A personal experience of homelessness in Merton

Posted on by roominthiscommunity

Alfredo came to the UK 8 years ago from Portugal to work and study. In the first 5 days here he was offered 3 different jobs and decided to take one working in a bed and breakfast in the Kings Cross area working nights as the job came with accommodation. He then enrolled on a course in the Kings Cross area and began his studies to become a qualified Microsoft Systems engineer. After 4 years working and completing his studies he was offered a full time IT job in Wimbledon so moved in to a room in a shared house. He paid a deposit for the room but was never given any kind of contract or tenancy agreement. At the time did not have any concerns about this.

In January 2011 he was made redundant from his job. This was the first time he had been unemployed since the age of 16. He realised that he would struggle to pay his rent so he informed his landlady of his situation and put in a claim for housing benefit to help with his rent costs. In March his landlady came to the house and told him that she was there to fix a window in his room that he has previously reported broken. He went out and returned 30mins later expecting the window to be fixed. However instead of this he found all of his belongings outside in the street and his landlady telling him he could no longer live there. As he had no written contract there was little he could do and housing benefit had also responded to his claim stating that it had been turned down due to the fact he did not have a tenancy agreement. He realised then that his landlady had illegally been renting the room out to him and this is why she had asked him to leave once he had told her about his housing benefit claim.

This situation resulted in him becoming homeless and he lost most of his belongings as he could not carry them. The people whom he thought were his friends mainly turned their backs on him once he became homeless. He went to the local council and slept on the doorstep for a night but there was little they could do for him. They did give him some details of a local charity that might be able to help but in the meantime he found himself sleeping in a rubbish bin shed in Lambeth. He made contact with the charity and in his opinion was sent in a wild goose chase all around London to view various properties, some of which never even existed and one that turned out to be the address of a garage! After continuing to work with them for some time he eventually decided that he was getting nowhere and felt that his key worker was treating him badly just because he was a homeless person so decided to stop working with them.

The bin shed became his base for several months and during this time one local resident appeared to want to help him and began bringing him toast and coffee in the mornings. He later discovered that the man was attracted to him and had ulterior motives so he asked him to stop coming. Another local resident, whom he believes had mental health issues, began to bully and scare him. Coming out at night to do things like shine bright lights in the shed, rattle chains or scrape knives together outside. He began to feel like he wanted to go to sleep and not wake up to face the world.

In June after 3 months of being in this situation he turned to drugs to try and get away from the world. He began using heroin, crack cocaine, cannabis or anything else he could find to block out any feelings and emotions. One thing he does make clear though is that during this time he never turned to stealing from people as this is not in his nature. An example of this is: “I was outside a pub begging and saw a really drunk man drop his iPhone on the floor. Even though I was homeless and had nothing, I walked over and picked up the phone, tapped him on the back and gave him his phone back. He took the phone from me and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I was homeless and was asking if anyone had any spare change. He then started shouting at me to go away and get out of the pub. He never said thank you for giving the phone back but if I was in the situation again I would do exactly the same thing”

After 3 months of using heroin he realised that things were only getting worse and decided that he needed to seek help for his addiction. He went to a local clinic that runs a methadone programme but was initially turned away as he had no address or proof of a local connection to the area. He found a local charity that was happy for him to use their  address as a ‘care of’ address and in October was allowed to start a methadone programme at the clinic. (He was still homeless at the time though). The staff at the clinic started to try and help him in other areas to try and increase the chance of him abstaining from heroin and so referred him to the Street Rescue team in Lambeth. The team went along to his bin shed on the 30th December 2011 and picked him up. They took him along to the “No Second Night Out” scheme who had a hub where homeless people could get a hot drink and talk with staff. The staff there did an assessment of his housing history with him and contacted Merton council the following day on his behalf.

The council contacted the YMCA in Wimbledon and 6 days later, on the 6th Jan 2012, he moved in to the hostel. Since moving to the YMCA he says:

“I am eating better and gaining some much needed weight, I am sleeping in a proper bed after 1 year, and I have a TV, a heater and a shower. Most important of all I am starting to feel like I have a base and conditions around me that has allowed me to start actually thinking about the future. This includes me not having to go to the chemist every day to collect my methadone. It feels like I am gaining a second life as when I was homeless I lost all of my goals and motivation. I only felt emptiness. Since moving to the YMCA my speech impediment has improved and I am able to hold a conversation. When homeless I struggled to say one word without stammering. I have also already re-established links with my ex-girlfriend and old friends. I am now starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel and feel like a person again.”

Finally he describes some positive feelings from being homeless as he feels every negative can have a positive.

“I still have my qualification – Microsoft Certificate Systems Engineer. Nobody or nothing can ever take that away from me. Being homeless makes you realise who your real friends are. I have experienced and learnt real survival techniques that you only learn when in that situation”

Alfredo, in conversation with Amanda, YMCA Wimbledon