Claire's Story

Claire* has been supported by our outreach team for the last 5 months. After working with our outreach teams , we have been able to help Claire access emergency accommodation in a shared living space whilst she waits for a more stable place to live. 

Watch Claire's story now

I had left home a few times before this year but always ended up going back as I had nowhere else to go. My partner was angry a lot, and often that anger was directed at me. For a long time, I felt like it was my fault, and I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I was always trying to do the right things to avoid creating an argument.  

At first, I’d been able to go to friend’s houses and sleep in spare rooms or sofas. But some of them had kids and I could tell that I was becoming a burden. Once, my ex turned up on the doorstop and tried to fight my friend’s husband. I knew then that I couldn’t go back to their house and soon enough I stopped hearing from them all together.  

That’s what he was good at. Isolating me, making it so I had nowhere else to go. I was so scared, I felt trapped.  

One day, I finally had enough. I couldn’t take it anymore, I packed a bag while he was out and left. I didn’t take my keys or anything important, nothing he could try and come back for. Just some clean clothes and a spare pair of shoes.  

I didn’t have a plan; I’d run out of friends to call favours from and had less than £50 in my purse. I couldn’t afford a BnB and didn’t know how I’d be able to get to work, or where I was going to sleep.  

Edinburgh was suddenly a stranger to me – I had to start looking at streets with a new perspective – would it be warm overnight? Would it be safe? Could I be seen? I sheltered in doorways, used my dwindling cash to get warm on long bus journeys to nowhere, and started learning where I could get a hot drink or lunch for free.  

Before now I had never needed to know who to call for a place to stay or how to get help. It’s so complicated and you end up speaking to so many people getting different advice, and on top of all that you’re stressed, tired from barely sleeping, hungry and cold.  

The Cyrenians team took away some of that stress for me. They spoke to me like an equal, not someone who was broken and beneath them. I met them at a lunch club I’d found, and at first they just chatted with me  – we spoke about the news, I’d been reading the metro as it made me feel less alone.  

They helped me figure out where to go – who I needed to speak to, what lists I needed to be on if I had any hope of finding a place to stay. They sorted me out with bus travel so I could go to lunch clubs, eat regularly and attend meetings at the Access Place.  

It was through them that I was able to get a room at a BnB – there’s no kitchen, and very little privacy, but it is warm. I was getting really desperate when the weather started turning, I didn’t know if I’d be able to cope with a winter outdoors.  

I’m still waiting to hear if there’s any permanent accommodation, but it does feel quite hopeless. Lots of people have been waiting longer than me, and there’s just nowhere available.  

I’m glad to be away from my ex, but I now feel like I’m trapped in some kind of limbo. I’m off the streets, but I’m not anywhere I could call home. I’m living on the edge of the city I’ve known my whole life, but I can’t plan for my future or try to rebuild my life. I’m just waiting.