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| ‘They're so welcoming’: how Depaul UK helped young homeless man turn life around | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| I’m sitting in a nice little cafe at the offices of the Depaul UK youth homelessness charity when a familiar face walks in. | I’m sitting in a nice little cafe at the offices of the Depaul UK youth homelessness charity when a familiar face walks in. |
| I’ve never met 22-year-old-Corey before but his National Youth Theatre hoodie reminds me I’ve seen him in a play – Lyric Hammersmith’s Passin’ Thru, a drama about life in homeless hostels. Corey was one of a number of actors in the play with personal experience of homelessness. | I’ve never met 22-year-old-Corey before but his National Youth Theatre hoodie reminds me I’ve seen him in a play – Lyric Hammersmith’s Passin’ Thru, a drama about life in homeless hostels. Corey was one of a number of actors in the play with personal experience of homelessness. |
| His story is in many ways extraordinary. For chunks of his teenage years in north London he slept on the streets or sofa-surfed, escaping a desperately unhappy home life. He first became homeless when he was 13. He had a strained relationship with his father and eventually it became impossible for him to live at home. When he left, he moved in with his grandmother. Unfortunately, she relocated to Wales and Corey found himself with nowhere to live and had to sofa-surf with friends and family, and sleep rough a few times. | |
| The experience was isolating and demoralising: “Sometimes people would ask, doesn’t your mum love you? Obviously my mum loves me, she’s like the best mum in the world, she just couldn’t have me at home.” | The experience was isolating and demoralising: “Sometimes people would ask, doesn’t your mum love you? Obviously my mum loves me, she’s like the best mum in the world, she just couldn’t have me at home.” |
| Between sofas, a garden bench and a local McDonald’s, Corey passed 18 GCSEs in year 11. Determined to block out the chaos, and desperate to impress his dad, he grafted away in an all-night cafe, reading, revising, writing poetry. | Between sofas, a garden bench and a local McDonald’s, Corey passed 18 GCSEs in year 11. Determined to block out the chaos, and desperate to impress his dad, he grafted away in an all-night cafe, reading, revising, writing poetry. |
| The hard work seemed to pay off: during A-levels, Corey won a Fulbright scholarship to do a double major in neuroscience and theatre and dance at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, US. He puts his academic achievement down to a resilience honed through his homelessness: “I didn’t have a level of comfort to allow myself to become complacent. I always had to be doing something to keep myself going. That’s why I did the extra GCSEs … it gave me something to focus on.” | |
| But this was to be no happy ending. After a few months, Corey came home. He was lonely, and wanted to help care for his younger brother. He wangled a research placement at University College London. At the heart of his move back to the UK was the hope that this time, things might finally work out with his family. | But this was to be no happy ending. After a few months, Corey came home. He was lonely, and wanted to help care for his younger brother. He wangled a research placement at University College London. At the heart of his move back to the UK was the hope that this time, things might finally work out with his family. |
| They didn’t. Corey spent the night of his 21st birthday sleeping between a gym toilet, Euston station and a bus. He had made it halfway through his UCL placement while sleeping rough, but eventually it became too much: he dropped out. “In a few of [my] poems I talk about a pitch black tunnel without the light at the end; for a while, after years of trying to do everything right and trying to push myself further than I believed I could go, I was so broken that I wasn’t sure exactly how many more birthdays I’d see, or if they were worth reaching.” | They didn’t. Corey spent the night of his 21st birthday sleeping between a gym toilet, Euston station and a bus. He had made it halfway through his UCL placement while sleeping rough, but eventually it became too much: he dropped out. “In a few of [my] poems I talk about a pitch black tunnel without the light at the end; for a while, after years of trying to do everything right and trying to push myself further than I believed I could go, I was so broken that I wasn’t sure exactly how many more birthdays I’d see, or if they were worth reaching.” |
| Here, at his lowest point, Corey found help – and a bed to sleep in – through Nightstop. The service, which is run through one of the Guardian and Observer’s 2017 appeal charities, Depaul UK, provides emergency shelter for homeless youngsters: a place to stay for a short period, with DBS-checked volunteer hosts providing a spare room for the night. | |
| With Nightstop it was the certainty as much as the warm comfort of a bed that he appreciated: “With couch-surfing, you never know how long it’s going to last, whether someone’s going to ask you to pay, or things like that.” Instability had affected his mental health. Never knowing how long he would get to stay and unable to plan for the future, at times it felt harder than sleeping rough. | |
| Some of the hosts Corey stayed with he’ll remember for life: “One taught me how to ride a bike for the first time. I was 21 so it was kind of embarrassing,” he says fondly. Others showed great kindness: “One host asked about my heritage and I said I’m half Jamaican … The next day, I came home and she’d made me curry goat and rice.” He laughs that the meal wasn’t quite as he recognised it but it was nice nonetheless. “They were so welcoming and inviting.” | |
| Corey stayed in Nightstop host accommodation for a few months. When he moved on it was into some of Depaul’s supported accommodation for young people. This provides the type of 24-hour support that young people living at home would normally expect from their parents. For Corey, this was the start of his new life: “It was about having a lock on the door. That meant a lot mentally and emotionally. I could finally start to focus on what happened to me.” | Corey stayed in Nightstop host accommodation for a few months. When he moved on it was into some of Depaul’s supported accommodation for young people. This provides the type of 24-hour support that young people living at home would normally expect from their parents. For Corey, this was the start of his new life: “It was about having a lock on the door. That meant a lot mentally and emotionally. I could finally start to focus on what happened to me.” |
| Corey is now the head of Depaul’s youth panel. He sits at roundtable discussions with politicians and goes into schools advising young people about what to do if they ever end up homeless. He continues to write poetry – he has been commissioned by the Barbican’s young poet’s programme – and is involved in youth theatre. | |
| Nightstop and Depaul, he reflects, provided the vital bridge that saved his life, and enabled him to start planning for the future. “They eased me back into the reality and productivity that has given me so much excitement and hope for all that seems to be right around the corner. Imagine if I hadn’t made it to this corner.” | |
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