Homelessness Experience: Lisa's Story
- Borough: Enfield
- Organisation: Enfield Council Community Hubs
- Topics: children and young people, housing
Who we are
The Enfield Community Hubs team are a face-to-face service, connecting residents with services and support in relation to health and wellbeing, money advice, employment and housing stability. Our Community Hubs are a safe space for residents to access support as well as connect with other residents through community activities.
The Community Hubs recognise the importance of championing the voices of those with lived-experience as a vehicle of driving change. By building trusted relationships with residents as they are being supported by our team, we have been able to record and share residents stories. In 2024, we recorded Lisa’s experience and reflections on being homeless as a young person.
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Lisa’s story touches the many raw emotions of being made homeless as a young person.
She touches on the ‘shame’ and ‘embarrassment’ of being homeless and the feeling of being alone and that no-one can help you. However, Lisa reflects on the importance of talking to people, such as teachers, for support, and the calm space libraries provided during periods of unsettlement. Lisa’s honest account highlights that despite the negative situations she faced, ‘life didn’t stop’ and she continued to work hard towards her goals, going to university and graduating.
Lisa’s story provides reassurance for those in similar situations who may be feeling incredibly overwhelmed and uncertain of what the future holds. Lisa’s words provide encouragement and understanding for young people in similar situations.
The impact of our work
Hearing Lisa’s story in her own words creates an incredibly moving and impactful account. It would have been much harder to create the same impact by sharing Lisa’s experience as a written ‘case study’. Providing the platform to facilitate direct accounts from those with lived experiences creates a raw and powerful tool for changing systems.
Lisa’s account has already been shared with young people in similar situations, however we hope Lisa’s story will bring relatability and hope to many more young people experiencing homelessness today.
The changes we would like to see
This project has already fed into wider work within the Council, which has seen more joined up working across Housing and Schools Improvement teams to provide children and families experiencing homelessness with a coordinated and supported response to their situation. We would like to see other statutory services across Local Authority and Health services deliver further joined up responses to supporting young people experiencing homelessness.
To enable this change to happen, we need more training, which includes service users’ insight, for statutory services that support people experiencing homelessness. We need services to adopt the approach that small, simple changes to systems and processes can improve the experiences of the people they support. The GLA could support a London-wide network that shares best practice and innovation in improving the experiences of young people facing homelessness.
Find out more
Get in touch
If you have any questions about Enfield Council Community Hubs, you can get in touch at [email protected].
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