Clare Woman Shares Homeless Accommodation Difficulties

0:00Now we're going to hear from a morning focus listener who is going to detail her difficulties in securing accommodation. Our listener explains our hard life story, including difficulties and tragedy in her family, finding herself in and out of homeless services since her teenage years, suffering in an abusive relationship and dealing with depression, anxiety, social phobia and panic attacks. Our listener still finds herself homeless. She says she is trying everything to secure accommodation, but despite regularly contacting the local authorities, she says her efforts have so far proven to be fruitless. Here is our conversation. I am joined in studio by our morning focus listener. Thanks so much for coming in this morning. Thank you. Can you get tell me a bit about your life growing up and the challenges you face that led to experiencing homelessness at a young age? My dad committed suicide. My mom moved and obviously I had to move with her. Growing up wasn't easy because I was in our homes since I was 15. I ended up sleeping at

1:01friends houses, sleeping on the streets, ended up back at home again, back out, which was kind of a routine of in and out home. At home, 17, I ended up in homeless hostel and I ended up meeting my kids father when I was 19. That was a very abusive relationship, domestic violence, I was eight years with him, five kids with him, and I finally got the courage to leave him and ended up in a domestic violence refuge. And two and a half years and that refuge of us until I finally got my home from my children and me. But a year or two later, my mother went and got my kids taken off me. Why did she have or want to have your kids taken from you? What did this situation you described in terms of being homelessness? Well, that's still going on up to this point. Did she feel there wasn't a stable environment for them to be raised in? She's been trying to get my kids taken since they were four. My oldest was first born.

2:06So I don't know the reason behind it as I never got old, why she was at that. To me, if it had grown up, she never wanted me. I was never her priority. But it just never realized and darned why she did it to me. Now obviously when they got taken, they were the reason I was so strong and so far in life. So then when they got taken, I ended up with severe depression, severe anxiety, social phobia. Now I gained social phobia because when they went into care, I closed myself off from everyone, didn't leave the house, didn't want to do anything. So I ended up getting into social phobia. No thank god, it's not as much and getting out of myself again, but it's still there. It's still to the day I'm struggling with it because it's just like a parody me's gone since the kids went into care. Which is understandable and is that something you fought? Did you try and reason with your mother or to no avail?

3:09Well, it was told to now has them in care to radiate. So I failed the parent capacity assessment because like that, I'm not good with equations like blocks or more mats. I never was good at that's my downfall. You know, at the moment, it went to the test of radio HD because other said, like, my brain doesn't take in things. It's like it's, I struggle to take in things and I struggle to express how I actually feel. But it's just been hard. Then I moved, I was in the homeless services. I've been moved from pillar to post, end up losing one of the houses I was in. That was true homeless, but because I got with someone else and then they had to move me to a combination where it was relationships allowed. So then that relationship broke down. I ended up back in the place where I was again and then I was moved back to the place, back again. So from, you literally,

4:14as you say, pillar to post, it sounds like you've known very little other than homelessness, even like in your teenage years, you know, by the time you're 19 so much has happened to you, was that just through difficulties between you and your mother, were you thrown out or did you leave because you didn't want to be under the same roof as her? I was thrown out in and out of home. Like, I don't ever, I never did drugs, never drank. I do drink to very seldom. I'd much rather not drink. So you don't have addiction issues or anything like that? That wasn't the root cause of this. No, she was more or less controlled than a little bit of, it was like I was just a weapon to her. What is your experience being like trying to access housing support from the council and homeless services? It had like at the moment, I'm ringing them twice a week. At the moment, I'm between a friend's house couch or a cousin's couch and I'm still trying to get in there and I just seemed there's no end to it. I'm on CBL every week, put my interest in and it's like there's not

5:19been no hearing back from us. But they offered me winter initiative but I can't do winter initiative from where the winter initiative is happening. And for people unfamiliar with that, can you explain what the winter initiative is? It's basically 99, like you're in at 9 o'clock and out 9 o'clock in the morning and it's just a phone call every night to survive, to support your bed the next day. So it's kind of hard for me because like with my anxiety and depression, I don't like before the out all the time. I like, you know, I like to know what's ahead of me and it's very hard for me. I don't know what's ahead of me and not know where I'm going to be from one end to the other. How has homelessness affected your mental health and your ability to rebuild stability within your life? It's affected me also because I can't fight from access, more access to my children because I haven't got a home to fight for them. I can't actually guess, I don't know where I'm going to be from one end to the other. So I'm just like, is this everyone to end for me?

6:23It's hard because you just don't have a home to call your own and your own safety where you can just say, it's your home. So I just don't know what I like to have stability in my life. Even when all through my life, I've never had stability. I don't think I've been pushed from pillar to post. Just feels like I've been ignored. Even when my mental health is just like, I don't find any hope anymore. It's like I'm just holding on to the littles bit of hope is left to me. Okay, it sounds like it. Trying to see the brighter side of life as a daily struggle and what kind of support or changes do you believe would make the biggest difference for someone in a situation like the one you're in. What would help you begin to see a brighter day ahead? I suppose part of that would be getting your children back and what would help you to do that. Obviously having a stable environment of your own to bring them into. Space stability and just having somewhere to actually call home and that you can stand your ground and say, well, I've suffice the home

7:27now it's time to try and fight for my children. But like my kids, they're old and often nearly now my oldest is going on 18. My youngest is gone 11. So like it's practically they've grown up a lot of the lives like until they don't know that I'm in the situation. They think I'm securely in home as a accommodation. Would you prefer that that's what they think at the moment or do you think of it shock them because I don't want them worrying. They worry they stress and do you know they get upset about me which is natural and their mom like do you know they've had a hard life like my oldest son has ADHD behavior problems. He struggles in everything really like he has from a young age because my two older ones would have remembered their father baited me and they remember what life I went through like they were took they had their father taken away

8:28from them to them having to move into refuge to then have a home and then finally being the only secure net they had with me. So I mean your experience in trying to access housing support from the council and home to services hasn't born fruit. I keep getting told that there's no movement in the services and that to get back to me those are just things they're like I'm onto my mental health team big time because my depression is getting worse because it's like I'm just it's just my life going to be always like this it's like I'm stuck in a circle that I can't pull myself out of to know I was like everything everyone should be entitled to a home everyone should be entitled to the secure net when you don't know where you're going to be even wanting to do the other it's hard. Yeah and I know that is understandable look at sounds occurring a very difficult situation hopefully that will change for you will reach out to the relevant bodies and see if we can get some sort of response but thank you so much for joining me in studio and sharing your story. Thank you.