Marek isn’t exactly sure at what point he realised his liberty had been lost, but he thinks it was probably when the expressionless van driver pushed them into the filthy storage room and he heard the key turn. He remembers the look of fear on Pavel’s face and was suddenly certain that they had been duped. It had started promisingly. Marek is naturally outgoing, but he tells his story with restrained earnestness, occasionally looking towards the door as if fearing his captors might burst in at any moment to return him to the storage room prison. Marek is from a small town in the Czech Republic where he lived in a cramped flat with his girlfriend. Apart from occasional work on building sites he has been mostly unemployed over the last three years and when a neighbour offered to link him with people in the UK who could find him well paid work with accommodation, Marek responded enthusiastically. He was encouraged to bring a friend, so contacted 63 year-old Pavel who had family...
From 1999-2018 I was CEO of homelessness charity Thames Reach. From 2018-20 I worked at MHCLG to deliver rough sleeping and homelessness programmes. This blog seeks to bring to life the complexities, dilemmas, set-backs and triumphs that are part of trying to help people escape homelessness. It aims to tell the stories of the inspirational people I have met in my work, many of whom have faced homelessness and from whom I have learnt a lot.