RSS Feed
Twitter
I have everything planned for my own business - I have a business plan and a business adviser, and I am going to set up a Caribbean restaurant But I can't do anything till I get my own place. They were not always supportive in the end, and I desperately wanted to make my own way in life Now I'm staying in someone's place in Maida Vale She was also homeless, and I met her in a women's refuge. It's OK but I just want a place of my own.Before I can get a job I need an address And before I can get an address I need a job I feel like I am stuck. They would all treat me very nice but after a few weeks they would decide they don't want me in their home. From 2003 to September last year I was sleeping at friends' houses, on the sofa, in a spare bed or on the floor.
I couldn't get housing from the council; they told me I was a non-priority, even though I had a letter from the doctor I was sleeping on the buses I moved so many times from people's places. It will be eight years in June since we separated and I still have no place.To start with I lived in shelters. My children have a good relationship with their father, but he really treated me very bad. I went to the Caribbean to sort myself out and then came back. I don't like divorce because I have a Christian faith, but I had to leave home. I have a son who is 20 and at university, and a daughter who is 23. But as you ride the night bus home, that person nodding off in the next seat may well be dreaming of somewhere to lie down.
As Erna says: "I just want a place of my own."The sofa surferErna Woodley, 58I went through 19 years of domestic violence. "We count the most ridiculous things in this country," Hilal points out. "If Tesco can count the number of melons it sells, we can count the number of homeless people."In Parliament, MPs are lobbying for a change. "But that doesn't mean we catch everyone, even now."Crisis is now raising funds to run a pilot census, in order to show the Government that it is possible.
