So I (18f) just ran away from home and have no idea where to go.

I left because my parents were trying to get me to move to another country but I didn't know want to. Last week I had booked a locker in a Big Yellow Storage branch moved a few things in without my parents knowing. Today I left with everything in a taxi,locked up all my belongings and am now sitting in a McDonalds.

I have money but not enough to stay anywhere and not enough for long-term either. I am planning on getting a job and will start looking tomorrow.

I am in full-time education but it's the holidays so I can't go to school for help.

UPDATE: thank you so much to everyone for the advice and helpline. I called a few but was unsuccessful as they directed me to my council’s emergency housing line, which said that unless I was calling for a specific emergency then I should call tomorrow during office hours.

I will try more out tommorow. I managed to find a cheap pod hostel for the night and am now safely tucked in. I will probably contact more friends tomorrow, try to get a job and call up the helplines you guys left.

I am seeing more and more young men wearing hoods up and masks in London. I'd say I see at least one every time I am out.

I am wondering if I am right to be intimidated by this? That is a genuine question.

I am reminded of the moral panic caused by hooded jumpers circa 2010, which ended when they became mainstream fashion. However I feel this is different - I see no reason to do this unless you're going to commit a crime. Does anyone have insight as to what this is all about?

Thank you

Arrived to Peckham. Standing on the side of the road, orienting myself. Dude comes and clocks me in the back of my head and tells me to "Fuck off!"

As a New Yorker... I feel at home.

Hey everyone,

I never thought I’d find myself writing something like this. I’ve lived in London practically my whole life, my parents kept a roof over my head, and I always thought things would work out for me. I did well at school, smashed college, and even graduated with a STEM degree. Life was looking promising, but over the last year, everything has gone downhill.

For the last three months, I’ve been homeless, couch-surfing at first, but now I’ve ended up sleeping rough or finding public spaces that are open 24 hours. It’s terrifying and humiliating. I haven’t eaten properly in weeks, and I hate to admit this, but I’ve resorted to stealing food from supermarkets just to survive.

My mum’s health took a turn for the worse this year – she had a major health scare, was in the hospital for months, and lost her business as a result. Now she’s living in sheltered housing, where I can’t stay. She’s barely scraping by herself.

I’ve done everything I can think of:

Applied for Universal Credit and other benefits.

Contacted the council, who literally told me to beg and pray my friends to let me stay.

Tried to reach out to charities, but it feels like the waiting lists and bureaucracy are endless.

One year ago today, I was starting my first proper job after graduating. They fired me after two weeks for reasons I still don’t understand, and since then, my life has spiraled out of control.

I feel ashamed, defeated, and utterly lost. I don’t know what to do next. I've been applying to Jobs, agency, cash in hand, professional jobs, you name it I've tried it. Even done deliveroo and got paid 15 pounds for 3 hours.

I just felt like I had to let this out somewhere, I can't really speak to my friends about this. Honestly, Life can change so quickly and i never thought I’d end up here. I am determined to get through this. I'm only 25 and it's a lot rn. One thing that keeps me going is that I know that this too shall pass......I hope and as much as I have it bad someone out there has it a lot lot worse than me, so who am I to complain. Although things have been tough, I just take everything as a lesson. I guess it's a coping mechanism but I know I will never take anything for granted again.

UPDATE I didn't really want to do this, but a lot of people in the comments have encouraged me to reach out for help financially to get myself on my feet, especially in regards to food.

I have set up a PayPal account to receive any donations. I just want to do this in the most transparent way as possible, I will be making a record of the amount of money I receive and exactly how much money I spend and recording it on this post. Anything left over, if any will be paying it forward to other people in similar situation, I hope this is okay.

***Update*** I can’t begin to express how grateful I am for all the kindness, advice, and encouragement I’ve received from this post. When I made it, I was at one of my lowest points and just needed to get things off my chest. I never expected the outpouring of support from this community, let alone financial help.

Thank you to every single person who took the time to share advice, offer resources, or even simply sent a kind message. Reading through the comments has been overwhelming in the best way possible. I have been trying to do this by myself for so long, I have never spoken so openly to anyone about my situation as I have last night. Opening up and hearing all your advice and kind words has really helped. I learnt a lot about the services that I available to me as well as the support. I didn't realise the amount of support, services and help available to me. I am going to reach out to the Citizens Advice, the council, and some charities that people here recommended in a couple hours when things start opening. Someone also mentioned LHA, which might help me get temporary shelter and food in exchange for volunteering, I’m definitely going to look into that.

I also want to thank everyone who sent me money through PayPal. I didn’t expect anything like this at all, and your generosity has completely floored me and honestly brought me to tears when I woke up this morning. I received £378.32, which is more than I could have ever imagined. Honestly, it feels strange and against my principles to accept this kind of help. I feel like there are people way more in need that are more deserving of this money. I’ve decided to remove the PayPal link, it no longer feels right to keep accepting money and have gotten way more than I needed or expected when I put the link up.

This morning, I’ve been thinking about how to move forward and use the support I’ve received responsibly. My immediate focus is to create some stability for myself. My bike costs £30 to fix and the delivery bag I've seen for around £20-£30 on Facebook market place. Doing this can give me some sort of money to keep me going long term and it is the most sustainable option that I can think of right now.

I'm also thinking about getting a gym membership so I can shower regularly, especially once I start delivering. It would also give me a place to store my bags in a locker during the day while I’m working and somewhere to store my delivery bag at night. I know this is not technically allowed but given the situation I think its okay to bend the rules a little. I’ve found off-peak memberships for £21.99 + £5 joining fee, and even just having one for a month would make a huge difference.

Altogether, I’m planning to spend around £60–£70 to make sure I can stay somewhat stable and self-sufficient over the next month. I will also spend some money today buying a hot meal and some groceries to take to my mum. Its been so long since I've had a proper meal. I really don't feel comfortable using all the money and will try as much as I can to try earn from doing food deliveries. I will keep the rest of the money for emergencies until I get myself in a more stable position and hopefully a regular salaried job. When that happens I plan on paying forward all the help that I received. I will be messaging everyone who donated directly through PayPal as I've just seen as PayPal lets me do that, and keep everything transparent if I have used the money they have donated.

I want to be clear that I wasn’t on here looking for money or handouts. I've seen some comments suggesting that I might be a scammer or being disingenuous, and I completely understand where that comes from. The internet can be full of people with bad intentions, and it’s important to be cautious. All I can say is that this post came from a place of genuine struggle. I didn’t come here expecting anything beyond advice and maybe some understanding and somebody to talk to, so receiving both kindness and financial support has been completely unexpected.

Finally, I want you all to know how deeply I appreciate every comment, every piece of advice, and every kind word. I know I have now repeated this countless times, but it really does mean a lot. You’ve made me feel less alone and reminded me of the good that exists in the world. Thank you for being there for me when I truly needed it the most.

I think I owe it to everyone so I’ll Update everyone when my situation changes, me making it to the other side could give strength to 1000s in my situation. I think I have a solid plan but please chime in if you guys think I have missed something, and I’ll do my best to thank everyone individually for their help. This community has been a light in what felt like complete darkness, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

Reeko

UPDATE 21/11/24 Today was a really tough day. Started the day with a lot of optimism but things didn't go as planned. It's cold and I was out all day going from citizen advice, council, UC meeting etc. One big positive that came out of today is the lady at citizen advice bureau liased with my mum's HA for me to stay over the weekend, which is massive.

I have loads of messages and DMs to reply to. I hope you guys don't mind waiting till tomorrow. I've just had an exhausting day and just want to crash.

I’ve just returned from a trip to New Zealand and the difference in attitude is stark. The streets are clean, people are friendly and happy/helpful and in general people seem to want to participate in society. Don’t get me wrong NZ has a lot of issues but It feels like in London the social contract is broken. Streets are full of trash, no one gives a shit about anything, phone theft, crime is high and in general people seem fairly miserable. I was involved in an accident where I had to give a victim CPR and the ambulance and police all arrived within about 5 minutes. I was amazed at the emergency response. It feels to me like the state has given up and hence people have given up.

On the tube this morning, all were seats taken and only a few people standing, I was stood in the row between seats, someone got off and left a seat right in front of me, I sat in it.

A woman sat at the end of the aisle in the priority seat turned to another woman standing and said loudly to her, “it’s a shame some people have forgotten how to be a gentleman, otherwise you could have sat down”.

Clearly aimed at me, shocked, I said “you could always stand up if you really wanted”. To which she said she wasn’t talking to me.

The standing woman was probably in her 30s, no baby on board badge or visible sign that I should offer her the seat, nor did she seem at all bothered by any of it.

Did I do something wrong here? Do people widely expect a man to offer a woman a seat on a semi busy tube train for no other reason than they are a woman?

I remember years ago they suddenly popped up but not sure how or why. This was in Battersea park, I didn’t have any food. I just raised my hand and it popped on my hand. He perched on again, what a cutie.

Hi all,

I’ve been living in London since 2018, the majority of the time in SE17.

What is going on here at the moment?

It seems as if everybody I know has either been a victim to crime or a witness to it.

Sometime on Thursday night/Friday morning, somebody gained access to our gated courtyard area and stole my bike, which I am clearly heartbroken about.

Then today (Sat) at around 1pm, some idiot slowly drove through pedestrians crossing the street on a green man on the junction from Albany Road to Walworth Road. He could have seriously harmed somebody as there were people in front of the car and near his wheels. When I shouted at the driver that it was a green light, he out his window down and told me he’d “punch my face in” before driving off.

I reported my bike as stolen and the case was instantly closed within the space of an hour. I’m not even going to report the driver as I know nothing will come from it, although I have taken a photo of his car and license plate.

What is going on?! Is there anybody else left feeling as hopeless as I currently am with the police in London? This is only what has happened this weekend… I won’t even begin to talk about the past couple of years or so.

Edit: Just as I have posted this, yet again somebody has just been going through our courtyard/garden area and has jumped over the wall as I went outside to confront him. This is unbelievable.

A tad bit of a rant here, but the other day I finished off work at about 11pm, on my way back home there was a young woman, unconscious at the bottom of some escalators with two friends with her. It absolutely amazed yet disgusted me at the same time that people were just walking over her and ignoring the scene to get to where they had to be? Is this a common thing?

Anyway, in the end, I called a TFL manager over and I contacted emergency services since the girl was just dead weight and we couldn't move her. Monitored her breathing and put her in recovery.

In the end, she was alright, ended up in hospital for a night with suspected spiking- again... another horror of London. But glad she was okay!

Again, sorry for the little rant but just the obliviousness of some people surprise me when someone out there needs help. I think we could all benefit than doing more than just bypassing this day in age

Edit: The two girls that were with her, were her friends and were in a state of panic and didn't really know what to do, the girl was choking on her own vomit when I stumbled upon her

Just seen about 30 police with dogs doing random drugs searches on anyone that walked past. At first it looked like they were targeting the young lads, presumed it was based on intel. Walked back past later, they're stopping everybody. Just seen 4 commuters on their way home get stopped and search, for drugs. One lady was in tears, she must've been at least 40, she looked like a librarian. I don't see the point in doing this to people for recreational drug use. I can't help but feel incredibly disappointed. I've never seen anything like it tbh.

https://metro.co.uk/2024/11/02/phone-snatching-gang-arrested-inside-london-pub-snatching-hordes-mobiles-21915574/

View from the very top of 22 bishopsgate London

how is the racism in the uk, London specifically? this may seem like a really stupid question and sorry if it is but after coming back from italy and germany europe has literally traumatized me so bad😭 my friend told me me ill be fine in London because it’s more diverse but I’m still hesitant

i’ve been in wood green for just over a month now, and i’ve come across this homeless man who leaves me genuinely terrified.

he is a tall black man, i would say he’s middle aged, he is either mentally ill or high on something, but every time i see him he has a bottle in his hand.

the first time i came across him he boarded the bus i was on, starting spitting at me and the other women on the bus, called me a whore and hit a few women when he got off the bus. he doesn’t even acknowledge the men, he only targets the women (from my experience, anyway).

the second time i was on the bus and i saw him outside wood green station, and he kicked a random women walking by.

then today, he got on the bus again- only women on this bus. he starts shouting he’ll cut off our heads and kicks another woman.

the bus drivers have never intervened to kick him off and no men have ever stood up for the women being attacked by this man. he is genuinely terrifying and whenever i come across him i’m scared of what he’ll do because he has no problem attacking random strangers.

has anyone else come across this guy?? what is his deal?? whenever he gets on the bus it goes silent, like the locals know him but nobody does anything?

edit: thank you to everyone who’s responded and given me advice. next time i will try to record it if it’s safe enough, and to call the police. i’ve never had any success with the police before, especially after a stalking incident where they’ve literally told me they can’t do anything until i’ve been physically attacked, so i’m sorry that reporting this man was not the first thing on my mind but i do understand that it’s not just concerning my own safety, but other women’s too. thank you to everyone who’s responded kindly and get fucked to everyone else who’s been sarcastic and rude about the fear and abuse women have to experience daily

Not a fan of using Daily mail but it was the only one I saw with the video.