Homeless tour guide made Londoner of the Week

Tagged as: east end, homelessness, tour guides

London360’s Londoner of the Week for Show 4 has gone through years of sleeping rough on the capital's streets to guiding other people around them.

Liz Weiner is one of the many homeless or ex-homeless people being helped back into work by volunteer group Sock Mob.

The community group, which aims to challenge the way London's homeless are treated by engaging with them and handing out basic supplies like socks, has branched out in recent years to form Unseen Tours.

The walking tours of the capital it organises employ Liz and other homeless or former homeles people as tour guides, training them in public speaking skills and paying them a wage and expenses for their work.

"Having a job means security for me," said Liz, "but it's also important to get the message out that it (being homeless) could happen to anybody."

"The reason I bacame homeless was because I lost people around me", said Liz, "It's a big thing not to have a support network in place.

"It's difficult to imagine what it's like being homeless, it's like you're constantly tired, at breaking point, you can't just have a shower and something to eat that isn't a sandwich," she added.

"I could have survived for a couple more years but by my mid twenties I knew something needed to be done, which is when I found Sock Mob."

Carine Hejazi, Brick Lane tour coordinator and Sock Mob volunteer, has noticed a real change in Liz:

"Liz has grown very much more self-confident and open; it's her little enterprise and she's doing a great job at it.

"The feedback we've been getting is excellent and the word is spreading as people tell their friends to come along, a lot of our success has been through word of mouth."

The tours can now be booked online for any one of the five trips available around London.

You can hear more about Liz’s story and see more from the tour in Show4 of London360, on air on Mondays, Thursdays (12am, 7am, 12pm, 7pm) and Sundays (12am, 12pm) until 2nd January (Sky 539, Virgin 233, Freeview 87) and online on the Community Channel’s YouTube channel.

Date added: Dec 28, 2011 at 00:00 by Tom Whiter

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