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How I became Homeless

A year ago I was in a housing co-op flat and working as an IT support worker for Amnesty International. How then, did I end up living in a garden hut and under too much pressure to even claim benefit? That is a long story but here is a little of it.

I lived in the same housing co-op (it was a short-life housing co-op, so it was a few months here, and a few months there) for about five years. Like many housing co-ops, it was dominated by a small elite, who had a very cosy relationship with the very highly paid workers of the co-op. If you were one of those insiders, you had access to the best housing and a great deal of perks; as an outsider, I was quite cynically placed in appalling situations. In the last two I was placed with individuals who were known to be difficult to live with. Space prevents me from giving the details � readers can take it or leave it � but I found out that other people were refugees from their company. I also have a problem with anxiety, which meant that I had a hard time coping with them. Friends of mine in the co-op speculated that my problems may have been due to my asking a number of questions at the co-op AGM after the auditors refused to pass the books, but I don�t know if that was the case.

I had completed a short contract for Amnesty, who are the nicest people I ever worked for, but their refusal to give me a written contract and paying me holiday money I hadn�t expected a month after I left led to problems with JSA and housing benefit. In conjunction with the situation at home, this increased my anxiety to such an extent I went sick. Shortly after that I gave up and went to Rotterdam, selling the 2^nd hand computer I had bought with the holiday money to do so.

An old friend of mine in Rotterdam had just got married, and very kindly, he and his wife gave me the use of his flat for a month when they went on honeymoon. I had just found work when they came back, but unfortunately he and his wife had a major row the night they came back after she opened her post and discovered that he had made an appointment on her behalf which put her life under considerable stress. I slept through all of this, but when I got up next morning and asked him if I could stay for another week (my room was unused and completely disconnected from their living space, and I was on the track of a room) he said she needed space.

I have been involved with mental health issues for years, campaigning against the psychiatric system and also successfully supporting a number of friends through periods of psychotic breakdown without the use of drugs, so I am experienced in supporting people in distress. I spent some time with his wife and managed to calm her down and look at the situation more philosophically. After a couple of days she told me in front of him that I had saved their marriage, and asked me why I wasn�t staying longer. I had to say that I had made other arrangements, which wasn�t true, and having to leave so soon led to me having to go back to London.

That was in August �99, and a great deal has happened since then, including a short period at a tree nursery in the West of Ireland, a flatshare in London that didn�t work out, and (a month ago) an illegal eviction by a demolition company on behalf of Southwark Council (council policy these days seems to be to devolve dirty operations to private contractors, thus maintaining them in a state of �grace�, like Macchievelli�s Prince)

During the period when I was squatting I was also claiming unemployment benefit. In common with most people, I find it is so low that it is almost impossible to live on, let alone look for work, and I spent almost all of my time looking for free food � walking many miles to homeless centres etc. In order to have the resources to find work (money for computer access to type letters, fares, stationary etc) I needed some extra money, so for a couple of months I tried to sell the Big Issue. Without going into details, this didn�t work out, and I also had to move squats a couple of times during this period, and was intermittently ill for a month, because I�d been selling the Big Issue in the rain. So when I come up for a restart interview, apart from applying for an IT job at the Big Issue, which was a farcical waste of time, I had no proof of job-search to show them. As I was about to be evicted I decided it would be easier to let my claim slip until I found somewhere stable rather than pretend to be looking for work when in was actually quite impossible.

Personally, the common factor I find in all of this is a corrupt and bureaucratic public sector which drives people crazy, particularly in housing. When you read about the policy of �raising the hurdles� coming from the Department for Social Security, you sometimes wonder if there is not some kind of covert �war against the poor� going on. It certainly seems that way.