Tracey Emin to offer art lessons to hostel residents

Tracey Emin announced the plans as she spoke about her own experience of homelessness during a relaunch of Arlington House hostel in Camden, north London. Ms Emin said she wants to sell lessons at the hostel to raise money for its work with single homeless people. She will also teach some of the hostel’s inhabitants.

The artist, who shot to fame as part of the Britart movement and was shorlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, made the pledge at the launch of Arlington House last Thursday. Opening the hostel alongside London mayor Boris Johnson, Ms Emin described her own experiences of twice being made homeless and of living in social housing.

She said she lived in temporary accommodation in Margate for nine months, where she was the only woman in a house of men, and said she was so scared that she had to lock her bedroom door every night.

Six years later, after leaving the Royal Academy of Arts, Ms Emin found herself homeless again. She said she visited Southwark Council’s homeless department every day for six months until she was found accommodation.

Ms Emin then lived in social housing managed by a co-operative for 10 years. She said: ‘Living there changed my life. I was involved there for 10 years, as a member of the committee, and I would not be here now if it wasn’t for that community.’

One Housing Group completed the extensive refurbishment of Arlington House, which now has 95 private units for the homeless, 35 flats at intermediate rent, a restaurant and training facilities, including art studios.

The project, which aims to replicate the Times Square development in New York, has had a chequered history. One Housing Group took over Arlington House from troubled social justice charity Novas Scarman in June last year.

George Orwell famously wrote about the hostel, which was also mentioned in a chart hit in the 1980s by pop group Madness.

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