By Sean
Family breakdown and the threat of homelessness are common to many of Sustain’s tenants before they come to us.In this blog, one of our tenants, Sean, explains what brought him to Sustain, and how well managed accommodation and support is vital in helping him re-build his life.
I came down to the West Midlands from Scotland when I was a teenager and have been here for 39 years. I lived in Coventry at first and I still have family there.
I’ve had a bit of a traumatic life, which has been partly caused by very difficult family relationships.
I feel like I’ve been betrayed by those closest to me, with some of my family’s actions leading to despair and tragedy. My brother had tried to kill himself, before being caught having an affair with my fiancée.
I’ve unfortunately lost both my parents, and my poor mum committed suicide on New Year’s Day a few years ago. This caused so much regret and anger in the family that has never been resolved.
I know there are people worse off than me, but I’ve really struggled.
I feel as if I’ve been hurt my whole life, so now I don’t trust many people and find it hard to talk. If I don’t feel comfortable, I just keep everything in. If somebody tries to be nice to me, I just think ‘what do you want?’ Friends are very hard to find, true friends, and I don’t let many people close.
Living in poor conditions
All of this has had a chaotic impact on my living arrangements, and I ended up living in shared housing, or houses of multiple occupation (HMOs), and I have to say I’ve lived in better squats than some of those homes.
In some of those places you would open your bedroom door and the state of the bedroom would be terrible, and it was normal to get an old, tatty old bed, with a stained mattress, and no bedding.
I developed a pattern of behaviour: I’d stay in one HMO for a few months and then move somewhere else and then somewhere else. I have probably lived in about 12 to 15 HMOs in Birmingham.
This makes it very difficult to find any real safety or stability in your life.
Finding safety
I found this house, which is run by Keogh Properties on behalf of Sustain, over two years ago, and I’ve been here ever since. This is the longest I’ve ever stayed in a shared house.
It’s so different here to the other shared houses I’ve lived in. It’s clean, well looked after and the support from Keogh and Sustain has been really good. I feel much safer here.
Two of my friends, Luke and Phil, moved in a few months ago. Having people in the same house that you get on well with really helps. I feel so secure I don’t even lock my bedroom door because I trust the people in this house. I’m comfortable here.
I think most people will experience mental health issues at some point in their lives, and we all need a good roof over our heads as a basic safety net.
But I’m still dealing with everything that’s happened to me and I’m only very slowly working up to the idea of living by myself.
I hope one day I can live independently, and my support worker Sharon is pointing me towards the help I need so that I can get back on my feet.
My support
Sharon, my support worker from Keogh Properties, has done wonders. She is like one of the family.
When other support workers have come to me in the past, I’ve been frightened to get involved. I would take a step back, but I am comfortable with Sharon.
I’m happy for the first time in a long time, and a lot of that is down to Sharon. She’s always on the end of a phone and she even phoned me up on Mother’s Day just to check how I was.
Sharon will come and pick me up and take me to hospital appointments. She even got me some posh pyjamas and slippers for one of my hospital stays.
If Sharon comes into the house and I’m quiet, she knows straight away that something is not right. She takes me for coffee or breakfast to get me out of the house.
I know she’s doing her best to help me find my way to a better future.
For me, finding stable accommodation and support has been important and is going a long way to helping me feel safe again.
Sean is one of 1,800 people across the West Midlands housed and supported by specialist housing provider Sustain UK.
If you recognise some of the issues in this article and are facing homelessness, you can find out about applying for a tenancy with Sustain on the ‘Who is Eligible?’ page
You can contact Sustain by phone on 0121 428 2221 or at [email protected]