I See, You Don't See

Julie: "The reason I took this photo is because the girls in it are part of a group called GAP. It now gives me a bit more stability and something to look forward to and they try to make me think twice about leaving to new places without thinking if I would be likely to become homeless again. They always accept me back after my runnaway trips". Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Rhonda: "This image of the Brunswick Methodist Church that has been there for a very, very long time has an ancient history. I felt always very much an affinity with it but in the last little while when I've had to wander the streets at night I've come down by that way and it felt loud and quite intimidating. There have been people, not just homeless people but also young ones drinking, smashing bottles, on drugs being aggressive. That is to me a picture of total vulnerability. Male or female, whatever age range, it is a good representation of what homelessness is about." Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Kelle: "I took this picture because when we did decide to come off heroin, when we had our own house, we couldn't do it ourselves so we got an appointment at a drugs service. We got put on the methadone on 20ml and it used to go up daily until it ended up on 120 ml which would hold us so we didn't need the heroin anymore. The methadone saved my life because if I didn't have that I wouldn't have been able to come off it because we were on that much we wouldn't have been able to do it ourselves." Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Kelle: "I took this picture because I got into sex work through heroin. When I was on heroin, I needed money and as I said before I didn't want to burgle houses or do crime because I didn't want to go to prison and I didn't want to hurt like other people and make victims, undeserving victims, so I got into sex work. This way I was the only victim. At that time when I was doing it my life revolved around money and heroin and if you had emptied my pockets or come to wherever I was, these were the things that I always had and that was all around us. Moreover, I put the black rose there because the black rose, everyone knows, is associated with death and I think I had a death wish because I was nearly killing myself and I did end up very ill but like I say that was the main focus of my life at the time." Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Kim: "This was the first street that I went to when I came in to Newcastle and did sex work with one boy but we were in a hurry to leave to go back to Sunderland and get our heroin. I didn't know what he was like and then when we went back the next day, he came into the house and he just started beating us up like tossing us across the settee and karate kicking us and things like that. It was just horrible and my friend had to grab a knife coz he was not going to let us out of the house because he wanted his money back and he wanted sex." Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Kim: "This place is important to me because I used to do business there and I used to do business with this particular man. Then I got to know him a little bit better and I started going out with him. He was my boyfriend and after a while I fell pregnant and I had my little girl. Two weeks before I had my little girl, the social services came out and said that I couldn't keep her because I was still using one bag of heroin and methadone. So, she had to go and live with my sister and her husband but they said that I wasn't allowed to go down and live there. I could only go down for a couple of hours and that and it just broke my heart." Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Kim: "The reason why I wanted the photograph of the whole street was because every night I used to walk along there to go in all of the house to do sex work to get me money for the heroin coz they all knew me by then. There were about seven flats in the one house so I would come out of one room and there used to be someone standing there and I'd just go into all of the rooms and then go to the next door and the next door and the next door." Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Rhonda: "The image of a shadow when you are like half asleep, you can't see properly because you are quite defensive. Shadows are frightening and even though there wasn't anybody there when I lied down, when you are half asleep you think there is somebody there and you probably think you are seeing shadows that you aren't actually seeing. I just think this image captures the way I felt in my mind". Photograph: GAP Project/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians

Rhonda: "The pink bag is quite a symbol because my friend lent me that lovely bag and you can get loads of things in and I've carried that bag round for a very long time. I have all my things in that I need like the kind of things you would do at home like my things to get washed with, a book, a sandwich, a drink, paper work. It makes me feel safe so that image of that pink bag on that bench portrays my bag as being my security. That is like my comfort blanket, like a child." Photograph: The GAP/Magali Pettier/Tyneside Cyrenians