Low Cost High Price by Cumbers Theresa;Down Martin;

Author:Cumbers, Theresa;Down, Martin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012120
ISBN: 4573162
Publisher: Authentic Media
Published: 2010-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

When we first contacted our clients on the streets we often found that they had no stable housing arrangements. They might be dossing down in a squat, or sleeping on the sofa or the floor of a friend’s flat. They might be sleeping rough under the staircase in one of the multi-storey car parks or at the back of the railway station. Even those with a bedsit or a flat of their own might be facing eviction for non-payment of the rent.

We often found clients, who had been sleeping rough, on our doorstep early in the morning when we came to work. They would be cold and tired and hungry. We would take them up to the Sitting Room, make them a hot drink and hot buttered toast, and they would have a shower and a change of clothes. One morning one of our rough sleepers arrived early at my office door. She was a girl we knew well, but she looked exhausted and ill. She had spent the night in hospital. One of her fingers had been chopped off by her drug dealer because she had tried to steal his mobile phone. The hospital had sewn her finger back on and discharged her back onto the streets. We took her in, made a fuss of her and encouraged her to talk about her situation. We told her that if she wanted to change her way of life, we would help her, but the decision had to be hers. We would always be there for her if she wanted to quit.

There was an acute shortage of accommodation for homeless women in the city. The number of beds in the hostels was never sufficient and some of the hostels would not take women who were addicted to drugs or to alcohol, which accounted for most of our clients. Usually our first thought when we were trying to find a bed for a woman on the streets was to ask if she had any friends or relatives who might take her in for just twenty-four hours. In the meantime we could be busy on the telephone looking for somewhere more permanent for her. We would help her to fill in an application form for the city’s housing department. We would accompany her to an interview with a housing officer and the benefits agency. The presence and advocacy of one of our experienced staff was often crucial in getting the woman accommodation. The women themselves were often fearful and volatile in such situations and given to outbursts that did not help their cases. Also, there was an element of prejudice against our clients when it came to the allocation of housing, which our staff could sometimes confront. Where there was a history of the woman having been a bad tenant with rent arrears in the past, we could undertake to work out a scheme of weekly payments that would clear off her arrears and enable her to keep up her payments in the future.

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