Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on June 13, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Formerly homeless Londoners lead tours, sharing personal stories and historical insights, aiming to reduce stigma and highlight potential.
By Marissa Davison and Catarina Demony
LONDON (Reuters) -Stefan Gordon spent three years in a homeless shelter in London after a family rift left him without a roof over his head. Now he is using his past experience to tell the often hidden story of one of the capital's wealthiest areas.
Gordon, 31, is one of several formerly homeless people trained by Unseen Tours to lead guided walks in different London neighbourhoods. The charity's aim is to reduce the stigma around homelessness and value people's potential.
"My view of homelessness is a person without a home... (but) just because they don't have a home, we can still do stuff," Gordon told Reuters as he led a group tour of Canary Wharf and West India Quay in east London.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the area, now the capital's business hub, was home to a large dock complex built to receive products such as sugar from the Caribbean, where enslaved people were forced to work on plantations.
The docks were created by and for merchants but many of those who worked there were often badly paid and lived in poor conditions, something Gordon says he can relate to.
"Lots of people used to sleep in lodging houses and the hostel where I slept was an emergency lodging house so I kind of related a lot to that," Gordon said. "It was very, very tough back then... It's still tough now."
Gordon, who has autism, is now living with his mother and has been a guide since February. He gets paid 60% of the value of each tour ticket while the remainder is reinvested into Unseen Tours to cover operating costs and train new guides.
Unseen Tours' director of communication, Charlotte Cassedanne, said the guides, with help from the organisation, research and design their own tours, and can incorporate their personal stories into their walks if they wish to do so.
They have been running for more than a decade, and 30,000 visitors have taken part in their tours. With six guides trained so far, Unseen Tours is currently fundraising to train three more.
"When you experience homelessness, you become sort of less than human... People ignore you daily... Putting them at the centre of the storytelling really helps them have agency again," Cassedanne said.
(Reporting by Marissa Davison and Catarina Demony; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Unseen Tours aims to reduce the stigma around homelessness by training formerly homeless individuals to lead guided walks in various London neighborhoods.
Stefan Gordon relates to the history of Canary Wharf as it was once home to a large dock complex where many workers lived in poor conditions, similar to his own experiences.
Guides like Stefan Gordon receive 60% of the value of each tour ticket, while the rest is reinvested into Unseen Tours to cover operational costs.
Unseen Tours has been running for more than a decade, with around 30,000 visitors participating in their tours.
Stefan Gordon, who has autism, spent three years in a homeless shelter and now uses his experiences to connect with tour participants.
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