By Nathan & Shauna
Nathan and partner Shauna, both 26, live in Acocks Green, Birmingham with their two small children Elijah and Ethan, where they both work and volunteer at The Billesley Ark community support centre. Things were very different in 2017, when the young couple faced homelessness.
This is Nathan and Shauna’s story.
Nathan: In 2017 Shauna and I were both 19, already a couple and facing the real possibility of being homeless. It was a scary situation for us. We knew we needed help, and we were advised to go to St Basils in Birmingham, because they work with young adults up to the age of 25 that are either homeless or about to become homeless.
Shauna: This thankfully turned out to be a smart move, and within a day we’d been referred to a local supported housing provider, Sustain UK, and housed in a shared house in Acock’s Green.
I’m not going to lie, because we knew we’d be sharing the house with other people, we were both worried about what lay behind that door, but it turned out to be very clean and warm, with brand-new carpets in our bedrooms, and everything worked.
Our support worker from Sustain UK’s partner New Life Housing, then showed us around, and told us the rules and how things were going to work here.
Sustain understood that we didn’t just need somewhere to live but the support to help build or confidence and develop our life skills. I also needed some specific support for my mental health.
Nathan: We wanted to feel settled together, because the whole situation had become overwhelming, particularly for Shauna, who’d been diagnosed with agoraphobia.
I was relieved that St Basils and Sustain UK were able to accommodate is in the same home and support us as a couple because we really didn’t want to live in separate hostels but find some stability and try and build a life together.
After all the trauma we gradually felt safer and secure, and this stability meant we could begin to learn how to live independently as young adults.
Our support worker would help us with things like learning personal money management, managing appointments, and filling in forms, such as a housing application.
He also gently challenged us to do more things ourselves, and as our confidence grew, we wanted to take on more, so I started volunteering at The Billesley Ark, a community support centre in Billesley, near where I grew up.
I was also able to start realising an ambition to work in web design and started Ruke Designs, allowing me to build The Billesley Ark’s website alongside volunteering at the centre.
I gravitated towards the Ark’s new Food Pantry, which I think is a fantastic concept. It offers so much more than traditional foodbanks, combining basic food support with assisting people to become more self-sustaining.
We help local people to cook with real ingredients and sustain healthier and affordable diets, and I know how much we would have benefited from this approach.
Shauna encouraged me to put myself forward to manage the Food Pantry and help manage the community centre and in 2022, I wrote to Gordon Lee, the CEO at The Ark, explaining why I’d be the best fit for the role, and I’ve now been managing the food pantry and the centre for two years!
I feel I have firsthand experience of many of the people who visit The Pantry, and we have current Sustain UK residents calling in to pick up food and learn how to cook.
I was so happy when Sustain agreed to help fund the Food Ark in 2023 – it feels like things have gone full circle.
Shauna: Thinking back to our time with Sustain, sharing a home with four other residents wasn’t always easy, because although most people are friendly, some can be disruptive, but when we did report problems, Sustain was always quick to respond and nip things in the bud.
Our support worker really encouraged us to focus on our journey, rather than get distracted by somebody else’s, and this was part of us becoming independent adults, able make your own decisions.
Eventually we felt ready to move on, and it’s important to remember that supported accommodation of this type is a temporary solution.
We now live in a flat in Acocks Green with our two wonderful young boys, and I’m also spending time helping at The Ark with Nathan, which is helping me with my agoraphobia.
But it was St Basils, Sustain and New Life Housing that all combined to help us when we really needed it, and set us in the right direction.
As a family, we’ll always be very grateful for that help. It was a big part of our journey.
Sustain UK Ltd houses and support people to who are homeless or living under the threat of homelessness across Birmingham.
For more information on St Basils.
Learn more about the Billesley Ark Food Pantry