Homeless pair in Oxted tell their story

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THE scourge of homelessness has come to Oxted.

An air vent shelter – sandwiched between Morrison's car park, the railway station and the Oxted Inn – serves as a rough and ready home for two middle-aged men.

Each night they sleep rough, braving plummeting temperatures and driving rain.

Fully clothed and with grubby sleeping bags, their makeshift living accommodation is open to the elements on one side.

But amid their tales of ill health, alcoholism and their spiral into homelessness, emerges a ray of hope.

The pair have been buoyed up by acts of kindness from local residents.

And the pair are determined to try to rebuild their lives.

For the past two months Manchester-born Nick Maffia, 44, has lived in the shelter, which serves as the air vent for the railway station's underground car park.

An "off-and-on alcoholic," he said he was repeatedly stabbed by a former girlfriend – and showed off some hideous scars on his stomach as evidence.

He said: "I had to have my spleen removed, which has wrecked my immune system.

"I must take 18 pills daily to help me stay alive. Living like this does nothing for my health."

A former postman and tax officer, nowadays he is a keen writer.

He wrote his first novel last year which he hopes to get published one day.

But, heartbreakingly, the battered notebook containing his prose is starting to turn mouldy as it is exposed to the elements.

Michael Bolton, his sidekick, has had a steeper descent into homelessness.

The well-spoken 47-year-old told how he was a property developer when the Lehman Brothers bank collapse in 2008 ruined him.

He said: "I had a nice house in Woldingham back then. That's when the mounting financial problems made me turn to drink." He has since developed spinal problems, he said.

Mr Bolton ended up sleeping out in Oxted last year after initially "living under a bush" in Dartford.

But it's not all doom and gloom, he insists.

He added: "Michael and I could still have a bright future, but first we must get away from this sort of existence.

"We're not the stereotypical image of begging scumbags – far from it.

"We are thoughtful and intelligent men trying to rebuild our lives."

He said they are trying to save a little of their benefit money away to eventually pay for a deposit on a flat.

They must get by on their disability allowance. Both men cannot claim housing benefit because they have no permanent address.

Mr Bolton said they did try staying in hostels for the homeless, which at least were warmer.

But he said drug dealing, mainly heroin, was so rife there that it served to drag them back onto the streets.

The pair have been touched by the show of support from the local community.

Donations have ranged from dishes of tuna casserole and a pair of training shoes being left in the shelter, Jobs furniture store in Station Road West giving a mattress, and schoolchildren leaving lollipops and soft drinks.

Abi Chapman, a youth worker in Oxted, came across the pair sleeping rough before Christmas.

She said: "I don't get it.

"People big up Oxted as some first-class town of money and happiness but it seems to be far from it. Nobody deserves to be homeless."