Can you foster this Waterloo homeless man’s kitten?

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

A homeless man is staying on the streets because the hostel rooms he has been offered will not take the kitten he rescued in November.

Mark Ravenscroft found the female cat, which he has called Zaz, in a cardboard box in the subway near the IMAX cinema in Waterloo.

But he does not want to be separated from his sidekick – so is still having to sleep rough.

He is now appealing for help to find a temporary foster home for the moggy, until he gets a place which accepts animals.

“It has been really hard to find somewhere to stay,” he said. “Some hostels accept dogs but not many – and they don’t accept cats because they fight with dogs.

Having her is a bit of a snag.

“When it was snowing last week, I stayed on a friend’s floor near Brockwell Park but that will not do permanently.”

Mark, who has an NVQ level 2 qualification in horticulture, found Zaz by accident.

“She was really skinny,” he said. “I heard a lot of meowing from a box, which was out in the open.

I heard it when I walked past on my way to St John’s Church, where I occasionally sleep.

“I took her to a Blue Cross centre where the vet told me she was about four or five days old.

“She doesn’t like being picked up and she doesn’t like being woken up. I have a jumper – a passer-by gave it to me – to keep her warm, but she doesn’t understand and she hisses every time I put it on.

“People come up and give me cat food, which is great. That is how we survive – donations.”

Mark joked about rejecting one possible source of income: “People ask to take photos with her all the time. I don’t charge – but maybe I should.”

The 47-year-old left the family home in Staffordshire aged 15 in 1986 and headed straight for the bright lights on London.

“I have been on the streets on and off since then,” he said. “I have never been able to keep a flat for more than a year.

“It has become a way of life for me. I did have a flat once but let other people use it when I went away for a week and they turned it into a drugs den and the police raided it – they would not let me back in.

“I have also been in prison for 21 days for shoplifting, 12 years ago.

“My chances of getting a job are zero until I can find a permanent place to live. And to do that, I need somewhere for the cat to stay temporarily. It is just a matter of finding someone. I would like to have her back once I have a home.

“I would love to be able to have a job and a place of my own so I can keep Zaz there, instead of having to spend freezing nights like last week in the cold.

“I cannot claim benefits because I have no fixed abode.

“I mainly sleep in Waterloo because I know quite a few people there – in the market, the theatre and the station. It is not as rough or violent as the West End – I was always getting in fights when I stayed there.

“It is also a lot better around Waterloo than when Cardboard City was there, where the IMAX is now.”

Business development msanager Magdalena Stelmach, who is helping Mark find a foster home for Zaz, said: “I saw Mark walking through Waterloo and started chatting to him, asking how he became homeless. I wanted to help. He seemed a genuine person who had just not had any luck. It makes me feel bad to know what I have, when others have much less.”

To help Mark, go to justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helpingmark