The invisible man

Michael Jackson says he would probably ‘have killed myself by now’ if it wasn’t for his landlord.

The 51-year-old Adullam Homes Housing Association tenant, who lives in Congleton in Cheshire, has had a horrendous couple of years. At the end of 2008 he became homeless and spent months living in a tent after a relationship breakdown left him in debt.

He eventually approached Adullam’s single homelessness team and was re-housed. Just as it appeared he was getting his life back together, however, he began to experience problems with his movement.

Initially he tried to deny anything was wrong, but was finally forced to confront reality head on when his support worker arrived one day to find him lying on the floor. After tests he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in January this year.

The frightening thing is that if Mr Jackson hadn’t referred himself to Adullam, both his existence and his condition might have gone unreported. Despite being homeless for months, he didn’t show up in any official statistics.

He is not alone. Adullam staff say more and more people are applying directly to the single homelessness project rather than being referred by Congleton Council, where figures show the number of people accepted as homeless is down. Do these cases highlight a wider need for councils to think again about how they count - and fund - homelessness services in their areas?

Staff from the single homelessness project are keen to emphasise that people like Mr Jackson reveal a need for the government and councils to look at their own best practice. With some of the funding for projects like theirs proportionate to official homelessness statistics, it’s possible that many more people are missing out on the kind of flexible support the single homelessness team has given Mr Jackson.

When he first approached Adullam, Mr Jackson was housed in the provider’s single person’s project in Congleton town centre. Because he was used to living independently he was quickly moved into his own property (though if necessary residents can remain in the hostel for longer as they prepare for independence).

In Mr Jackson’s case the fact that his support did not evaporate after he left the hostel was vital. Since staff called him regularly, they spotted his mobility problems without which he would never have been diagnosed with his terminal condition.

Dave Moore, single homelessness team project manager, says he ensured staff visited Mr Jackson regularly because he’d had ‘feedback from staff saying his movement was getting worse’. The fact that the provider has a regular turnover of tenants as they move to more independent lifestyles meant that Adullam was almost immediately able to transfer Mr Jackson to a ground floor flat rather than leaving him trapped in his previous home.

While Mr Jackson’s circumstances are unique, the way Adullam discovered his predicament is becoming increasingly common. In fact, Mr Jackson was one of 105 people who made a direct application to the single homelessness project for housing last year - roughly a third of all 314 applicants.

Mr Moore says this is worrying because few, if any, of those applicants would have figured in any official homelessness statistics.

‘There seems to be an underbelly of people who are homeless but don’t get captured in anybody’s figures,’ he says. ‘A homeless person doesn’t necessarily sleep on Congleton High Street. They will go where they know they are not going to get harassed.’ Mr Jackson’s tent was one such place.

Mr Moore emphasises that the council takes a positive approach to the problem and regularly asks Adullam for information on which it bases funding decisions. But he also feels that the number of self-referrals his organisation receives suggests there may be many more homeless people who don’t seek help.

‘Homelessness counts might find one homeless person,’ he states. ‘I know that we get two or three people that are of no fixed abode each week.’ Funding does not, therefore, necessarily match the full extent of the problem, he suggests.

‘The number [of approaches from homeless people] from our perspective as a provider is not decreasing yet you might hear from different councils that numbers are decreasing,’ he states.

Mr Jackson has nothing but praise for the way he has been treated since he approached the service. ‘I can’t say enough about these people,’ he says. ‘They have gone out of their way to help me, big time.’

The question is, how many more Mr Jacksons are there who never receive the help they need because, as far as statistics are concerned, they do not exist?

Have your say

You must sign in to make a comment