I am sixty-four years old in August and have been in the homeless system since 2012, and have lived here at Emmaus Dover for just over a year.
When I was younger, between the ages of 10 and 16, I used to work with my dad on his market stall where we sold fruit and veg and women’s lingerie. I think that’s why I like working in the shop here, working in retail is like putting on a comfy old shoe!
After losing my dad in 1998 and then my mum four years later, I lived in the Midlands for a few years, but it didn’t work out there.
In 2011, I moved back down here to the south to live with my sister, and I got a job. Everything was going swimmingly, but I then left and found myself sleeping in a hedge for a night. A family member found me and took me to a hostel in St Albans that had an open-door policy, and then I found various charities that supported me, including YMCYA, but you can only stay there for a maximum of 18 months, so it is more short-term, unlike Emmaus.
I had a few jobs, but always ended up staying in a hostel as it felt like a safety net, and I don’t do very well on my own. However, I then found a great place to stay, but the council threw a technical spanner in the works, and I needed to leave. I told my support worker that if I couldn’t find a place to stay by the Friday, I wouldn’t be here any longer and would be quite happy to join my mum and dad.
My support worker then gave me a leaflet about Emmaus, and I was then at Emmaus St Albans for three years before arriving here at Emmaus Dover, where I have been a companion for just over a year.
At Emmaus, we are offered different types of training to help us learn skills. I would really like to take a maths course with one-to-one tuition to help me improve in this area. I enjoy astronomy as a hobby, so having some extra maths skills will also help me with that.
I love it here at Emmaus. I suffer from anxiety, but have found the support here to help me manage it. Emmaus gives me a focus, a reason to get up in the morning, and a sense of purpose. I love working in the second-hand store and garden centre. I really enjoy talking to customers and try and cheer them up by having a ‘having a bit of a laugh’ with them. I get the chance to do lots of different things, for example, today I’m working up in the warehouse, so I get to do work that is out of my comfort zone, and that’s good for me.
My goal for the future is that one day, when I retire, I’d love to tour parts of America, especially Vegas, and maybe even Thailand and Australia.
Emmaus has literally saved my life, and I will always be grateful for that.