Today more than 10,000 people and families are waiting for a council house in Nottingham amid an ever-worsening homelessness crisis. Mel Bensley was once one of the thousands and recalls bidding against almost 400 other people for a one-bed flat. She spoke to Local Democracy Reporter Joe Locker.
Perched on a sofa in the warmth of a flat, with the autumn temperatures outside now sitting just above freezing, 52-year-old Mel looks content.
She has been reunited with her four-year-old cat, Little Miss, and she’s now working as a peer mentor for mental health support charity Wellness in Mind.
But just over a year ago, Mel was homeless.
Unaware of it at the time, Mel had experienced trauma from the age of 17 having served with the Army for four years, during which time she was posted to Northern Ireland with the Royal Signals.
After her time in the forces she worked in care and as a traffic warden, before eventually going on to work in the pub trade in 2005 as a troubleshooter.
Around 14 years ago she took on the running of a pub in Radford as the landlady.
It wasn’t until 2020 the trauma would resurface.
“Unfortunately Covid hit,” Mel said.
“The problem was when we came to lockdown and I got locked in for two years on my own.
“There was nothing either side of me. An industrial unit one side and empty student accommodation the other side. So I was very isolated.
“The only thing I could do was reach for the bottle because, by this time, my PTSD had started to kick in.”
Mel had not realised she had been suffering with the condition, having been living with it “quite successfully”.
On January 24 last year she had to stop running the pub due to alcoholism.
Mel left her job, her cat and her home with a single rucksack and £4.50 in her pocket.
From January to the end of May she sofa-surfed at night and spent her time wondering the city streets during the day.
“Although I wasn’t homeless at night because I had somewhere to put my head down, during the day while they were out at work I had to walk the streets of Nottingham,” she said.
“It was case of find places to go and sit. The Victoria Centre was really nice. I was lucky, I liked doing crosswords and puzzles.”
During these long months Mel waited for a new home on the council’s housing waiting list.
The numbers of people and families on the list has risen from 8,000 in 2021 to more than 10,000 as of this year.
Mel recalled bidding on properties alongside 160 to 200 other people and, at its worst, almost 400 people.
“The situation is getting worse, I’ve looked at the figures, and it is not just people who are addicted, it is also working people,” Mel added.
“The pandemic caused a lot of problems. I went straight onto the council waiting list and there was one property that I bid on, it was not a particularly large property, but there were 363 people who had bid on that one.
“It’s a bit like when I was looking for work, because I have always been in work and I had no reality of it, looking for jobs online I didn’t know how to set up.
“I still thought you got the local paper on the Wednesday and looked in the jobs section, or asked your friends and family. It is the same with the housing.
“I thought you just went down to the housing office. But no, you don’t do that any more, you have got to register online and prove why you need a house.
“And you have got to get a lot of paperwork. People who are homeless don’t have paperwork, they might have lost it, or it is stolen, or they might not have had it in the first place.”
Eventually Mel sought support from the Nottingham Recovery Network, which helped her with alcoholism, and signposted her towards homelessness support charity Framework.
Framework managed to secure her a one-bed flat at one of its premises and here Mel was reunited with her cat.
Having spent time volunteering at Café Sobar, which supports people in similar situations, Mel got her confidence back.
Through the academy at the Nottingham Recovery Network she achieved a qualification to become a peer mentor.
“I managed to knock on the right door at the right time and get the right help,” she added.
“There are a lot of people who knock on doors and they get slammed in their face so they get despondent.
“That’s the hardest thing, to keep going and keep knocking on doors.”
Rough sleeping in Nottingham is on the rise.
Around 47 people are found on city streets every day on average, following a 42 per cent increase on last year.
Nottingham City Council says funding from Government to get rough sleepers off the streets and keep them safe at the height of the Covid pandemic helped bring numbers down.
This project, called ‘Everyone In’, has since ceased.
Cllr Jay Hayes, who looks after housing at the council, said: “I think the pandemic showed we could tackle rough sleeping, we managed to get everybody in and since then the funding from national government has been pulled.
“We can do it, but we need wider support and more backing from Government and long-term solutions rather than short-term thinking to tackle this.”
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was contacted for comment.
In December 2022 the Government said £654 million would be provided to councils in England over two years through the Homelessness Prevention Grant, to support them to deliver services to prevent and tackle homelessness.
Nottingham received £1.4m for the 12 months to April 2024 and will get £1.5m the year after.
