This charity founder tells Karen Amouyal his desire to change the future of single fathers in the UK.
Billy is a man who dresses with care. In his trendy navy wool coat, he could fit unnoticed into any big city office. Instead it is a French café that he chooses for our interview, a few steps from his house and where he spends most of his time running a charity which is changing the lives of male single parents.
He is nervous, flipping his hair, we can clearly feel the anxiety about subbing again in his past.
“No one really knew what it was to be a single dad and neither did I,” he starts. It is a life-changing event that isn’t a child’s play, speaking of the devil. “I was useless and the worst cooker you can ever meet”, he says laughing with the waitress when ordering a typical French omelette, his favourite. Billy refused to cook for eight years and still hates it. He was only 25 when life happened and left him raising his son, Sam alone. Billy was a musician and didn’t realize what it meant to take care of a human being. He needed help like many others but couldn’t get a hand.
That’s what lead him to take temporary and part-time jobs to be able to spend time with his son and giving him the love he deserved. “I had to forget about music and focus on my responsibilities” he says. At the age of eleven, Sam was discovered as having learning difficulties and needed huge support from his dad. Thanks to Billy’s support and dedication, Sam did well at school and ended up going to university. “I did what it took to make him happy,” he says, his eyes got wet, but we carried on.
In 2005, Billy started doing some research on single fathers and helped provided in the UK. The study was fast and clear since none really existed. More than 20,000 dads were raising children on their own in London, and besides the vast amounts of organisations, none of them were providing houses but most of all social help for the challenge of being a single father. “No-one cares. Individually perhaps yes but collectively- not at all,“ he says, creating a charity that would have helped him when he was himself struggling taking care of Sam, his son, was his goal. This year the charity has celebrated 10th years anniversary and “it is only the beginning,” he says smiling.
“There is nothing wrong with being a single parent,” he says, “it is a unique experience, and no one should ever judge you for being in this position.”
Billy’s charity is mainly about finding houses to single father in need. He first came up with the housing idea when a friend of his was evicted after being unable to pay the rent for him and his daughter. “You would be shocked to see how many charities are out there knowing this and not caring,” he says. To him, charities should have done his work years ago, but he’s glad he got to make the difference.
The work goes beyond housing homeless dads in need. Raising children is a full-time job that requires skills and social support. Of course, handling finance is one of the primary battles as being a single parent, afford to have a nanny, feed them properly or only just a roof above heads. Nevertheless, Billy knew that there was more about it, that it could be hard to find the proper balance with the difficulties of raising a child alone. He knew it because he lived it. “It’s vital to remember that you are not alone,” he says, not only that there is help out there, but that there are millions of people in your shoes. Socially speaking men, in general, find it difficult to talk and ask for help, “there was no actual support network for men,” he says. For women, there’s an understanding to acknowledge another woman who needs help, for men there isn’t and creating a society that can provide this help was “crucial.”
Cooking classes, breakfast clubs, football nights… Billy has created a real mental support for those men, a way to “boost them and secure a future for their children”, he says, but also a way to make him learn cooking.
His phone rings, “I have to take it,” he says. A few minutes later, with foam on the upper lip from the umpteenth café crème he ordered, Billy admits that the phone call was a single dad asking for help to feed his twins as his part-time job does not help him to round the end of the month. “I can house this guy in 10 minutes if he wants”, he says confidently. On average Billy receives 3 to 4 calls a day regarding Dads house and believe it or not to him it is not enough.
“This is probably my favourite activity,” he says showing me pictures on his phone. “Dad and kids are having breakfast together and it just amazing to see smiles on their faces. It’s been a long journey but I’ve met some incredible people along the way and, this is priceless.”
“I’ll probably still be here,” he says answering my question on where he sees himself in five years. But hopefully, things would have evolved for Dads house. “Our five years plan is to have dads house branches all around the UK, and all around the world in 15 years”, he says laughing at its high expectations. Sam is 29 now and old enough to take care of himself but with Dads house Billy never stops fulfilling the duties of a father.
“Ambition got me here, and I am proud of it.”
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