A laughing, happy four-year-old girl leaves her classroom at the end of a school day and runs to her mother Naomi who sweeps her off her feet in a loving embrace. Few people observing this warm, everyday domestic scene would guess at the incredible hardship Naomi faces as a homeless mother on a daily basis - because Naomi is not the face we typically associate with homelessness.
Naomi, 31, became homeless five years ago after she fell out with her family. That was the start of a nightmarish ordeal for Naomi that five years later is still ongoing, with the council slow to offer her housing and eventually finding her temporary places to live that have been unsafe or inappropriate for a pregnant mother, and latterly a mother with a young child.
Recently Naomi told her poignant story at a conference in Cardiff attended by around 100 government housing officers, local authorities and housing experts. She was given a platform by the Centre for Homelessness Impact, a charity seeking to use data and evidence (written and oral) to challenge homelessness stereotypes and bring about policy changes that will end homelessness. Naomi was also photographed for the charity’s free online library of non-stigmatising images of homelessness.
This group is one the charities we are funding with a £50,000 grant by our winter appeal in partnership with Comic Relief, A Place to Call Home, which seeks to help London’s two most disadvantaged groups, people experiencing homelessness and refugees.
Greg Hurst, spokesperson for the charity, said: “Most people’s view of homelessness is of men sleeping rough in shop doorways, but there are lots of hidden homeless, including women with children. We want to challenge these stigmas through research, data and imagery to broaden the support for tackling homelessness and to bring about robust interventions that end homelessness once and for all.”
For Naomi, speaking at the conference was a “surreal” experience, “because after being ignored by the council for so long, I was actually being listened to by people in power and people that mattered,” she said. “It gave me confidence and it made me feel hope that some people in power actually care.”
Naomi and her daughter are one of 60,000 London families, with 83,000 children, living in temporary accommodation and classed as homeless, according to London Councils. It’s a shocking figure made even more shocking in Naomi’s case by the length of time it has dragged on.
How you can help
£10 could provide a young person travel to meet a wellbeing mentor and have a hot meal
£50 could provide travel to work or school for a month for an at-risk youth
£150 could refurbish a bike for an adult refugee giving them freedom to travel independently
£500 could train ten people with experience of homelessness to become homeless health advocates £1,000 could enable one of our partners to fully support a young person throughout the year
To make a donation visit: comicrelief.com/winter
Initially, said Naomi, the council housing officer in her south London borough refused to believe she was pregnant and she was forced to sofa surf at friends and at the house of the parents of the unborn baby’s father, who is no longer in her life. Naomi was struggling with morning sickness and holding down her job at a high street retailer whilst having to bring documents to prove her “vulnerable homeless” status to the council.
“After two months they moved me into a one-bedroom flat in Tooting,” she said. “It was meant to be temporary emergency accommodation but my heart sank when I saw it. There was damp and mould and it was full of mice droppings. I was trying to stay strong for my unborn child but I knew this was not a safe place I could bring my new-born home to. I approached the council to fix it or move me, but they treated me like something stuck to the bottom of their shoe and ignored my complaints. I had a breakdown from all the stress while I was there and felt totally abandoned.”
Eventually council officers came to inspect Naomi’s flat, reported her problems as valid, and moved her to another temporary emergency accommodation - a cramped studio flat in Streatham acquired by the council on license. By then her baby had been born and was seven months old. Here there were different problems, a leaking roof, but it was an improvement. Six months later, the council wrote to her to say they had “mistakenly forgotten” about her case and that they wanted to move her again.
Naomi said: “When my daughter was three, they moved me to a flat in Elephant and Castle, but the place had no gas and no electricity. When I complained, the council sent someone down who said the place was a commercial property not even zoned for domestic use. Nobody at the council responded to my emails and so I just went back to my Streatham place as, luckily, I still had the key.”
Naomi, who had held her emotions in check during our interview, began to sob. “The council treat me as if I am invisible,” she said. “I am to this day in the Streatham flat but I have no rights and they can move me on at any time and if I decline the move, they can say I have “intentionally made myself homeless” and wash their hands of me. Whenever I try and speak to the housing department, I am passed from pillar to post. There is just no sense of care for my situation whatsoever.”
Her one solace, she said, is that her daughter is thriving. “She brings so much joy,” she said. “I was breaking down a lot thinking about my situation, but now I am learning to try to roll with the punches.”
Naomi added: “I am excited to be a young mother in London but having an unstable housing situation is not easy. There are many things about my situation I cannot control, but telling my story and shedding light on the voiceless hidden homeless is important. It makes me feel people care and that I am seen.”
In a nutshell
Our winter appeal, A Place to Call Home, in partnership with Comic Relief, is seeking to help fund organisations in London and across the country that support asylum seekers and people experiencing homelessness.
To make a donation, just scan the QR code or visit: comicrelief.com/winter
