“Homelessness can happen to anybody” – Mary’s story

23 Dec 2024

“I couldn’t tell anyone to start with. I felt ashamed, I never thought I’d be in that position. There’s a stigma around homelessness but it can happen to anybody.”

Mary was in her early 50s and working full time when her landlord, who wanted to sell up, served her a no-fault eviction notice. Under the new legislation, the Government is set to ban these types of eviction from next Summer. For Mary though, it was the end of her tenancy and the start of her problems.

“I had to move out, there was nothing I could afford. I didn’t have the money for a rental deposit. I had nowhere else to go. So, I ended up sleeping in a garage I was renting.

“It was February 2023. It was dark. It was damp and quite scary at times. I didn't get a lot of sleep.”

Mary kept going to work during the day but kept her struggles secret from her work colleagues. During the evening at weekends, she would walk to restaurants to get a hot meal.

“I was just wandering around town. It was very cold.”

After two months of living in the garage, the Rough Sleeper Support Service at West Suffolk Council helped Mary into temporary accommodation. She then secured her own flat in Bury St Edmunds earlier this year.

She says the experience has changed her outlook on life.

“People think of life through the material possessions that they have. The telly, the mobile phone. When you are stuck in a garage, homeless, wherever you are, you’ve got nothing. Yes, the material stuff make you feel happy but at the end of the day it’s not the be all and end all.

“Just hang in there, it will be tough, it was tough, don’t be afraid to speak out.”

Since the beginning of November, West Suffolk’s Rough Sleeper Service has helped accommodate 29 people who were rough sleeping. While the number of people rough sleeping changes frequently as people accept or leave accommodation, the service is continuing to do all that it can to encourage people to take up the support and accommodation that is available to them.

The council has also adopted a new Housing, Homelessness Reduction and Rough Sleeping Strategy which includes greater work with partners to try to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping from occurring.

If you know or suspect someone is sleeping rough, the quickest way to report it to the council’s rough sleeper service is using the Streetlink website – the service then gets an alert, and they will go and speak to the person (if they aren’t already) to try to get them the help that they need.

You can also donate to the Looking for Change campaign run by Bury Drop In which challenges people to think about the reasons why they give – and instead give to the charity. The money is then used to help people who have previously been rough sleeping, who have subsequently stayed in temporary accommodation while they got support for any mental health or addiction issues that they may have, and who are ready to move into more settled and permanent accommodation.

In Bury St Edmunds, people can support the campaign through a text by typing BSE followed by the amount (so for £5 type BSE5) and send to 70085. You can also donate online on the Bury Drop In website.

See more on Mary’s story on YouTube.

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