- You are a fucking bitch”: a man’s voice.
- Then the sound of violent banging,
- a woman’s sobs.
- Officers were on the way;
- sobbing and breathing heavily,
- she said the man had retreated.
- Police arrived and arrested him.
- She had opened her window.
- If the man had succeeded in getting through the door
- she was prepared to jump two floors to escape.
- The woman was calling from her bedroom.
- She had been placed in ‘exempt’ supported housing
- after leaving prison –
- a five-year term for serious fraud and deception.
- She had a history of mental illness:
- suicide attempts, spells in psychiatric hospitals.
- She had been the victim of violent abuse
- at the hands of a former partner:
- twice he had fractured her skull;
- marks on her arms; burn scars
- snaking across her chest,
- where he had set her on fire
- while she slept.
- The man hammering on her door that night
- was a troubled alcoholic with demons of his own.
- He was under
- a suspended prison sentence
- for making threats with a machete.
- Police ultimately did not bring charges against him –
- a result of conflicting versions of events that night.
- “Officers attended the address just after midnight
- and arrested a man.
- It was alleged he had
- been verbally aggressive to the woman,
- made threats, and
- damaged the door to her room.
- The woman was not injured.
- The man was later released without charge;
- the property owner said
- the damage to the door
- was already there.
- He would not support
- a prosecution.”
- A Probation Service spokesperson said
- “Prisoners released without somewhere to live
- are 50 per cent more likely to reoffend.
- Providing basic accommodation on release
- helps cut crime and make
- our streets safer.”
- The man was moved to another property.
- Exempt accommodation: supported housing
- funded through a higher rate of housing benefit, exempt
- from caps applied to normal housing.
- Prison leavers, rough sleeper, refugees and migrants,
- substance abusers, people with mental health issues,
- disabilities, people at risk of homelessness:
- strangers
- housed together, mostly left
- to their own devices, with arms-length help
- amounting to an hour or so of dedicated support a week;
- a support worker
- at the end of a mobile phone.
- She has lost weight and become more ill;
- thefts were so common
- she now stored her kitchen pans and cutlery in her bedroom.
- She described a fellow resident:
- he had not been out of his pyjamas or had a wash
- for five weeks; he kept her awake all night.
- Access is via a steel staircase.
- Inside, the corridors and shared kitchen and common room
- are monitored by CCTV with audio mics;
- private conversations may be listened to.
- Bedrooms are small.
- A hole burnt in the kitchen top,
- rusted hobs. The common area and kitchen
- are full of the belongings of one of the tenants;
- crudely written notices in felt tip
- on stereo, tv, kitchen gear:
- ‘hands off’.
- Heating comes from plugged in storage heaters.
- In the night it’s freezing.
- “I eat two sausages and vegetables every night,
- cereal in the morning.
- I don’t drink, don’t take drugs, yet
- it’s all around.
- Nobody seems to do anything much about it.”
- At her lowest point she tried to jump in front of a train.
- She was pulled back at the last minute;
- another spell in psychiatic hospital.
- “While living here
- suicide is the only thing
- that goes through my head,
- day in,
- day out.
- The owners say I am too much hard work for them,
- they said
- they didn’t have problems
- before I moved in.
- It’s not a great place to be.
- The landlord told me
- ‘just ignore it’, stop worrying
- about other people.”
[Birmingham Live, 25/09/2021, Chaos, fear and suicide attempts – life inside ‘exempt’ housing in Birmingham]