During this time John’s daughter became ill. After staying with her for eight weeks, he returned to his flat to discover he had been evicted. The property had been significantly damaged by the people cuckooing it. This left John with a difficult housing history that meant he was no longer eligible to be re-housed by the area’s main housing provider.
Although John had a place to stay, he knew this was likely to end abruptly at some point, which it did, leaving John no choice but to sleep rough in a tent.
We started working alongside John while he was still sofa surfing and began to build the necessary trust, so he knew who to contact if he became street homeless. John was living with both physical health and mobility issues which meant he was likely to fall into the ‘priority need’ category for any housing assistance.
We knew we needed to act quickly and so we supported John to make a homeless application to the local authority, make an application to the HomeLink housing register, obtain all the necessary documents to support his application and visit his GP to ensure his medical records fully reflected his poor physical health and mobility issues.
When John’s ‘sofa surfing’ option came to an end he had no alternative but to sleep rough in a tent. However, the work we’d already completed meant once we had verified John’s rough sleeping with the local authority we were able to request for temporary accommodation to be provided due to health issues. As John was not on any prescribed medication the decision took a while, but John was eventually given priority status for housing and allocated band A on HomeLink following a short stay in hospital.
Since living in temporary accommodation our team have supported John to get to and keep his appointments with the GP and specialist services, bid on HomeLink properties and we have also helped him with wider administrative, computer-based tasks.
Unfortunately, due to John’s previous eviction, he was blacklisted by the local authority’s main housing provider. Yet our assessment showed John was a vulnerable adult and quite powerless at the time to prevent the chain of events that led to his eviction. We acted on this information and liaised with the local authority housing team leader, who agreed. This was great news! Our tenacity and success led to the housing provider being willing to consider applications for housing from John.
In the meantime, John settled in well at a local hostel with continued support from P3.
So, we assisted John to reapply and he was offered a property in a sheltered housing complex which we supported him to view, and he signed up. Our team organised for a man with a van to help John pack up his belongings and move in. Plus, we supported John to get his tenancy set up, ensuring his utilities and benefits were all in place and we applied for grants to obtain carpets and a cooker.
Today John is happy because he has easy access to public transport, his GP and other services. His accommodation has provided him with greater security, and is suited to his physical needs as there are lifts in the building. John feels safer as there are staff onsite three days a week and he is in a community where there are various activities which make him feel included and involved. Plus, the accommodation is close to his friends and family. John is stable, he is on a pathway to recovery and working to overcome his history of substance misuse – this is wholly due to feeling settled and having his own space. John is now doing handyman work for people locally which has provided him with a meaningful use of his time.
*Anonymised to protect identity.
“Thank you so much for your help, mate, you have been a proper legend,
I would never have been able to do it without you”.
