Homelessness can go beyond living on the streets and camping in tents. For one 29-year-old sofa surfing, living in hostels, and counting out exactly how much money he would have to spend each week to get by became the norm for him at one point during his life.
Osian Glyn Morris, originally from Lampeter in Ceredigion, struggled when he was younger as he was bullied when he was at school and when he was 12 he dropped out. When he was 15 he started partying and trying drugs. Despite having essentially no “real” qualifications he has managed to become fully self-employed and grow multiple ventures which he puts down to mindset and being able to deal with problems as they arise.
He has had a rollercoaster journey facing issues with drugs and getting arrested. But Osian recently became a dad for the first time and is now dedicated to creating a positive life full of positive memories for him and his family.
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Osian’s journey towards living a more secure life has had its ups and downs -Credit:WalesOnline/Rob Browne
Looking back on his youth Osian said: “I found different creative ways of making money eventually but it took me a long time and a lot of run-ins with the police. Nothing major. I never went to court as an adult but there were lots of cautions. Lots and lots of cautions. The education I’ve had is from making really bad mistakes and learning from them. I was getting smashed. I’ve been arrested before and had crazy debt which was really hard.”
He has tried out all sorts of industries, from performing arts to litter-picking, to make ends meet as well as hairdressing, barbering, bar work, promotions work, and circus skills. But because he has often only had enough money behind him to sublet a room in a property where he could be evicted with little to no notice and had no legal contract set in stone Osian has found himself homeless “more times than I can count” and resorted to doing drugs as a way to numb the feelings he was experiencing.
When he turned 18 he set up his first ever business, an events firm, and held several gigs until he found himself in too much debt and got shut down. By the time he was 20 Osian was in Narcotics Anonymous for around three months and recalls being “back in the sesh working jobs but also drug dealing”. After that he experienced a taste of homelessness for the first time as he had no place to call his own.
Osian stayed with a friend in what he described as a “damp mouldy basement” for a month or two before getting his own place. He said: “For a short time I was stable-ish but still smashing the drugs and doing a few deals here and there.
“I’ve never had to sleep on the streets and a lot of my homelessness was quite lucky with that. It was either sofa surfing or staying in hostels. I’ve stayed at Nos Da hostel [in Cardiff] as well as Mrs Potts. I actually lived in Nos Da for about four months as my main base.
“So when I think about being homeless I’m aware I haven’t had the true hardship of it and lived on the streets but it’s not been easy. Like even just staying in a hostel and not having a place to go has been hard. I used to stash my belongings so they wouldn’t get stolen but it’s really difficult not having a space that’s your own.”
Osian Morris is one of many people living in the UK who have been victims of hidden homelessness and has got through periods where he didn’t have a roof over his head by sofa surfing or staying in hostels -Credit:WalesOnline/Rob Browne
When Osian’s habits with drugs got worse a few years ago he recalls getting arrested three times in the space of a month which he describes as being “one of the biggest turning points” in his life. Osian said: “That was a huge life lesson for me and taught me it’s time to get clean and sort myself out as much as I can. By this time my mom was living in Peterborough and I was renting a room in Lampeter. For those six months I swapped my drug habits to entrepreneurial things instead.
“I was dealing in Victorian glass, selling furniture, walking dogs, doing house cleans, helping people move, and just making ends meet by being innovative. Then I moved to Cardiff. The first month I was here it was a rocky experience but I was alright.
“I got a fundraising job. Got into hairdressing college. Got promoted but from July and until September I lived in a hostel and still had my Lampeter address so I could make sure everything was above board.
“At the end of September I moved to Barry. But literally after rent I had £58 a week to eat and get to work on. It was rough times indeed and the rent for what it was was not cheap.”
By the end of the same year he started learning the foundation of street promotion and tonality sales and left his other roles but during the pandemic he experienced another bout of homelessness and started using drugs again. Towards the end of the lockdowns he picked up a cleaning job which he recalls gave him the confidence to start his own cleaning company, Professional HouseKeeping Solutions, which he still runs to this day. It is one of two different businesses that he describes as “getting booked and starting slowly to make a difference” with the other being Street Marketing Solutions which involves promoting different events.
Osian’s hope for the future is that he can develop his work in the Isle of Wight where he can live a more peaceful, quiet life -Credit:WalesOnline/Rob Browne
Osian now lives with his partner and their baby daughter, Isla, and wants to push the message that no matter what stage you are at in life it can be possible to turn things around. He is also still navigating some financial uncertainties as one of his businesses has been struggling with money issues but he is still determined to live more consciously.
Osian said: “What’s great is even with all this hardship and restarting my life six or seven times I’m still pushing forward and will one day make it to whatever I dream of. I’m currently facing challenges but not the same kind of challenges. I’ve also got a family now so homelessness isn’t a choice. I’m going out there and having 12 meetings a week and really trying to push things forward. So I think what it’s taught me is that you basically have to stand back up and keep going.”
Osian pinpoints the last time he was homeless during the pandemic as being the turning point. “It was horrible. I’d been struggling with money and had to sofa-surf and knew I had to make a change.
“It was only last year that I moved in with my partner and she took me in but if we hadn’t done that things would have been hard. It is a whole other cycle because even though I might not have had an address and really, legally, I shouldn’t have been working but you do what you have to do in order to maintain some sort of life. You can’t live a life of no work.
“All of my debt is now in my business so that means people who would normally want to work for me aren’t going to want to work so I’m kind of stuck in a bit of a Catch 22 at the moment. News travels fast so it’s hard but these things happen and it’s just about pushing on.”
For the next phase of Osian’s career he and his family are planning to move to the Isle of Wight while managing his marketing business in Cardiff from afar. He also wants to build his business to engage with smaller businesses on the small island off the south coast of England where lots of his partner’s family are based.
He said: “In March we will be moving, which is mainly for little Isla as she’s got loads of family there. And then with work I’m planning to set up a few organised drum and bass events and just move the business down there too.
“I think things will be different there as it’s more local, more peaceful, and there’s less competition. There’s more of a sense that people want to support you and is just a different way of life. You look at the economy and everything else and kind of go: ‘Right, this is Cardiff 15 or 20 years ago’.”
The 29-year-old believes he has learned a lot over the years and wants others to know they can overcome challenges in their lives if they can learn from their mistakes -Credit:WalesOnline/Rob Browne
The cycle of homelessness can be a difficult one to break and Osian has found that he has had to figure a lot of things out on his own. “’I’ve been made homeless more times than I can count but I never gave up,” he said. “There’s a quote I live by which says: ‘Failure doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’ve learned no education is as good as being on the field and making mistakes yourself.’ And I think that’s really important.
“A lot of my life has been life lessons all the way through. I used to get arrested or my mum kicking me out or being homeless for even just a short bit of time is a massive life lesson.
“The lack of education is really important because when you go to school you get all this academic intelligence but actually by not going to school you actually pick up on other things that are really important and really crucial. And I feel that people who have been uneducated will have a very different skillset to someone who’s gone to school.
“They might also get a different angle of a picture whether it’s a conversation or a situation that’s happened. They might be able to pick apart that situation or deal with it in a completely different way with maybe more understanding than someone who’s been to school because they’ve got different lived experiences. The perspective is very different.”
The cycle of homelessness has been worsening with local authorities struggling with the increasing demand leading to many people being left in unsuitable temporary accommodation. Some of the biggest causes of homelessness currently include the cost of living crisis, lack of support services, personal circumstances, and discharge from institutions such as prisons. And some forms of hidden homelessness like staying in temporary accommodation are thought to have risen by as much as 89% in the last 10 years.
But the true picture of the issue and how people are affected is inherently difficult to measure as data is highly limited, particularly when it comes to enumeration according to the Office for National Statistics which states that “individuals experiencing ‘hidden’ homelessness tend to find themselves in housing situations that are not as well captured in official statistics, such as sofa surfing, squatting, and rough sleeping out of sight”.