 'home' for nearly four years. She says the people who lived in the park were like a small community who looked after each other. 'Each bench "belonged" to one person, if somebody left we would meet to discuss who we would allow to 'move in.' [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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Tourists Christian Roden and Tina Bayer, from Germany, joined one of Askeland's Unseen Tours in Covent Garden: 'We didn't just want to learn about history - about buildings and bricks; we wanted to learn about people's lives in London,' they said. [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]
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Helene Schuetze was part of a German student group that toured Camden with O'Hara. 'It's important that people hear these stories and learn about the lives of homeless people in London,' she says. [Rich Wiles/ Al Jazeera]
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Both O'Hara and Askeland have now been housed. O'Hara says that working with Unseen Tours was a huge step forward for him. 'This work pulled me out of depression and I lost the constant "sinking" feeling. A charity in Camden helped me to get a small studio apartment and, with the money I earn as a tour guide, I feel that I can live again." [Rich Wiles/Al Jazeera]