Lancashire A ‘Homeless Hot Spot’

Most parts of Lancashire have a higher proportion of households at risk of becoming homeless than elsewhere in the North West of England, reports the BBC.

Statistics show nine of the county’s 14 council areas exceed the regional average, with Blackpool being in the top 10 places in England for both the rate of households in danger of becoming homeless and the proportion that actually are. The resort town has the 10th-highest rate of actual homelessness in England and the highest in Lancashire. Rossendale has the greatest percentage of households threatened with homelessness in Lancashire and seventh place in England, just above Blackpool.

Statutory homelessness does not necessarily equate to rough sleeping and many households classed as homeless will be living in temporary accommodation, staying with family or “sofa surfing” at a friend’s home. According to the latest statutory homelessness figures released for January to March this year, Rossendale, Blackpool, Pendle, Burnley, Blackburn with Darwen, Preston, Wyre, Hyndburn and Lancaster all have a higher rate of households under threat of homelessness than the North West average. The county fares better on the measure of statutory homelessness, with five areas having a greater proportion of households considered homeless than the regional norm – Blackpool, Burnley, Blackburn with Darwen, Preston and Lancaster.

The figures, seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, are based on the number of households per 1,000 in a given area that are owed a so-called “duty of prevention” by local authorities because they are threatened with homelessness, and the same ratio that are regarded as actually being homeless and so are entitled to a “duty of relief”. Ribble Valley came out as the best area in Lancashire by both measures, with Chorley, Fylde and West Lancashire being below the North West average in both categories.

The Labour government has promised to prioritise the issue of homelessness.

Deputy prime minister and housing secretary, Angela Rayner, previously said work was under way “to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place”. She added: “This includes delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable homebuilding in a generation, abolishing Section 21 no-fault evictions and a multi-million pound package to provide homes for families most at risk of homelessness.”

How Universities Can Play A Vital Role In Solving Homelessness

The presence of a university pushes up housing costs for local people on low incomes. But higher education institutions can play more of a role to building structural solutions to homelessness, writes Centre for Homelessness Impact’s Greg Hurst for the Big Issue.

Traditional student life has a romantic quality that can capture the zeitgeist of an age. In the late 19th century, Puccini’s opera La Boheme portrayed students starving in a garret, suffering for truth and art. In the 1950s, Kingsley Amis’ novel Lucky Jim satirised the stifling conformity of provincial university campus life with its austere lodgings or ‘digs’.  By the 1980s the television show The Young Ones cast Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as tenants in an anarchic but more egalitarian student house.

How might composers, novelists or scriptwriters convey students’ living conditions today? An undergraduate queuing at a lettings agency to view an over-priced student house with mould and potentially dangerous electric wiring? A student bedding down on a course-mate’s sofa because he has nowhere else to sleep? Excess demand for student housing in university cities and towns has coincided with a contraction in the supply of private rented accommodation, leaving many students struggling. We should be clear that university students are significantly less – not more – likely to experience homelessness than young people of similar age in the general population. Nevertheless the scarcity, poor quality and cost of student housing should concern university leaders when they face pressure to widen participation in higher education.

There is, however, a wider, deeper and more radical role that universities could play in relieving and preventing homelessness beyond their student bodies in their communities. The core argument for why universities should engage in ending homelessness is this: university cities and larger towns have higher homelessness, both in absolute numbers and per head of the population. The presence of a university in a place shapes the local housing economy, creating higher demand for low-cost rented housing pushing up rents and house prices and making these less affordable for people on low incomes.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) analyses data from its census by dividing areas in England and Wales into 15 groups, one of which is university towns and cities. We can break down their rates of homelessness by looking at their rates per head of their population of applications for homelessness support, rough sleeping and households placed in temporary accommodation to avoid homelessness. We can then compare these on a per-head basis with a similar number of towns of roughly the same size without a university.

The number of households living in temporary accommodation is more than three times as high in university towns per head compared to non-university towns (8.62 versus 2.70 per 1,000). Similarly, rates of rough sleeping are three times higher (17.45 versus 5.8 per 100,000). The exception is for people assessed as at risk of homelessness, which is slightly lower in university towns (5.90 versus 7 per 1,000). But for assessments of people experiencing homelessness, the rate is again clearly higher than in non-university towns (9.01 versus 6.71 per 1,000).

Why? University towns and cities have younger populations (median age 32). And they have more rental accommodation for students and early career academics and less owner-occupied housing. This pushes up housing costs for local people on low incomes. There are practical steps that universities can take to tackle homelessness in their communities. As employers they can offer work to people with current or recent experience of homelessness; not solely unskilled or entry-level jobs but roles with development opportunities. They can encourage volunteering among their staff and students in evidence-based ways to prevent homelessness among at-risk groups, rather than offering short-term relief.

There is a further unique role that universities can play, in their role as educators. Homelessness seems to generate more misconceptions and false narratives than almost any other area of social policy. Platitudes such as ‘homelessness can happen to anyone’ and ‘we are all two pay cheques away from homelessness’ are untrue and are profoundly unhelpful, even if well-meant. Universities are well placed to nullify these false narratives by embedding evidence-based teaching in curriculum areas that are relevant to homelessness. Degrees whose graduates may encounter homelessness include housing studies, social work, medicine, dentistry, nursing, law, architecture, education, theology, criminology and sociology. Lecturers should take care that their references to homelessness are grounded in good evidence and data, that they avoid pejorative language and that course materials including slides and website pages do not stigmatise individuals or reinforce stereotypes.

Much public money is spent on homelessness services that have not been subject to robust independent evaluation. Some university academics and departments conduct excellent research to identify and quantify potential solutions to homelessness but they are too few and too small in scale. More robust quantitative research is needed into what works to prevent and relieve homelessness. Yes, universities should act on student homelessness. But they can build structural solutions to homelessness, too.

Refugee Homelessness Increased by 350% Over The Past Year

The figures identified that 4,840 households with newly granted refugees were homeless between January and March this year, 348.1% more than over the same period last year, reports Inside Housing.

An additional 1,270 refugee households were at risk of homelessness, after qualifying to receive homelessness prevention duty in the first quarter of 2024. This is over 100% more than the 600 refugee households facing homelessness in 2023. Homelessness like this occurs when asylum seekers successfully gain refugee status; the Home Office forces new refugees to leave asylum accommodation within 28 days. Rather than granting people sanctuary, achieving refugee status has increasingly resulted in people being “very likely to face destitution, homelessness and fall into crisis”, Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, noted in a report published late last year.

In the new statutory data published yesterday, it was revealed that households with former asylum seekers owed a homelessness duty has increased by nearly 150% over the past year. Former asylum seekers were identified in 3,530 households which were owed a homelessness duty in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 148.6% on the 1,420 households identified in last year’s figures for the same period. In London alone, there was a more than threefold increase, from 170 households in 2023 to 600 households in 2024.

When asked why refugee homelessness had continued to rise, Rick Henderson, the chief executive of charity Homeless Link, told Inside Housing: “Years of hostile government policies towards people seeking asylum in the UK created a backlog of cases at massive cost to the Home Office. In an effort to address the mounting backlog, the previous government – without consulting local authorities or the homelessness and migrant sectors – suddenly changed the procedure for ending asylum support once a decision had been made.”

Currently, asylum seekers who gain refugee status are given just four weeks to leave Home Office accommodation and find their own housing, alongside setting up employment, a bank account and other vital infrastructure. Mr Henderson noted that new refugees were often given as little as seven days’ notice before being evicted from asylum accommodation. “The new government must learn from these mistakes and increase the move-on period from asylum accommodation from 28 to 56 days, in line with the Homelessness Reduction Act. “This will give local authorities and charities the crucial time needed to work with people leaving the asylum system to find suitable accommodation and give them the stability to build the new life they’re entitled to.”

Kristian Draper, the director of services at homelessness charity Thames Reach, said, “The introduction of the Streamlined Asylum Processing system saw a significant rise in the number of people rough sleeping. Extending the notice period will only help resolve this if the Home Office – in line with the government’s commitment to ending rough sleeping – is committed to ensuring that this time is spent delivering support to secure accommodation that meets people’s needs.”

A government spokesperson said in response: “We have inherited huge pressures in the asylum system, but we are working to make sure individuals have the support they need following an asylum decision and to help local authorities better plan their assistance with homelessness. Support for newly recognised refugees is available through Migrant Help and their partners, which includes advice on how to access Universal Credit, the labour market and where to get assistance with housing.” A report published earlier this year found that immigration policies in the UK were making migrants, asylum seekers and refugees ‘destitute by design’.

Liverpool City Council’s Plan To Tackle Homelessness

The number of rough sleepers in Liverpool has increased by 141% over six years, reports the BBC.

Liverpool City council has said it wants to make homelessness across a city “rare, brief and non-recurring”. The number of people sleeping rough in Liverpool has increased by 141% over the last six years. The city council is asking the public for their views on a strategy, which aims to improve access to housing in times of crisis. However councillor Sam East, cabinet member for housing, warned services were being stretched because of financial pressures.

A report into the city’s public health earlier this year indicated the link between poor quality or unsuitable housing on physical and mental wellbeing. Between October and December last year, the demand for homelessness assessments increased by 19% in comparison to the same quarter 12 months earlier. Similarly, there has been a 12.1% increase in households in temporary accommodation across the same timeframe.

The document said rough sleeping had increased in recent months to unprecedented levels. Earlier this summer, the city wide rough sleeper outreach service, delivered by the Whitechapel Centre, recorded 164 people sleeping rough, with 74 of them helped into new accommodation or supported return into existing solutions. Mr East said “too many people face homelessness” and it presented “significant cost challenges” for the council. He said repurposing housing stock that remained vacant was an “opportunity to be grasped”.

Between 2017/18 and 2023/24, rough sleeping across Liverpool increased by 141%. The report said one of the reasons behind this was a lack of 24-hour operations by the council’s outreach team until 2022. The number of people sleeping rough long term was described as “very high” with an increase of 44% recorded. There had been a 12.1% increase in households in temporary accommodation across the same timeframe.

The report said the main reasons for homelessness included friends and family no longer being willing to accommodate, which counts for more than a third of cases. The number of people left homeless as a result of domestic abuse has risen to 17% while the loss of assured shorthold tenancy stands at 15%. The homelessness budget remains a significant area of financial risk, with an overspend in the last financial year of more than £1.3m. This is despite an increase of £12.5m to reflect the demands on the service.

The authority said it hoped a move towards early intervention and preventative action which would lead to a reduction in costs, but an expected overspend for nightly paid accommodation in bed and breakfasts was more than £5m. It is thought the forecasted spend for the last full financial year will have surpassed more than £21.5m, with a peak of 816 bed and breakfast bookings being reached in February.

In 2022/23, more than 1,600 people in Liverpool approached the council for help with homelessness, with 99% being assisted. The authority’s prevention rate was 17%, compared to 45% nationally. Council leader Liam Robinson said the strategy was an “important strategic priority” in a bid for Liverpool to become a zero homelessness city, as per its 2023 manifesto, however he acknowledged it was a “complicated” challenge.

Edinburgh Tourist Tax Will Help Build Council Houses

Daily 5% visitor beds surcharge that will cover hotels, bed and breakfasts and AirBnB could raise up to £50m a year, reports the Guardian.

Councillors in Edinburgh are hoping to build new council houses and improve public parks thanks to a new tourist tax that could raise up to £50m a year. The city council is expected to become the first in the UK to introduce a comprehensive visitor levy using new government powers, with tourists and visitors paying a daily 5% surcharge on their beds from July 2026. The charge, which will be capped at seven consecutive nights, will cover hotels, bed and breakfasts, self-catering flats and rooms let via websites such as AirBnB, and student halls let out to tourists.

The council estimated that if the levy had been in place for Taylor Swift’s three Eras concerts at Murrayfield in June, the city would have raised about £620,000 to invest. The levy, which mimics tourist taxes used by European cities such as Madrid, Amsterdam, Berlin and Lisbon, is expected to raise between £43m and £50m a year from about 5.3m overnight stays a year. Only campsites, the disabled, the homeless, refugees and Gypsy-Traveller sites will be exempt.

Cammy Day, the council leader, said the city aims to use £5m of that income to borrow £70m to build new council housing and other affordable homes to tackle the city’s housing crisis. Edinburgh, like many other popular tourist destinations, has seen house prices and rents soar, pricing out many residents and helping push 3,126 households into homelessness last year. That has spurred protests by anti-poverty campaigners and recent Scottish government measures to impose extra licensing and planning controls on short-term lets.

Day said about 50% of the new tax revenues would be spent on the housing programme and on improving public spaces. That could include parks outside the city centre, replacing the shabby concert venue in Princes Street gardens known as the Ross bandstand, or on upgrading Princes Street itself. A further 35% will be invested in the city’s festivals and cultural venues, while 15% will go on tourism spending. That would all make the city a “much more enjoyable, presentable city for people to come to and live in”.

Day dismissed recent complaints from Rocco Forte, the hotels magnate who owns the Balmoral hotel on Princes Street, who called for a boycott of the tax in a recent article for the Scotsman, claiming a levy of 7% would cost Balmoral guests £1.3m a year. The council leader said they were still consulting people on the levy but there was no evidence from other cities that had introduced a tourism levy that it had cut visitor numbers. Some hoped their levies would reduce visitors, with no discernible effect.

Record Number Of Homeless Children Housed By Council

The rise in Trafford reflects a spike in child homelessness across England, reports the BBC.

A record number of homeless children are being temporarily housed in an area where private rents are “some of the highest in the UK”, a council has said. The latest official figures show 234 children in Trafford were living in temporary council accommodation at the end of March, the highest level since records began in 2004. The figure has soared by 47%, with statistics showing there were159 children living in B&Bs, hostels and other temporary housing in March 2023.

A spokesman for Trafford Council said high private rents and the cost of living crisis had led to a “sharp rise”. The increased numbers in Trafford reflect a general trend across England, where the latest official figures show a record high of more than 150,000 children housed in temporary accommodation. The issue has been described by the government as a “national scandal”.

In Trafford alone, there are now around 42 homeless children living in temporary accommodation for every 10,000 children under the age of 18 in the borough, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. Finding private sector accommodation remains difficult because there is a “large disparity” between rents charged by private landlords and the rates for local authority housing, the council spokesman said.

The council has employed a leader in the private sector to help find more temporary homes, with the aim of reducing the number of families staying in emergency accommodation such as B&Bs and hostels. “We are continuing to do all we can to help families back into permanent accommodation and prevent more families being made homeless,” said a spokesperson for Trafford Council. Efforts to increase the number of homes built over the long-term are also under way, to make sure “families can access quality accommodation at a rate they can afford”, the spokesman added.

New Plan To Tackle Liverpool’s Homelessness Crisis

The number of people rough sleeping in the city in recent months has reached unprecedented levels, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Homelessness should be “rare, brief and non-recurring” across Liverpool but a new plan to tackle the city’s housing crisis has laid bare the scale of the challenge ahead. As part of its statutory duties, Liverpool Council has to set out how it seeks to ensure people have access to housing in times of crisis. When it meets next week, the city’s cabinet will sign off on a homelessness strategy for the coming years. However, the plan to end rough sleeping has come slapped with dire warnings that financial pressures and changes to national policy continue to place strain on its services.

A new report into the city’s public health earlier this year indicated the link between poor quality or unsuitable housing on physical and mental wellbeing. Between October and December last year, the demand for homelessness assessments increased by 19% in comparison to the same quarter 12 months previous. Similarly, there has been a 12.1% increase in households in temporary accommodation across the same timeframe. The report said the main reasons for homelessness nationally reflect Liverpool’s trends including friends and family no longer being willing to accommodate accounting for more than a third of cases.

The number of people left homeless as a result of domestic abuse has risen to 17% while the loss of assured short-hold tenancy stands at 15%. The number of households presenting as, threatened with, or who are homeless, has remained consistent across Liverpool but the number of placements into temporary accommodation, and in particular hotels and/or bed and breakfast accommodation, continues to rise at “an alarming rate.” The document added how rough sleeping has also increased in recent months to unprecedented levels. Earlier this summer, the city wide rough sleeper outreach service delivered by the Whitechapel Centre recorded 164 people sleeping rough, with 74 of them helped into new accommodation and/or supported return into existing solutions.

Between 2017/18 and 2023/24, rough sleeping across Liverpool has increased by 141%. The report said one of the reasons behind this was a lack of 24-hour operations by the council’s outreach team until 2022, adding: “This change enabled us to find and support people who previously may have been missed. We have also made better use of intelligence to identify rough sleeping hotspots and directed the outreach team to these, to ensure we are finding as many people as possible and offering them a route off the streets.” The number of people sleeping rough long term was described as “very high” with an increase of 44% recorded.

The plan has warned however the “challenging financial position” of the council will impact how the strategy and subsequent services are delivered. This includes the continuing pressure of providing temporary accommodation which it said “places a significant financial burden” on the city, adding: “without action is likely to continue with increasing demand and a lack of suitable move-on accommodation.” The homelessness budget remains a significant area of financial risk, with an overspend in the last financial year of more than £1.3m. This is despite an increase of £12.5m to reflect the demands on the service. The authority hopes a move towards early intervention and preventative action will lead to a reduction in costs but an expected overspend for nightly paid accommodation in bed and breakfasts is more than £5m.

It is thought the forecasted spend for the last full financial year will have surpassed more than £21.5m, with a peak of 816 bed and breakfast bookings being reached in February. This number is expected to rise further still. In 2022/23, more than 1,600 people in Liverpool approached the council for help with homelessness, with 99% being assisted. Despite this, the authority’s prevention rate was a mere 17%, compared to 45% nationally. Cllr Sam East, cabinet member for housing, writing in the document, said: “Too often, responding to homelessness is seen as a reactive, emergency process. That has to change. We know that people experience housing stress in a variety of ways, beyond the most extreme form – rough sleeping on our streets.

“Severe strains” in the criminal justice system are among the issues that the strategy said would make preventing homelessness harder. City officials said more than a dozen ex-offenders reported sleeping rough. Additionally, the speeding up of asylum applications, leading to evictions from Home Office accommodation after just 28 days is adding to the pressure.

Walking Tours Of Manchester Led By People Affected By Homelessness

Getting to know Invisible Cities, reports The Manc.

Did you know you can go on a walking tour around Manchester, learning fascinating facts about our city’s rich history, where every tour guide has previously experienced homelessness? Invisible Cities is a brilliant social enterprise that trains former homeless people to become tour guides in their own city, right across the UK. As well as supporting people into new opportunities and breaking down the stigma around homelessness, these walking tours are just genuinely great fun – even if you already live here and think you know Manchester pretty well. From past and present pubs to potted histories, each tour is led by someone with first-hand experience of homelessness who has gone on to retrain as a tour guide.

Invisible Cities first started in Edinburgh but has operated walking tours here in Manchester since 2018. Everyone who is taken on by the organisation is supported (and paid a living wage), whether they choose to become a tour guide, take on other projects, or get referred on to other organisations. Invisible Cities has recently launched a Crowdfunding campaign to continue and step up their work. They hope that the funds will allow them to target groups that are harder to reach, including women, and people who have newly arrived in the UK, with a plan to offer them training and transferable skills. And there’s never been a better time to donate, with Aviva promising to match donations (up to a max match of £250).

As for the walking tours themselves, there are so many new ways to explore Manchester with Invisible Cities. For example, you could spend an afternoon looping around the city centre learning about Manchester’s brilliant pubs (including the Old Nag’s Head, The Briton’s Protection, and the Peveril of the Peak) and the role they’ve played in shaping the city’s history. That particular tour is Andy, who retraces his own steps from the 1980s, when he was busy falling in love with the bustling nightlife and rock music scene the area is so famed for. During Ales & Alleyways: Andy’s Stories of Pubs, you’ll learn about music, the suffragettes, football, Peterloo, Little Ireland and art in Manchester, and reflect back on how different the city used to look. While the tour is a celebration of the great British pub, there’s no drinking on the tour – instead, it’s a chance to spread awareness about the links between alcoholism and homelessness.

Other Invisible Cities tours in Manchester include Wonderwalk, where Nic will make you fall in love with the music of the city by delving right back in time to the beginnings of the city’s illustrious history of music and art. Wonderwalk will whisk you from venues like Bridgewater Hall and the Royal Northern College of Music to the legendary music venues like Big Hands and The Deaf Institute. Invisible Cities says: “The tour champions the legacy of Madchester that will never be lost, but also supports and empowers our smaller venues (which is now more important than ever) who play a huge part in the city’s never-ending, unique music scene. Nic strongly believes music is for everyone. Within the tour he takes you to corners of the city’s community that inspire and introduce music, art and dance to those who are isolated or anxious. Nic lives his life by these words: music is medicine, music lifts your spirit, softens your heart and brings people together.”

Then there’s We Built This City From Depression, which uncovers the less glamorous side of Manchester’s history, from the industrial revolution to the IRA bombing that led to the regeneration of the city centre. This Invisible Cities tour is led by Stephen, who’ll unveil the cobbled streets and working people that made Manchester what it is today, plus all the hurdles the city has overcome to end up such a vibrant place to live and visit. This tour includes visits to the C.S.W Tobacco Factory, Angel Meadows, the Corn Exchange and more.

Homelessness In England Reaches Record High

Latest housing data show 151,630 children in temporary accommodation – the most since records began, reports the Guardian.

More than 150,000 children in England are living in temporary accommodation, prompting calls for the government to address what it calls a “national scandal”. Living in temporary accommodation is considered a form of homelessness and can involve people staying in hostel or bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation. At the end of March there were 151,630 children living in temporary accommodation, an increase of 15% compared with the same time last year and the highest figure since this measure began in 2004. There were 117,450 households living in such conditions in England at the end of March, 74,530 of which included children, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

According to law, B&Bs are meant to be used only for families in an emergency, and for no longer than six weeks, but the figures showed 3,250 households with young people in England had been in such accommodation for longer. The figure for total households in temporary accommodation has increased each quarter for the past two years, and is up by 24% on the figure of 95,000 in early 2022. Shelter, the housing charity, said the government must “tackle the housing emergency head-on”. Polly Neate, its chief executive, said: “Without a clear plan to invest in genuinely affordable social homes, thousands more children will be forced to grow up in damaging temporary accommodation, spending months if not years living out of suitcases, crammed into grim bedsits and B&Bs, and unable to put down any roots.”

Lord Bird, the founder of the Big Issue magazine and a crossbench peer who has spoken out about his experience of growing up in poverty, said the latest figures were “appalling”. “Another winter looms and there’s little being done to turn this terrible tide,” he said. The number of households in England living in B&Bs reached 17,750, and as of the end of March this meant the number of homeless people living in such accommodation was 30% higher than the same time last year, while the 5,550 households with children living in B&Bs was up by almost half, at 44.2%.

The new Labour government said the situation was “a scandal”. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary said: “We are facing the most acute housing crisis in living memory and homelessness remains at record levels. This is nothing short of a national scandal. Urgent action must be taken to fix this. That’s why we are working across government and with local leaders to develop a long-term strategy to end homelessness for good. Work is already under way to stop people from becoming homeless in the first place. This includes delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable home-building in a generation, abolishing section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and a multimillion-pound package to provide homes for families most at risk of homelessness.”

Meanwhile, separate figures from the Ministry of Justice showed bailiff repossessions as a result of a no-fault eviction had reached the highest level for six years. Landlords can apply for an accelerated possession order if their tenants have not left by the date specified in a section 21 notice. There were 2,916 such repossessions between April and June this year, an increase of 31% on the same period last year and the highest quarterly figure since the beginning of 2018. Housing ministry figures showed that 6,630 households in England were assessed by councils as being threatened with homelessness between January and March 2024 as a result of section 21 notices to end their tenancies – up 1.2% from the same quarter last year.

Tom Darling, director of the Renters’ Reform Coalition, said: “While in opposition, this government pledged to end no-fault evictions immediately, and the king’s speech last month rightly promised a ‘renters’ rights bill’. However, renters cannot afford to wait much longer – we must see legislation brought forward soon to get a grip on the situation and address the renting crisis.”

Reflections On Homelessness

The smallest things can lead us to reflect on our past and remind us of difficult times. It’s important to remember who you are and how far you have come, while also enjoying the little things, writes Greta Gillett for Pavement Magazine.

Once you have been homeless and gone through what we have gone through, no matter the time that has passed – and whether you are ‘stable’ and back into society (what bullshit), so many things, so many tiny little things make you reflect with a multitude of emotions. For example, every time I’m in a greasy spoon-type café I will remember the times I would make one coffee last hours, filling all my pockets with as much sugar and ketchup sachets and tissues as I possibly could. So now those little brown packets of sugar and little red sachets of ketchup remind me of how I felt stuffing my pockets with things that were free for customers. I was a customer and yet I felt like a dirty thief.

I felt like I was taking up space and if someone sat at the table next to me, I would try my best to smile, as if to say, “don’t fear me, I’m good.” And if they were a mum with their baby on their lap, if they sat and breastfed, or read stories to toddlers or cut up food, I wanted to say loudly and clearly, “hello, I’m a mum too, I know you see me here by myself but actually I have children, three girls and a boy, and now I’m running around the world from city to city, hitchhiking and hiding, desperately trying to find the reason not to kill myself.” I wanted to tell that mum, or that waitress, or the person in the street who looked away as I caught them staring at me, that I was beaten and they took my children and then my home and I was slowly dying on the inside.

Pale and thin, I looked like a junkie but I didn’t even smoke, covered in tattoos telling stories of my children, remembering how sometimes for treats I would go with all four children and we would sit at a table and share chips and sausages and glasses of water. I remember people would tell me how well behaved and polite my children were. All of these memories that were running through my mind and overloading my brain simply came from packets of brown sugar. I’m very particular. Brown sugar with coffee; white sugar with tea; brown sauce with sausages; ketchup with bacon. And yet I hate so much that society demands of us to be organised. To fit a narrative, to be good and grateful and quiet and fucking small. I spoke up, I reported, I begged for help and they took my children. My four children who I raised, who I birthed, who I fed with my milk.

So my plan for survival, to be a winner in this sad story, was to have adventures, go places, fill my life with new stories and new people and art and music and to smell the grass. All so one day I can tell my children that while we were apart, I thought about them every day and I fought for them every day and they can tell people their mum is an artist and she writes stories and she has been all over the world. And if they want when they’re older they can also say their mum was abused and their mum was homeless and their mum was lied to and they were taken from their mum when she asked for help. But my story, my memory, the way I came back, the way I found myself through the nightmares, the hallucinations, the terrors, the panic, the threats, was that I took a lot of pleasure in the small details.

If someone shared a happy memory with me of their own story I listened intently, when I made tea in my hostel, I used my own mug from Poundland and the exact peppermint tea with just half a teaspoon of honey to sooth myself and with each sip I started to shake less and my breathing slowed down. On my daily walks I would take out my phone and photograph the flowers growing out of cracks and one photo is still up in my bedroom today to remember that feeling I had that day as I walked the streets. Let us not forget who we are, let life’s troubles not take over, let systems not break us down. We are like those photos I took of flowers sprouting from rubble and cracks. Something beautiful can bud from the strangest places.